Camelot Bell is awesome, but just to be clear it is no guarantee of a DD fish. Plenty of great sticks have come up empty many times on the lake.

I follow Camelot Bell pretty closely. I have no actual data to back this up, but my best guess is that in a great year where the lake is really on fire, 1 DD is produced every two man days fished. So basically a 50/50 chance of 1 DD with two guys fishing a single day. On a bad year it could be as low as 1/5 or 1 DD for every 10 man days fished. Obviously time of year matters as well. Obviously some guys have days were DD's are practically jumping in the boat and multiple DD's are caught. I'm just talking averages here. Anyway, I think right now CB is somewhere in between these two extremes.

Bottom line is CB is no guarantee. You can do everything right, but it's not like high fence hunting. A deer can't choose whether or not to eat a bullet. A fish absolutely can choose not to bite. Love CB and highly recommend it to folks, but don't want anyone to have unrealistic expectations.

There’s some wisdom right there. You can put yourself in “a position to have an opportunity” for a big fish but to plan on catching one on a particular day? It is still fishing and things have to line up right.

Yea but catching a double digit out of somewhere like that really is not that big of an accomplishment compared to a public lake. I've done both and the private can be a lot of fun, but it certainly is a lot easier.

Your odds are certainly vastly better at CB than on public water. In my second book Lunker Lore I calculated the lifetime odds of catching a true DD in public Texas water at about 19%. That assumes 16 outings per year (average for bass anglers) and 60 years of fishing. If you fish more or better water, then your odds go up.

Big fish are ultra rare in public water. Sure you'll see a whole bunch of fish on social media that guides "call" DD fish, but we all know how social media works. The reality is unless you are spending an enormous amount of time on really great water, or you just get lucky, it is no walk in the park to catch a DD.

to everyone who's got one! Rare and ultra cool animals to get to see up close and personal.

You have to log the hours and then there is an element of luck with a trophy fish. Logging the hours gives you the opportunity.

Whether going to Falcon and paying a guide tell you where to throw and what to throw or paying to go to CB to catch a big fish is really not an accomplishment representing your angling ability or rewarding efforts towards the goal.

Regardless of my two cents on that - go to Falcon and hire Matt Reed to take you fishing.

There used to be some guides that fished live bait on Fork. Them and their clients have caught some monster fish. I’ve never live bait fished, so I don’t know any details about it.

Search on here for the lake falcon guide that's always posting pics. I would definitely go that route if you didnt want to come off of 1500 for a trip to the bell. We went to the bell once. Caught an 11 and a butt load of other fish, mostly small ones that went into the pen but some good 6s and 7s mixed in. We also hit it on a cold front day with the wind howling

Private Water Fishing is a great concept. I enjoy my membership and would recommend it if you like fishing out of kayaks or small john boats. The lakes are very good and produce. Being on the lake by yourself is nice. The biggest problem I have is that if you invite a friend, they pay the same daily rate as you. So if the lake costs $125 and you invite a friend, it's $250. Your rate is not cut in half, which is kind of ridiculous. I think that is the biggest problem I have with it. Also, a lot of the well known, good lakes that produce, are booked up well in advance.

My biggest problem with this is, from what I understand, you have to use one of their small boats or a kayak. I am 6'-5", 255 pounds and I like fishing standing up out of my boat. As long as I could put it in the water, I wouldn't care if it was TM only.

I think a lot of those guys are super worried about invasive species- salvania, zebra mussels, etc. and the amount of $$ it would take to get rid of any of them from their lakes.

I've been to one place several times and while their boats are decent sized aluminum boats there aren't any graphs or Talons/Poles.

I hear you. I'm 6'5" too and the small boats are a problem. I fished out of my own kayak and stood up after I launched. Overall, I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't trade it for fishing a public lake in my own boat.

Lots of great info posted. It’s time to get going on that bucket list.

I’ll add another vote for PWF. In my experience you can spend as much or as little money as you want fishing. You can bank fish a public lake or book a day at Camelot Bell, La Perla, etc. and there’s everywhere in between. All of it costs money but still costs less than a “big boat.”

The PWF lakes offer tremendous variety. You can splurge on one of the premier properties or fish the lesser expensive lakes. All of them are being managed to various degrees for trophy fish.

Last weekend was an example of when I would typically fish one of the better lakes. I had a buddy coming into town and we had one of the best days on the water that I can remember. We caught 92 bass by 2pm mostly on top water baits and our largest bass was 7.5 lbs. Our average fish was between 3 and 3.5 lbs. which was atypical. For my buddy who bass fishes two or three times a year, he was in Heaven.

It was also my first attempt using a GoPro that I got as a gift and it was more of a learning experience. I learned that my boat really doesn’t have a place to mount the darn thing and that the battery didn’t last more than 90 minutes. It was an interesting experiment if nothing else.

Great first video on your Go Pro. Awesome hook sets.

I wanna be like Jackson when I grow up! Great video bro!!