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.
Here are some of the results.
The author with his big catch.
Darren Garden and his hard-fighting grinnel.
Updated 7-17-2011
I had the great pleasure and honor of fishing with 12-year-old Ricky Torres and Leslie Kelsie-Grubbs. Leslie is Executive Director of Urban Connection San Antonio and they were hosting a fishing trip in Southeast Texas. We went to TF&G photographer Gerald Burleigh’s pond and one of the first fish Ricky caught was this big grinnel. It jumped several times, fought like grinnel do and most importantly put a smile on Ricky’s face.
Ricky Torres caught this big grinnel while fishing at TF&G photographer Gerald Burleigh’s pond.