A Political Bombshell – Nick Bryant’s THE FRANKLIN SCANDAL
Nick Bryant’s formidable expose about the most shocking crime of the last century will disturb and challenge the skeptical, thrill true believers, and astound and anger everyone in-between. Within the pages of “The Franklin Scandal” official lies are witheringly demolished and the stark truth, however unseemly, begins to take shape. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is a conspiracy. And most explosively, the highest levels of the government are involved and shown to be in league with the worst culprits in the White House, DoJ, FBI, CIA and the Secret Service.
TrineDay’s Powerful New Book Unveils Secrets Of Sex & Pedophilia Amongst Washington D.C.’s Privileged —
The Most Suppressed Crime Story In American History
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Nick Bryant’s formidable expose about the most shocking crime of the last century will disturb and challenge the skeptical, thrill true believers, and astound and anger everyone in-between. Within the pages of “The Franklin Scandal” official lies are witheringly demolished and the stark truth, however unseemly, begins to take shape. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is a conspiracy. And most explosively, the highest levels of the government are involved and shown to be in league with the worst culprits in the White House, DoJ, FBI, CIA and the Secret Service.
THE FRANKLIN SCANDAL is the explosive story of a nationwide pedophile ring that pandered children to a cabal of the rich and powerful. Bryant spent seven years and traveled 40,000 miles excavating the story. In this extensively researched book, Bryant implicates politicians, major media corporations, the CIA, and more.
The ring’s pimps were a pair of Republican powerbrokers who used Boys Town as a pedophiliac reservoir, had access to the highest levels of the U.S. government, and connections to the CIA.
Lawrence E. King, director of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union and a rising black star in the GOP, was in business in the 80s with Craig Spence, the “pimp” of the operation. Spence and his boy-toys took midnight tours of the White House, thanks to military, intelligence, and Bush White House ties. Spence died a mysterious death in a hotel room just 10 weeks after the first story broke in front page headlines. Soon, a number of mysterious (and convenient) deaths along with an immediate cover-up by highly placed government officials followed an attempt to expose the ring in the 1990s.
Bryant squirreled out reams of sealed documentation of one of the grand juries that covered up the “Franklin” child-trafficking network. The documents included nearly 200 flight logs, with the majority of the flights destined for Washington, D.C. There, Spence’s house was wired for audio-visual blackmail. Top politicians would be compromised, and then controlled. Bryant describes Spence as a “self-confessed CIA asset” and has other sources to back up Spence’s claims.
“The Justice Department, FBI, and Secret Service went into a full court press to vaporize this scandal, so the American people wouldn’t get wind that such malevolent corruption existed in their government,” says Bryant.
The names of the compromised politicians had to be protected at all costs or else the American public would have been outraged by the taint and corruption in their political system. State and federal grand juries in Nebraska and a grand jury in Washington, D.C. played an integral role in the cover-up. Moreover, Bryant shows that officers of the court who participated in the cover-up later climbed the ladder of success in both the state and federal judiciaries.
Like so much flotsam and jetsam, victims were used, abused, and discarded, and they knew what would happen to them if they ever came clean. Carefully crafted campaigns of calumny were created to demonize the victims. Six victims summoned the courage to come forward, but FBI agents, who were protecting the identities of the compromised politicians, subjected them to torrents of threats, and most collapsed like a house of cards.
In one case, a delicately beautiful young girl named Alisha Owen, whose only crime was being born poor, was seduced at the age of 13 into the pedophilic network. At the age of 21, she refused to recant her abuse to the FBI, and she was publicly crucified by crooked state and federal grand juries that disavowed the pedophile network, and both indicted her on perjury.
The state of Nebraska pulled out all stops, spared no expense, and deployed dirty tricks to rig Alisha’s perjury trial, because her trial represented much more than a simple case of perjury— her jurors would also be deliberating the findings of the grand juries, which disavowed the pedophile network. In essence, Owen’s guilt would protect the rich and powerful men who had been provided with children. As a kangaroo court found Alisha guilty of perjury, she had to endure the mysterious deaths of her 17-year-old brother and others affiliated with the investigation. Undaunted, she refused to recant her abuse, and a kangaroo court sentenced her to prison for 9-15 years on trumped up perjury charges. She spent nearly two of those years in solitary confinement.
