Big Lake Holiday Trip 2016

This post has nothing to do with our little homestead farm.  It has everything to do with our family's annual getaway after Christmas in which Dad & Mom get us all together on a family trip.  Everyone can't always make it, but we always have a lot of fun.  This year was no different.  Our get-away this year was only 1 hour away.  Dad & Mom rented a nice camp for the 12 of us in a camp called The Green Picket at Big Lake (Calcasieu Lake), which is south of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Green Picket

We loaded up in the boat and headed out to where the fish were or where they were supposed to be. The first day we didn't catch much fish, but I caught some nice photos off the back of the boat.

While Big Lake is a pretty big lake, it is not very deep at all.  In looking at the depth finder, we never saw depths that exceeded 8 feet.  We fished near the shore in depths that got as shallow as 2 feet deep. We fished near 3 weirs on the southeast side of the lake.  The weirs are man-made structures that allow fresh water to flow into the lake from surrounding marshes.  The redfish hang out around the weirs and eat shrimp and other small fish flowing through the weirs.

When the sun started fading toward the horizon, it was time to head toward shore.

We did catch fish on this trip.  Landry caught a little sheepshead fish.

Then Carson pulled in the first redfish of the trip.  We found a spot near the rocks at the third weir and caught a good mess of fish in a very short period of time.  The redfish liked the chartreuse baits that we threw at them.

We brought our catch back to the camp and filleted the fish.  If you notice the picture below, Benjamin is holding a nice big blue crab.  While we were fishing, we ran lines off the sides of the boat with turkey necks attached.  It was pretty cool catching fish and crabs at the same time.  We had a net man netting redfish and another net man netting crabs.  We filled an ice chest with a nice mixed bag of fish and crabs.  We had a crab boil on the first night.  They were so good.

We played some crazy games in the camp.  This one was called "Junk in the Trunk."  We emptied two cube boxes of Kleenex, cut the plastic off the top and cut two slits in the bottom, running a ribbon through the boxes.  Then we fastened the box around the waists of the competitors and put 6 ping pong balls in the empty Kleenex boxes.  The winner of the "Junk in the Trunk" game was the one who was able to shake the 6 ping pong balls out of the box first.  It was interesting to watch the shaking that ensued.

A whole lotta shakin' goin' on...

Oh, back to the fish.  Once we filleted the fish and cut out the bloodline and all bones, we had a nice big platter of fish ready to eat.

Some friends have a camp near the Green Picket and invited us over to their outdoor kitchen behind their camp to cook the fish, visit and relax in front of a roaring fireplace.  It was a nice evening of good food and  good conversation with family and friends.

We ate a whole bunch of VERY FRESH fish. It doesn't get any fresher than the way we ate it unless we had eaten it directly off the boat.

Thanks Mom & Dad for a fun trip!  We made some good memories and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!