Saved up my pennies, and took the wife to Hidden Springs for a mini vacation.  We stopped by the Skeeter tournament on Friday afternoon (i used to own a Skeeter and fished the tournament for 10 years) because I wanted to show her the setup there.  Spent the night in Emory and drove down to Hidden Springs on Saturday morning, arriving at the lake about 6:30.  It didn't take long to get the first one in the boat on a frog; a scrappy 3 pounder.  We fished until about 11:30 and had around 20 combined, with the largest being the 3 pounder.

Went into Drew's cabin, and my oh my, what a beautiful setup.  Everything here is 1st class.  After a well deserved nap, we went back out about 4:00 and fished for about 5 minutes before a thunderstorm sent us back to the dock.  We waited it out in the covered pavilion, while lightning crashed down just to the east.  You have to love how the thunder rolls through the hills around the lake.  We had spent a lot of the morning fishing and looking, so we went back out and starting fishing a weedy point that extends out into the lake, and then drops off into 15 feet of water.  Almost immediately I hooked a 4 pounder on a wacky senko.  Then, a few casts later, I hooked another big one on a watermelon trick worm.  It came up about 20 feet from the boat, and spit the hook back at me.  I estimated it to be around 7 pounds.  A few minutes later, my wife stuck a big one on a white senko.  What a fight!!  We finally got it in, got it in the net, and it weighed 6 pounds 13 ounces on my digital scales.  This was by far a new personal best for my wife.  She is very competitive, and thought she would at least have the big fish of the day, if not win the total as well.  It wasn't to be.  Right as the sun ducked behind the trees, a big fish blew up my buzzbait.  I thought this might be bigger than hers, but when i got it in and weighed it, the scale only showed 4-14.  Then, about 3 casts later, I got another big bite, and this time the fish took off with my buzzbait and was taking line off my reel.  After a several minute fight, it finally tired and came along the side of the boat.  My wife netted it for me, and the scales read 8 pounds and 3 ounces (23 inches long; a slot fish at Fork).  That was a very healthy fish.  We ended Saturday with 21 for me and 19 for my wife (she was keeping count!).

On Sunday, we started about 6:00 under mostly cloudy skies.  Water temps both days ranged from 84.5 to 88.5 with very clear water.  We saw no schooling action, but we did see a cow swim over to the little island in the upper end.  Very strange!  Sunday was similar to Saturday; lots of fish.  I switched on Saturday afternoon to bigger lures to keep the little 10 inch fish from biting, so i'm sure we could have caught many more.  Our biggest on Sunday was 5-3, and we stopped about 11:00 to head home. Per my wife's count, we caught 27 that morning. 

So, for the whole day and a half, we caught a combined 67, with 22 being harvested.  Our biggest 5 would have been 8-3, 6-13, 5-3, 4-14, and 4-0.   We caught fish on senkos (wacky; white, watermelon, blue/black); chartreuse/orange buzzbait; whopper plopper; tx rig trick worm; chugbug; popping frog.

Question:  there are some white/gold fish in the lake that you can easily see in the clear water.  Anybody know what they are?  I thought maybe some kind of carp/koi/goldfish?

This place is really special.  Wonderful accomodations with everything you need.  Beautiful landscaping and scenery.  And the fishing it great as well.  Will definitely go back to this property.