'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the bivvy....

With not so cheerful options of crowded airports or 12hr car rides each way this holiday travel season, the Wifey and I made the hard decision to spend Christmas away from family this year and instead opted to make a trip to Sam Rayburn to self-quarantine in hopes of catching some Silver and Gold. In addition to having a "winter" weather forecast of no rain and air temps 60-77*, we had learned that Santa (aka TXMulti-Species) had already delivered a weeks worth of presents in the form of pre-baiting our swim for us during his multi-day session, which made our "hard" travel decision, that much easier.

By early afternoon on Christmas Eve, we had setup camp and gotten our rods in the water.

Within a short amount of time, sleigh bells started ringing as the bite alarm sounded, and we struck Gold with our first fish of the trip.

And followed up by a few Golden Nuggets like these:





And finished the day with another hard-pulling beauty...


.


As the sun began to set, we opted to call it a night and spent the night full of gratitude that we had already caught more fish in a few hours, then we did our previous 2 day trip back in Nov to Toledo Bend (that time with TXMulti-Species) which was plagued with lost fish via snags and bent hooks that couldn't handle the Beasts from the East.

To Be Cont....

Awesome post.

Great post and pics!

Cont....

Day 2 started off with a bunch of these guys for the first couple hours...


Until our first "Silver" decided to crash the catfish party tipping the scales at 26#


Followed by another East TX Beast that weighed somewhere between 14-48#



Not a PB, but a giant fish that made for the best Christmas present we could have hoped for. For those that have never caught one of these class fish, it's so hard to photograph these guys to show their true magnitude. We caught a few more fish on Day 2, but didn't take pics as big-fish-itis had sunk in, and we spent most of Christmas day on our phones with family having virtual Christmas with everyone.

To Be Cont....

Cont....

Day 3 started off the same as the day before with the catfish keeping us busy in the morining, and like clockwork, the buffs moved in shortly after and ran the kitties off the swim.


Having to work the next day, we planned to leave around Noon to make the 2.5hr trip home to Houston which was hard to leave as we were catching fish until the moment I reeled in the last rod as the trip finished with a few more pots of Gold.







Sure is hard to leave biting fish, but you'll hear no complaints from me. What a blessing it is to be able to spend Christmas with someone you love doing what you love to do. We might just make this a tradition

Wishing you all a Happy, Healthy New Year in hopes you get to spend some quality bank-time with friends/family in 2022.

Tight Lines,
Brine

More Totally Awesome!

Great story. Thanks for sharing!

Great pictures and report. Thanks for sharing.

Brine, your family really decked those eastex banks with silver and gold! Thanks for sharing your Christmas cheer!...fa la la!

Nicely done!

Awesome captures and report Brian! Sad to hear you had to leave 'em biting, even sadder I couldn't make my way over there to pick up the ones you left!

Thanks All!

I caught my pb 42lb Buff at Mill Creek on S.R.
Where were you fishing, if you don't mind me asking ?

PM Sent

Sorry, didn't see the PM.
Could you possibly re send it ?
Never mind, I got it !
Thanks.