The Cralle 25th Annual Family Fishing Vacation

Sunny and Beautiful, Water Temperature 70* and Clear.

Maury contacted me a few weeks ago excited about setting up a fishing trip for his 25th annual family fishing vacation at Lake Anna. He had told me that although they had been coming to the lake for so many years on these fishing vacations they had never caught any fish and that he was ready to break the curse. I picked him up with 4 sons and a Grandson and off we went to catch bait. It was extreemly foggy this morning until about 8:30 which made bait collection a little difficult. I was in no hurry to set up fishing because I wanted to fish on the main lake but with a Bass tournament today I did not want to put my clients in harms way. [ Bass Boaters use their GPS to navigate in the fog driving at speeds up to 70 mph not giving themselves much chance to avoid a collision with another boat.]. Once the fog lifted we had caught plenty of bait so we put out our spread and fished. We popped a couple of Stripers and right when we got on a school 2 Tow Boats had to run right next to us spooking the fish. Michael was ready to go back to the dock to get some more Beers so we had a pit stop, dropped off a couple fish for the girls to clean and went to top off our bait tank. The picture of the Lowrance depics a major school of baits that I threw into. I barely could lift the net over the side of the boat due to how full the net was. We set up on another area nearby and took about 8 or 10 quick hits before the boat traffic ran us off. Maury wanted to let some of the other family fish so we hit the dock again, traded some fisherman and went to another area. We fished there till everyone caught a fish then they were ready to call it a day. We all had a great time today and I don't think I have ever seen a family get along with each other as well as this family does. It is a good feeling to see families regularly make time to reunite every year to enjoy each other before heading back to their lifestyles. Today we kept 10 nice Stripers to feed the family tonight. What a beautiful weekend for the Cralle's. Gus [the man holding the pole on the right side of the picture] is a Marine.

SEMPER FI