Since her release from prison in 2001, Alisha has since become a model citizen: she’s now happily married and gainfully employed as a travel agent, and currently lives in Omaha. She has never recanted her abuse.
Very few cinematic profiles of courage come close to Alisha’s—Erin Brockovich’s story in comparison is like a walk in the park on a sunny, spring day.
Yet, conversely, one of the ring’s pedophilic pimps currently lives in the D.C. area, and has since enmeshed himself with a new supply of lower socioeconomic children to prey upon.
Nick Bryant has drawn open the curtain on much government perfidy, and what is revealed is pedophilia, cosmetic piety, and a cesspool of profits.
Bryant’s writing on the plight of disadvantaged children in the United States has been featured in numerous national journals, including the Journal of Professional Ethics, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, and Journal of School Health. He has also published a book, “America’s Children: Triumph of Tragedy,” addressing the medical and developmental problems of lower socioeconomic children in America. His mainstream and investigative journalism has appeared in “The Reader,” “Salon.com,” “Gear,” and “Playboy.”
“The Franklin Scandal” is available at bookstores everywhere or through the publisher’s website, www.trineday.com
Rush Is Right About A BP Horizon Terror Attack
Rush Limbaugh, the superstar of right-wing talk radio, has always been quick to savage conspiracy theories. On Thursday though he revealed his own, which is that the BP Horizon explosion was caused by environmentalists, and that federal “SWAT” teams fanning out across the Gulf of Mexico are part of a national defense response.
Rush to Judgment?
HOUSTON, May 3, 2010 — Rush Limbaugh, the superstar of right-wing talk radio, has always been quick to savage conspiracy theories. On Thursday though he revealed his own, which is that the BP Horizon explosion was caused by environmentalists, and that federal “SWAT” teams fanning out across the Gulf of Mexico are part of a national defense response.
“What better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig?” he rhetorically asked. “I’m just, I’m just noting the timing here.”
“Rush Limbaugh blames ‘environmentalist wackos’ for massive oil spill,” The Raw Story, 4/29/2010, http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0429/rush-limbaugh-hints-oil-rig-explosion-environmental-terrorism/
We shouldn’t dismiss “Rushbo” as a conspiracy theorist, even though the master of talk radio has learned to hurl that pejorative at callers who suggest unpopular explanations that he would rather not hear or broadcast. No, we should recognize that Rush understands political and criminal reality well enough to recognize what I learned in four years with Houston-area police: conspiracy is one of the most common crimes on the books.
I began to listen to Rush in 1990, the same year I was a Desert Storm volunteer. I often disagreed with his geo-political positions, but appreciated his on-air (and self-proclaim) “excellence in broadcasting.” I shared his contempt for the mainstream media, even after I began publishing regularly op-eds in mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, and the Houston Post. I continued to laugh at his satire and oratory, enjoying his brawling bombast even when he put his foot in his mouth. I generally accepted his pro-football analysis, and was disappointed when he flubbed up and lost his position as a Monday Night Football commentator.
Bush’s military misadventures brought us to a parting of the ways. Writing military analysis for the Houston Chronicle, I published pieces forecasting a long, unwinnable “quicksand war” in Iraq. Rush, one of many pro-war hawks with no military experience, predicted the same cake walk that the Bush administration did. I had the strong impression that Rush was waking up to the Bush League errors of the cheerleader in chief in the summer of 2003, but within weeks of his first remarks against George W., he was arrested in Governor Jeb Bush’s Florida on narcotics charges.
An Anti-Lambaugh Conspiracy?
It was my own conspiracy theory that the Bush boys were working in tandem to make sure that Limbaugh parroted the official line — or else. The same view was pretty common among my Texas journalism buddies, who, like me, were personally familiar with the likes of George W., Jeb, George H.W., Joe Albaugh and Karen Hughes. They were capable of any kind of dirty trick or payback.
