got today off and 3 of us hit the fort worth preserve at 0800. 2 of us unloaded and waited on the 3rd. he showed i got off the doc and was killing time while.he got set up and 2nd cast with my spinner bait BAM! 15.5 inch sand bass hit like a freight train. good start. we worked our way in towards blue hole and popped another 15 inch sand bass. got a few small bass and one of the guy with me got a crappie. his first fish on his kayak. we picked off a few more here and there on our way up to 10 mile bridge. hit a nice rock wall jist short of the bridge that was marking fish everywhere. got 1 crappie and a bass. headed the rest of the way up with nothing else so we headed back. stopped in the rock wall hole again and nailed crappie after crappie on a 1/8 oz road runner and grub. lost count of all the shortys but got 6 between 10-12 inches for chow. made it about 1/2 way back and thats where i saw the gator. nice 8 footer. never thought twice about them till i actually saw that sob. they are spooky in the wild. lol well i snapped a pic then locked everything down and hit the after burners as quietly as i could and got past it..had to cruise about 10 ft away from it to get by. made my way back almost to the doc and popped a nice 17 in lg mouth. jackpot for kayak wars! went past the doc and got 3 more but lost my drift sock. dont know how it came off. was dragging along then started hauling butt checked the trolley and it was gone..tried to snag it with crank baits but no success. all in all not a bad day. 6 crappie and 2 sand bass for my belly and not sure how many lg mouth stopped counting after 12. met a few other kayak guys out there that are also on kayak wars and here. always good to meet others in person..

Yea you had a good mess of crappie my son loaded up on them too thanks for the info man

Gators are cool but I agree they are creepy when you're eye to eye with them. I ran into these 2 young ones this past fall. Maybe the one you saw was their mama.

bigdoon, glad your son laoded up too. they were thick in that hole.

and i got new respect for them dudes on swamp people. wrestling them like its nothing. everytime i saw bubbles for about the next 200 yards i was thinking awww stink! is that thing following me? lol will start tying my stringer to a ziptie up in there from now on. that way if one does sneak up and grab it he will just pop the zip tie and be gone.

I just emailed this post to my daughter in FTW. She and I was laughing about someone she knows that is soooo afraid of gators. This ought to be a hoot since he lives 'right down the street" from some gators.

Way cool

Fishing that same area last year, saw a 10 to 12 footer. Made my 135ride look small . Funny how you start paddling a little faster. May try and get out there tomorrow.

I might be there as well

those sandies are fat
did you cast at the gator?

yeah they were big ole fatties. and no way didnt mess with the gator just paddled by quickly. didnt want him to catch sight or smell of my stringer of fish and decide he wanted them more than me.

good luck to you guys hitting it tomorrow.

I didn't think we were going to spend all day out there. I guess I should have used my sunscreen. I am pretty sure that my shins and knees will have blisters on them by the end of the day. Lesson learned. Ha ha!

yeah the inside of my legs were burnt then i got home.and pointed at them and screamed stop burning and they did. sack up. lol

Sounds like a good day to me

I told my legs to 'man up'. But I don't think my legs listen very well

I am now searching the classified ads for tougher legs.