My friend Darren Gardner invited me out to his deer lease near Sour Lake, TX to explore a pond that hadn’t been fished in years.
When we arrived the pond had dried up quite a bit in the current drought and was covered in a variety of vegetation save for a few lanes we could cast in.
Immediately we saw large fish striking and make wakes and excitedly chunked out floats and bottom rigs with live Black Salty baitfish.
The results?
Grinnel!
Arguably the fish with the most nicknames (bowfin, choupique, mud marlin, cypress bass, dogfish, etc.) they cannot be classified as a good eating fish but they are amazing fighters and tons of fun to catch.
The image below shows Darren Garden and his hard-fighting grinnel.
My brother and I were fishing the San Jacinto near 59 one cold morning and I hooked a huge Grinnel. Later my brother told me he read an article on them and we should have taken it to have it weighed and measured for a state record. It was around 3 ft long. I gave the fish to some other fisherman who said they wanted to eat it even after I told them they didn’t taste that good.
They also destroy every spinner bait that comes their way.
I’m going after big grinnel again on Wednesday. That is if the wind keeps it up and Sabine Lake is off limits. Got a cool spot I know holds some big ones. Gonna try some topwaters.