Like most regular Rush listeners I was convinced when he used to accuse the Clintons of sexual misconduct, Whitewater crimes and even assassinations, most notably White House lawyer Vince Foster. Unlike most “ditto heads” though, I could see the same truths of corruption and killing when the shoe was on the right foot. For those who blame Rush for not criticizing Bush, let them consider that a month after Rush was under virtually arrest, pending Bush League prosecution, George W.’s biggest political danger died mysteriously in Houston, and was as covered up by the mainstream media as Vince Foster had been a decade before:
“Dead Woman Who Accused Bush of Rape” Pravda, 11/12/2003, http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/368/11257_scandal.html
It was high irony for this Cold War, Russian-speaking military intelligence officer that I had to read the story of her death in Pravda. Sometimes a good scout has to look behind enemy lines to assess the real situation. To this day I continue to read such sources as Pravda, Haaretz, Al Jazeera and Press TV. Anyone with a background in investigation learns to scan and process as many diverse sources as possible, and to shun the public relations and propaganda that combine to spoil the American monopoly mainstream media.
Conflicting Conspiracies
Two extremely divergent publications below illustrate the value of variety:
The first is an Israeli newspaper noted for its connections with the ruthless and resourceful Mossad intelligence agency. In a story brought out the day Israel refused to attend an Obama nuclear weapons summit – despite their possession of around 200 nukes.
“For the first time, debkafile‘s military sources report, Tehran indicated the possibility of passing nuclear devices to terrorists capable of striking inside the United States.”
“Tehran: If Iran is attacked, nuclear devices will go off in American cities,” DEBKAfile (Israel), 4/13/2010, http://www.debka.com/article/8713/
The second is a discussion forum maintained by supporters of Ron Paul, the Libertarian former presidential candidate who criticizes Israeli belligerence as a big part of the problem in the Middle East.
“Someone said to watch for something on April 19, 2010 and June 21, 2010. I don’t know if there is anything to it, but we all know they are up to no good and planning something.”
“Israel is going to nuke US and blame Iran,” Daily Paul, 4/17/2010, http://www.dailypaul.com/node/132075
Interesting, isn’t it, that the “Paulestinian” pundit above gave an alert period beginning the day before the BP Horizon blew up in the Gulf of Mexico. Take the two sources together and discover what I consider the great geo-political issue of our times:
How much should we fear an Iranian weapon that both U.S. intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency say does not exist. How much should we fear an Israeli false flag attack like that they carried out against the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967 in an attempt to sink the ship, kill all survivors and blame the attack on Egypt, with whom they had just started the Six Day War? Are unseen powers angling to put us into another quicksand war?
A Confirmed BP Conspiracy
Rush should stand firm with his conspiracy theory about terrorism on the BP Horizon, in the opinion of this expert analyst. While I doubt that environmentalists were behind the mysterious and increasingly suspicious event, I do believe that either the U.S. or Israeli governments were involved – along with BP itself – in what looks like practice for a pending false flag attack. The surge of military and White House officials to the area may well be the prepositioning of forces for such, which would usher in domestic dictatorship and start a war with the patsy, Iran.
I leave the considerate reader with three final articles. They detail my own conspiracy theory, as a professional, about BP conspiring to carry out a false flag attack against their crumbling Texas City refinery, the second largest in the nation, in 2006. The first piece put forth my alarm several days before the pivotal event. The second compares the efforts of two journalists, one of whom opposed the conspiracy by exposing it, and one of whom abetted the conspiracy by covering it up. The third is, I believe, the best available researched account of Big Oil’s false flag efforts since the Iraq war began, and is sufficient to warrant federal prosecution or impeachment for many of the nation’s top officials.
I offer them in the spirit of healthy debate and earnest truth telling to all Americans, right or left, from me to Rush Limbaugh.
“Now before anyone labels May as paranoid or a “conspiracy theorist,” not the worst moniker in the world, let us consider some other facts. When a fellow resident of May, a Mr. Jon Watkins, recently visited the Texas City Police Department to share his concerns, he as other citizens found that there were ongoing “SWAT” team exercises in the area that involved numerous police and government agencies, including the Houston Police Department, the Pasadena Police Department and Homeland Security.”
