the-Eddings.com

Durand and Brandi decided to play a game of monopoly before going to bed. Durand has no idea how serious his mom takes this game.

Me and Sassy watching the Deadliest Catch Marathon.

Let’s see how well this works.

All of these WP themes to choose from… Pyrmont V2 is my new favorite.

There is a co-ed tourney on Skiatook Lake on July 18th that Sooner Bass Club is hosting. After my lovely wife turned me down on many occasions, I think I’ve got my little beauty talked into it. We went out to Lake Thunderbird this evening to drag the tube around and swim a bit, again, no Brandi .

After about thirty minutes of being pulled in the tube and another hour or so swimming, the kidos take a break and have a snack on the back deck. The sun is starting to set, so I figure it’s a perfect time to make a few casts. I started working this old road bed and after about 20 casts, AnnMaire says, “Daddy, I want to fish”. I almost fell out of the boat. After realizing she was serious, I grab one of Durand’s rods out of the box. She gets right up on the front deck with me and starting “chunkin’ and windin’. It was great.

We only had about 15 minutes before we needed to head back to the ramp and load up, so I tell her “Just a couple more casts and we need to go”. She says, “But Daddy, I want to keep fishing until I catch something.” That was music to my ears. You guys fishing the SBC co-ed tourney on Skiatook better watch out. I’m bringing my seceret weapon! (guess she’s no secret now )

We were going out to celebrate the 4th of July a bit early since the Glasser’s were going out of town. Uncle Ricky has a pond at his place, so of course we have to grab a couple of fishing poles and have a go at it when we get there. “Oh yea, don’t forget to get some night crawlers”, Durand tells me on the way out to Tuttle, America.

So we get there and Durand starts threading his usual worm bait for the perch he’s about to “hammer” off the end of the dock. I grab my rod/reel with a “Fred’s Frog” tied on and head the other direction. My second cast, I hook up with a 16 inch’er, then toss him back. I keep watching Durand pull in one perch after another. “I love perch fishin’”, he says. About the time I’m ready to put away the frog, I take another gander at the dock and I see Durand’s pole bent over. “That’s a big ol’ perch”, I think to myself. Then he pulls it up and it’s about a 2lb largemouth. He’s pumped and starts swinging it around trying to get off the dock and on his way back up to the house to show everyone. I’m expecting this bass to flop off the little perch hook any second and go swimming back into the pond, but Durand manages to get off the dock and on to dry land. By the time I get over there to have a look, he’s already trying to get the hook out. That thing is so burried in the roof of that bass’s mouth, there was no way it was going to flop its way off. I manage to get the hook out, all the while Durand is saying, “Hurry up Dad, the fish can’t breath, I gotta get it up to show Mom and then back in the water!”

He got it up to the house and showed off his catch, then went back to rippin’ perch lips. Oh yeah, that was all before we even started dinner and the fireworks. It was a good time at the Glassers.

Have a look at my new desktop. It’s taken me a while to compile such an arsenal of tools, but it’s been worth it.

For those interested, the source.

This thing is HUGE!

I tried to talk Durand into skipping out on Friday’s swimming lessons with Ms. Murray, but he wouldn’t budge. We ended up leaving OKC for Grand Lake at 11:30am’ish. We were headed NE to attend the annual Fishin’ Pals Grand Challenge. After a couple of pit stops and lunch, we arrived at Martins Landing on beautiful Grand Lake around 3pm.

Troy and Matt Hasenfratz had already arrived earlier that morning (around 7am) and had the motel room nice and cool! Once we got unpacked and registered for the tourney, we headed out to grab a bit to eat with Troy and Matt. Heading back to Martins, we found ourselves on the water close to 5pm.

Our first destination was Honey Creek. I was hoping for a late evening top water bite, but that never showed up. We flipped some jigs and creature baits and caught a couple of short fish. There were plenty of beautiful pieces of property in Honey Creek. Durand mentioned how nice it would be to have a house on the lake.

As the sun set, we all headed back to Martins. I put Durand on the boat with Matt as Troy and I loaded my boat. It was cool watching them troll back and forth flipping the willows and brush there in front of the boat slips at Martins. Durand actually hooked one on a shad colored jig, but I think it surprised him as he didn’t set the hook and lost the fish at the boat. Later that evening as we were getting ready for bed, Durand said “Dad, I want to be fishing buddies with Matt. I like fishing with him.” I knew then, the trip was already a win, regardless of how well we did in the tourney the next day.

4am came pretty early the next day, but Durand was ready to go. Stepping outside it felt like 80+ already, I knew it was going to be a hot one. At 5:40am, we were allowed to leave and so Durand and I headed toward the damn. Our first stop was the north side of the Bernice bridge. We found a couple of short fish back in the marina, but no top water bite again.

It was getting close to 9am, so we picked up and moved all the way down the lake to the damn. Nothing other than one short fish on a c-rig there close to the boat ramp. We pulled out and around to a couple of main lake points and blanked. We finally caught our first keeper on a deep main lake point right by one of the lights/mile makers. This is where we also caught our little channel cat. By this time it’s now almost 11am, so we start heading back toward Martins. I stopped at two more deep points and the last one produced our big bass.

Back at Martins, the weigh-in was fun. Durand was excited a the chance of winning another 4-wheeler. After weighing our fish, we were excited to find out we had big bass honors so far. While waiting the the other anglers to weigh-in, I noticed a familure wrapped boat pulling up next to the ramp. As it got closer I realized it was B.A.S.S. Elite Series angler, Fred Roumbanis. I asked Matt and Durand they wanted to go over and get a photo with him. We walked over to his boat and Fred was very generous with his time. He took a few minutes to visit with both Durand and Matt on how they did in the tournament. I was pleased to see this. Thanks Fred! There were also a couple of local celebrities on hand to help out with the weigh-in, Keith and Cody Hays. They have a TV show channel 47 KWHB out of Tulsa. You can also visit their website at KeithAndCody.com.

Finally, a HUGE thanks goes out to Stan Honeycutt and all those assisting him with making the event happen. Durand and I are already looking foward to next year.

Lots of pics uploaded to the photo album. Have a look here for them all. Look for the “View with PicLens” link at the top of the gallery, use it to start the slideshow.

Breakfast with Lilo & Stitch, dinner with Pluto, swimming in Peter Pan’s pool, cruising Durand Drive up to the Hollywood sign, riding the California Screamin’, good food and LOTS of walking. That pretty much sums it up.