Bynum Family Outing - Striper Fishing

A couple years ago Kevin was able to go striper fishing with his dad and brothers. He absolutely loved it and has been insisting since then that we all needed to go striper fishing. When he found out that a lake near Eureka Springs, Beaver Lake, had good striper fishing he began looking into it and scheduled us a fishing trip. I am thankful that I got the opportunity to go along with the men plus Brayden. We had a wonderful time and caught quite a few fish.

We started our morning out at the boat docks at 5 am. The fishing guide was impressed we were on time, so was I. The first 30 minutes we spent letting the guide drive us to a desired location and then waiting for the sun to come up. The next 30 minutes he searched for fish and didn't seem to find many so we changed locations. At about 6 we moved to a new spot and got the poles baited and out in the water. I think we all started to get excited and a little nervous about bringing in the first one. At 7 am we got our first hit but lost both the 1st and 2nd fish. Now we were all very anxious and a little skeptical about getting one in the boat. Finally Josh brought in the first striper and that got everyone excited. Within the next 15 minutes we had caught 4 fish on 4 of 6 lines, talk about an adrenaline rush. We fished until 9:30 and brought 12 fish in but lost at least 4 more. We were able to cook some of the fish that evening and still had enough for each family to bring home several bags of fish, think we will all be having a few fish fries in the near future. We all had such a fun time! I am looking forward to my next fishing excursion.

Our Catch, 12 Stripers - Tim, Kevin, Me, Josh and Brayden

We were the talk of Lost Marina on Beaver Lake when we brought in our catch to be cleaned by the guide. The lady at the marina store came out to take pictures to put on their website and facebook page. She especially liked our little fisherman Brayden.

I think by this point he was half asleep and not quite as into the picture taking as we were.

Josh with the largest Striper we caught. Funny story, we are pretty sure this fish was caught by Kevin but he didn't get a picture with it, guess Tim and Josh were hogging it.

Bynum Fisherman - Kevin, Brayden, Josh and Tim

Our catch lined up waiting to be cleaned

Not sure we could have fit many more in the live well, not a bad problem to have.

Bait Boy Brayden

Brayden checking out one of the stripers up close

Ok just posing for a picture, none of the boys were able to take charge of the camera to get one of me reeling in a fish but really I did bring in 2.

One of the stripers I caught, Tim helping me get it off the hook.

Thankfully Brayden was into the bait, it helped keep him entertained.

Josh bringing in our first catch of the day, which started the excitement for the next couple hours.

Impatiently waiting for one to bite, so took pictures to take up time.

Got to watch a beautiful sunrise over the lake.

Too cool Brayden the fisherman showing you how big our fish bait will be

Aren't we cute in our matching fishing shirts

Grandpa and Brayden out on the boat by 5 am - the picture is proof that we started before the sun came up.

Time to call it quits! This is what happened on the last fish we brought in, decided to swim into 4 of the 6 lines. It was 9:30 by this time and Brayden was done so we decided to call it quits. I was really proud of how well Brayden did on our trip, he was a trooper and didn't really complain majority of the time. I think he might be well on his way to being a true fisherman.

Meanwhile back at the house here is what was going on. Thankfully Grandma and Charlotte decided to stay at home with Bransen and Cale. Little stinker Bransen decided to wake up when we did at 4 and did not go back to sleep and woke up Cale. So Charlotte had her hands full, literally. She didn't get them both back to sleep until 9 and had to rock them both. Thank you Charlotte and Grandma for allowing me to leave Bransen to go fishing, sorry he was such a handfull.