“Texas City a strike point for nuclear attack?,” Looking Glass News, 1/28/2006, http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=4733
“Texas City British Petroleum employee heard `strange abort signal’ on local radio station the morning Army Intel Officer predicted nuclear strike at plant. BP employee also said ‘other strange events’ occurred, leaving her ‘nervous and on edge.’ WMD military support team was conducting a training session at a location near Texas City.”
“The 1/31 Nuke: Proof for Ron Paul,” The Lone Star Iconoclast, 1/29/2008, http://tinyurl.com/3lp37a
“As an epilogue to my Texas Triangle analysis, I leave a short appendix of interviews and articles below, for the most part broadcast and published a few days before or after the events they address. I believe that the interested reader will find more than enough material here to reach an informed opinion of my efforts.”
“The Texas Triangle: Terror and Treason,” The Lone Star Iconoclast, 10/24/2007, http://tinyurl.com/4q475n
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Captain May, a fully disabled veteran, is a former Army military intelligence and public affairs officer, who specialized in “Opposing Forces” (OPFOR) training scenarios for the 75th Training Division in Houston. His email address is captainmay@prodigy.net. For his most recent interview, refer to:
“Baghdad’s Neutron Bomb and America’s Nuclear Obama,” The Lone Star Iconoclast, 3/3/2010, http://tinyurl.com/yjc68tz
May is also the Commander of Ghost Troop Cyber Militia, assisted by his chain of command:
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1LT Patti Woodard, Executive Officer, GT Oregon Leader
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CSM Lee Neadow, First Sergeant
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SFC Donald Buswell, GT Texas Leader
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2LT Bryan Nelson, GT Illinois Leader
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2LT John Webster, GT Washington, D.C. Leader
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MAJ Bill Fox, Public Affairs Officer
— To join Ghost Troop, write to Captain May.
Check Every Line Of Your Phone Bill For CRAMMING!
Most people have never heard of it, but it became allowed when Congress’s telecommunications act of 1996 permitted third-party charges on local phone bills.
The unauthorized implementation of these third-party charges is known as “cramming,” the billing of fake charges on your phone bill to benefit good-for-nothing corporations who are actually outright thieves.
This practice is becoming a monster and most people don’t know it, but they are paying for things every month that they did not order or even realize is on the bill, since the wordage often looks like it might be legitimate. Many think they are simply paying their “phone bill” when actually other entities are piggybacking to secretly stick it to you.
Perpertrators make millions for doing nothing but billing an unsuspectinig pubic and Congress won’t do anything about it, probably because perps have lined officials’ pockets with kickbacks. Otherwise, action would likely have been taken to disrupt this outright horse-thievery.
The publisher of the Iconoclast was recently “crammed” — twice!
What we found when we recently did a complete audit of one of our phone bills was that there were unexplained charges.
First, we realized that the phone company itself had been charging a monthly fee regarding our phone system for several years — a system we owned outright. To us, the wording had been disguised on the bill. When we called to be reimbursed the money stolen from us we were told it would take about four weeks to investigate. At the same time, we noticed a third-party charge that had been on the bill a few months and asked what it was. We ended up getting into a conference call with the third-party vendor and the telephone company. When the third party was finally satisfied that we ordered nothing from them since we were unaware of who they were, they agreed to credit our bill, but it would take awhile. So here we were, on hold for a four-week investigation for which we would be informed of the outcome.
Three months later, we received a check in the mail for partial payment of the telephone company’s fraud and since there had been no explanation or follow-up, we made a call to the company. Here, we were informed that only a partial payment of reimbursement from the telephone company could be made on its illegitimate charges since there was a “statute of limitations” in play and that it was partially OUR FAULT that they were allowed to steal money from us since we had not called them on it earlier. Therefore, we had made a donation (?) to the phone company. Additionally, the third-party crammer’s stolen money from us would appear on our next bill as a credit, we were told.
We were informed during the conversation when we wanted to rest assured that this third-party had ceased billing us that there remained a third-party charge (another third-party company) — one that creates websites. I informed the operator that we do our own websites and knew nothing about this third-party vendor. Again, a conference call was made and the perp was downright offensive, outlining a bunch of demanding and rude-like questions to set the tone of the conversation. The end result was that he was a scammer and crammer who said he would cease these charges, to which we will be supposedly credited in the future — so we guess we made a no-interest loan to him with the money he stole from us initially. All legal. Thanks, Congress!
The wordage of phone bills is often quite vague so you don’t always know if it is third-party. Look closely under “services,” however, and be prepared to call your phone company for anything listed, because it could look like a legitimate phone company charge even when it is not. Sometimes the charges are quite small and sometimes larger (maybe $100 a month or more). Look for phone system charges, as well, for they are often bogus. Also, examine the bill for services that some companies charge on behalf of crammers (like ESBI, ILD, and Americatel, to name a few).
Simply put, you cannot trust your phone company or the Congressional perps who set this up. It is ridiculous to allow phone companies to add third-party charges to your bill. It is actually outright thievery and should be dealt with accordingly. However, right now it is legal for big corporations to steal. They are immune from justice. It’s just a “mistake” when the phone companies get caught.
They’ll review it and get back to you. Later. Much later.
Yeah, right!
— W. Leon Smith
Keyhole To The Future
What looks like a guillotine is actually a wooden jig designed to bend metal into a curve. The bending device is one of several located at the new keyhole garden manufacturing plant in Acton, a small community next door to Granbury, Texas. Keyhole gardens are a fairly new concept that received a major promotion when school children in Lesotho, Africa built one to sustain their lives in an area that did not eagerly accept gardening.
GRANBURY, Texas — What looks like a guillotine is actually a wooden jig designed to bend metal into a curve. The bending device is one of several located at the new keyhole garden manufacturing plant in Acton, a small community next door to Granbury.
Keyhole gardens are a fairly new concept that received a major promotion when school children in Lesotho, Africa built one to sustain their lives in an area that did not eagerly accept gardening. A video about the creation of the African garden appears at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjcjCCx3BWY>.
W. Leon Smith, publisher of the Iconoclast, and his brother, Lyndell Smith, decided in December 2009 to experiment with designs of keyhole gardens in an attempt to find an easy and economical way to build them, the idea being to promote such gardens throughout the United States and perhaps foster their trek into other countries that might benefit from them.
Leon Smith had just sold one of his publications, The Clifton Record, which provided him time to look into keyhole gardens, while Lyndell Smith, who has considerable experience in building houses and is an ace at design, thought the idea had merit for pursuit.
Early in 2009, Leon had successfully built a traditional keyhole garden in the backyard of a storage house he owned that was next door to his home in Clifton, Texas.
“I was very impressed with the outcome of the keyhole garden,” he said. “We raised an abundance of black-eyed peas (cowpeas), zucchini, squash, okra, beans, and other crops in a confined area that made efficient use of water and did not involve backbreaking work, other than building the garden itself.
“The fresh vegetables we plucked were excellent eating and, besides that, it was good to get back to nature and farming.
“It took me a couple of weeks to build the garden and was quite an undertaking for someone on a really tight schedule,” he added. “This spring I wanted an additional garden but was put off by the time it takes to build one, so when The Record sold, I began to envision coming up with an easy way to build an additional garden or two.”
The result was a series of experiments that assumed a life of their own.
“We decided to share these experiments with the public, which resulted in the creation of a website, <www.keyholefarm.com>, and our offering a kit so that interested people might be able to assemble such a garden in a short period of time. Right now, our current model takes about an hour to build from the kit. It includes assembling a metal frame and attaching panels.”
Traditional keyhole gardens are about three feet high, six feet in diameter (circle), and have an opening for the gardener to enter to work the garden. A wire basket four feet tall stands in the middle of the garden which is where food products are recycled in order to nourish the garden, cutting down on water use. The shape of the garden is reminiscent of a keyole, thus the name.
“Our first keyhole garden design we named Alicia, after one of my grandmothers who was a gardener. It was the traditional size,” said Leon Smith. “Since then, however, we have built two that are shorter in height, which results in having to dump in less compost and topsoil. Personally, I like these better. Too, we have worked on improving some of the components, like tees that connect the metal sections, and have made them stronger, although the ones in the first garden are still holding up well.”
“We decided to give the gardens names,” said Smith. “My original keyhole garden constructed of cinder blocks and rocks we named Bubba and the third garden is named Belle. I am undecided on a name for the fourth garden but am leaning toward ‘Key-Rex,’ since it will be gray in color and resemble a dinosaur — sort of.”
Smith said that every family “ought to have a vegetable garden, and a keyhole garden is a great place to start. Raising a few of your own crops is a great way to get back to nature, to teach youngsters to raise food, and to cut your food bill a little. Not only that, but when that first sprout comes up there is an undeniable feeling of satisfaction that arises from knowing you have a ‘green thumb’ and that you are participating in the recycling of life.”
He noted that a primary reason he and his brother decided to offer kits with which to build gardens quickly was due to feedback from people aware of the experimental venture. “Nearly everyone we have told about our gardens wants one,” he said, “so we decided to gear up to be able to build them in order to share the experience. Ideally, we will be able to offer them to people in third-world countries where starvation is an ongoing problem, which might involve someone with money buying several and shipping them out.
“We are continuing our experiments,” he added. “Part of the idea is to emphasize recycling and part of it is to make efficient use of water and materials. We don’t know how long the panels on the side will last and how they will sustain plants long-term. We have not been at it long enough for a track record. But, so far, so good. We have begun to raise some crops and they appear to be doing well at this stage. We will be posting updates frequently on our website in the event readers want to follow our progress.”
INFO:
ShareLunkers — Icons On A Rod & Reel
So far this season O.H. Ivie Reservoir has produced nine largemouth bass weighing 13 pounds or more that have been entered into the Toyota ShareLunker program. All were special fish to the anglers who caught them, but the ninth was a little more special than the others: Sam Callaway of Corpus Christi will collect $500 a pound for his catch, a total of $6,670.
ATHENS — So far this season O.H. Ivie Reservoir has produced nine largemouth bass weighing 13 pounds or more that have been entered into the Toyota ShareLunker program. All were special fish to the anglers who caught them, but the ninth was a little more special than the others: Sam Callaway of Corpus Christi will collect $500 a pound for his catch, a total of $6,670.
Callaway caught Toyota ShareLunker No. 500 at 9:20 a.m. April 9 using a Zoom Magnum eight-inch lizard in watermelon/red. The 13.34-pound fish was immediately taken to an official ShareLunker weigh and holding station, Concho Park Marina, where it was held for pickup by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) ShareLunker program manager David Campbell. The fish, which is 20.5 inches in girth and 26.25 inches long, now rests in the Lunker Bunker at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center.
Callaway caught his big bass on the first day of the Permian Basin Oilman’s Bass Invitational.
Callaway’s $500 per pound reward continues the practice of rewarding centennial catches of entries into the ShareLunker program that began with Jason Baird’s catch of ShareLunker 400 from Lake Amistad on Feb. 28, 2006. That fish paid the Gypsum, Kansas, angler $400 a pound.
With almost three weeks to go in the current ShareLunker season, speculation now turns to how many fish will be entered into the program this season. Callaway’s fish brought the total to 29, which is well above the program’s 23-year average of 20.
Anyone legally catching a 13-pound or bigger largemouth bass from Texas waters, public or private, between Oct. 1 and April 30 may submit the fish to the Toyota ShareLunker program by calling program manager David Campbell at (903) 681-0550 or paging him at (888) 784-0600 and leaving a phone number including area code. Fish will be picked up by TPWD personnel within 12 hours.
ShareLunker entries are used in a selective breeding program at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) in Athens. Some of the offspring from these fish are stocked back into the water body from which they were caught. Other ShareLunker offspring are stocked in public waters around the state in an attempt to increase the overall size and growth rate of largemouth bass in Texas.
Anglers entering fish into the Toyota ShareLunker program receive a free replica of their fish, a certificate and ShareLunker clothing and are recognized at a banquet at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. In addition, if a Texas angler catches the largest entry of the year, that person receives a lifetime fishing license.
For complete information and rules of the ShareLunker program, tips on caring for big bass and a recap of last year’s season, see . The site also includes a searchable database of all fish entered into the program along with pictures where available.
Information on current catches, including short videos of interviews with anglers, is posted on www.facebook.com/sharelunkerprogram.
The Toyota ShareLunker Program is made possible by a grant to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation from Gulf States Toyota. Toyota is a long-time supporter of the Foundation and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, providing major funding for a wide variety of education, fish, parks and wildlife projects.
OTHER RECENT CATCHES
Steve Hand of Snyder kicked off a big weekend about 9:50 a.m. April 3 when he caught Toyota ShareLunker 495, a 13.22-pound largemouth, on O.H. Ivie. He was fishing in 10 feet of water using a Zoom six-inch lizard.
At three o’clock that afternoon Mark Worthington of Abilene landed Toyota ShareLunker 496. That fish bit a seven-inch red shad Senko in 10 feet of water on O.H. Ivie.
“It was an awesome feeling,” Steve Hand said. “I never felt the bite. I just moved the worm a little bit, and she nudged it. I felt the weight and set the hook, and the fight was on.”
Hand is an old hand at fishing Ivie. “I fish Ivie probably 15 to 20 times a year,” he said. “I think everybody who fishes O.H. Ivie realizes that the fishing this year way exceeds anything in the past except the first two or three years when the lake was new. The last two or three years the lake has produced a lot of good fish. I think a lot of that is because of what you all [Texas Parks and Wildlife Department] do—spawning fish out, bringing them back, putting them back in the lake. And the bass fishermen all appreciate it. Without [TPWD], we wouldn’t have the fish we have.”
Mark Worthington’s day ended up a lot more interesting than it started. “I didn’t have a whole lot of luck until the last cast of the day,” he said. “We were fishing off the north island with a seven-inch red shad Senko. I tossed it in a tree, and I guess she was sitting in the top of the tree. She put up a real good fight. She swam out to deep water instead of staying in the tree and pulled drag several times. Then I had trouble getting her to fit in the net she was so big.”
At about 7:30 p.m. April 4, Joseph Burgi of Del Rio was fishing in 20 feet of water at Marker 7 on Lake Amistad when he caught a 13.34-pounder on a pumpkinseed Berkley Power Worm. Burgi took his fish to Anglers Lodge, an official ShareLunker weigh and holding station, where it was picked up by TPWD staff from A.E. Wood Fish Hatchery in San Marcos. David Campbell picked the fish up there and arrived in Athens shortly before noon April 5.
Burgi’s fish is the third this season from Amistad. Lake Fork has also produced three fish this season.
Raymond Ivy of Brownwood caught Toyota ShareLunker 498 from O.H. Ivie April 5. It weighed 13.06 pounds and was caught in seven feet of water on a Strike King swim bait.
Bill Hunter III of Sweetwater caught Toyota ShareLunker 499 from O.H. Ivie Reservoir April 6. The fish weighed 13.04 pounds.
April 11 Jim McDaniel of Cedar Park caught Toyota ShareLunker 501 from the Colorado River reservoir. The fish weighed 13.01 pounds and was 20.5 inches in girth and 26.5 inches long.
Lake Austin has now produced two ShareLunkers this season and nine overall. One more entry will put the lake into double digits with Amistad International Reservoir (11 entries), Choke Canyon Reservoir (13), O.H. Ivie Reservoir (14), Lake Conroe (16), Sam Rayburn Reservoir (23) and Lake Alan Henry (25). Only Lake Fork, with 246 entries, has made it to triple-digit territory.
McDaniel was fishing in 8 feet of water with an undisclosed lure when he caught the fish. Water temperature was 65 degrees.
Lake Amistad moved into sole possession of second place in the number of Toyota ShareLunkers produced this season on April 21 when Marion Merritt from Florida caught ShareLunker No. 502.
Merritt’s 13.87-pound bass was the fourth to come from the border’s Big Friendly during the current season. Lake Fork has produced three fish. O.H. Ivie Reservoir is way ahead of the pack with nine entries.
Merritt was fishing in 14 feet of water in the San Pedro Canyon area west of U.S. 277 when the fish took a 10-inch Berkley Power Worm in green pumpkin.
