Quality VS Quantity

Been quite some time since my last post but no better time than the present. (Written 9-26-16)

     Y'all will also notice a name change thanks to Rachelle. The blog is now FAMILY, FISHING, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. Because family is always first. Thank you Chelle, we love you! 

     I tricked y'all into thinking this blog was about those big green bass we chase but no. This is a post about quality time VS quantity time with FAMILY. Lord only knows how fine of a line we all walk daily on this subject. 

  

     I'm the first to admit I'm not perfect. Nor do I claim to be! (Some people may disagree lol) But in my honest opinion there is a struggle between keeping all parties happy in a family......including yourself. We have to find the right balance that fits our lifestyles not just someone's perceptive style. For instance tournament fishing, prefishing takes time away from family, adds levels of stress above the work-life-balance scenario.  But it's a passion and we love our families for being supportive of our endeavors no matter win lose or draw. We never lose though. We win or we learn (Thank you Lulu Swindle for adding this to G-mans sand which bag, we all learned from it). But we sacrifice quantity of time which can also be the even bigger quality of time. Missed first steps, first words, sports games, birthdays, anniversaries and so on. Then we have the go without scenario where there is not time to decompress from the work-life-balance. Where we take for granted someone always being there and wouldn't know how to function without them by our sides. This increases stress levels to the point of snapping!!!!! I take a lot of things for granted, especially my loving wife. We are always there for each other but sometimes we take our time for granted and never give time to miss each other. I'm hoping being involved with the Phoenix Junior Bassmasters will be eye opening for her and get her to share the passion we all have for growing our sport and being positive role models for our future anglers. And in all honesty pray my son catches the bug too! But if they don't I'm ok with that. We still get our quality and our quantity. 

     Find your balance, live laugh and love like it was your last day. There will be struggles and strife. But be like Baloo and forget about your worries and your strife. Grab your family, your friends, your loved ones and a couple fishing poles and go make some memories. Spend your quality time making the memories and your quantity being thankful for what you have. Lord knows we can all do more of that even if it's just a sit down dinner, give thanks for the little things. Don't regret, but better yet forget about the things we can do better and just make an effort to do just a little better everyday. 

     Until next time my friends, tight lines! 

The Reaction

      

    Why does it always seem like we have all the time in the world to tackle our thoughts but often nothing else? We can "casually" forget to rake the mesquite pods from the back yard, push off the morning work out, or keep tossing ideas back and forth for another blog entry. Well today is the day I push off everything but a blog entry so tell my boss i'm sorry.

     Let's talk tackle!!!! Talking tackle or looking for tackle is one of my favorite things in this world, it's in my top 10 favorite things of all time.

CLAYTONS TOP TEN LIST

1. Miles and Chelle

2. Family and Friends

3. Fishing

4. Talking Tackle

5. Food

6. Fishing (can never fish too much)

7. Fishing

8. Fishing

9. Food

10. Fishing

     So today let's talk about some tackle created by a great family we've been blessed to know, The Butel Family, Justin, Alex, and Ringo Butel own and operate Cactus Wren Outdoors.

The company slogan is "The reaction you've been waiting for" and i'll tell you first hand it truly has been a positive reaction! A short back story as to this "reaction" we speak about. You see i'm a TACKLE JUNKY!!! I review the websites of tackle shops, big name bait makers, mom and pop shops, international bait makers, you name it and I am looking daily for the next bait to add to the arsenal. Well one day I am scrolling through Facebook and see a mutual friend post a picture of a fish caught on a "Quail Tail" worm. And in this day and age some plastics baits are only separated by a name. So I ask him where he got these baits from and he said he got a free sample off Cactus Wrens website. I think to myself FREE TACKLE!!!! SIGN ME UP!!! I message Cactus Wren and a few days later have a package in the mail with this heavenly big bass craving stench emitting from the package. I open it up and they sent me a couple ridge walkers. I'm not one to throw finesse style soft plastics, i'm a power fisherman! I shoot for the straight reaction bite. TREBLES POR VIDA!!! So Miles and grab a drop shot rod and head for the pond by the house. First cast BAM an above average fish for this pond, cast back out and BAM set the hook and let Miles reel this one in. Again its an above average fish for this pond. Total that trip was 10 fish on 3 baits and only being there 45 minutes. I order a couple bags of the baits and they sat for a couple weeks (not a finesse fisherman remember that). We take the boat out one weekend post front conditions, its cold, flat calm water, blue bird skies and we are scrambling to not take a sunset picture! Those of us who know that phrase, well you know! I had been casting 4" roboworms to the same spot for about 15-20 casts. I reel in and start digging through the boat looking for something else to throw and stumble upon the "Quail Tails". I cast out the same size and color as the robo to the same spot i'd been fishing and BAM I lay into this fish like a Bruce Lee fighting Chuck Norris! Several fish later that day on the 4" "Quail Tail" I realize we'd found the reaction we'd been waiting for. Cactus Wren has the perfect blend between soft plastic and durable plastic, Add in a proprietary Bio-Scent they have created and that folks is a recipe for a successful day on any water. Many days have been saved from sunset pictures thanks to
Cactus Wren Outdoors

     My favorite bait by far is going to be the 5" Quail Tail in Copper Basin rigged with a #2 Decoy HD Masurabi Worm hook and a 3/8oz Cactus Wren drop shot weight.

This color pattern I've found works excellent at all our Arizona lakes and in talking to many anglers out of state who have great success with it. But a little secret I've heard is that many local pro's and i'm not gonna name drop or anything but one has a TV show on Fox Sports Arizona. He loves the Scorpion color as do many top anglers!

This color can catch fish and cash checks! All the colors Cactus Wren produces with the Quail Tails, Talking Sticks, Canyon Craws, share one common denominator - THEY ALL CATCH FISH.
 

Cactus Wren offers multiple styles, colors, and sizes of soft plastics and also top quality terminal tackle. If you're just getting started fishing or are a top pro fisherman than Cactus Wren has you covered. Head over to Cactus Wren Outdoors and let them know Clayton sent you, I promise you won't be disappointed and you'll get the reaction you've been waiting for.

     An added bonus to great baits is The Butels gift of friendship and knowledge of fishing that comes free with any order, email, message, or phone call. The Butel Family is without a doubt a family we will know till I am pushing up daisy's. Thank you Cactus Wren for providing great products and being model ambassadors to the angling community!

Until next time,

Clayton
   

The first

Welcome to my Blog "Fishing, Family, and Everything in between". Follow me down a path that all of us are familiar with, a little thing we all take for granted....LIFE!!! All of us have a first that we remember, our first car, our first kiss, our first fish. This is a first for me. This is the start of an ongoing outlet for a family loving, bait slinging, jack of all trades master of none, tackle junky. I'll be posting occasional product reviews, hot topics, fishing tips, and sharing the trials and tribulations or balancing family, fishing and everything in between.

So a little about myself. I'm a proud family man with a beautiful wife and son who is my everything. If you know me, all I talk about are my passions which are my family and fishing. I've always been busy with my hobbies from Mountain Biking to Bass Fishing. But things come and go too quickly in our lives like hitting the trails of South Mountain, grabbing a few beers for happy hour, hitting the range for trigger therapy, but honestly my friends fishing has always been there and always will be. We grow old of things that don't let us "get away from it all" anymore and things that aren't cool factor 1000. The trails, they have an end! It was awesome to leave my worries at the trailhead but if you don't ride fast enough they catch up. For me it was injuries and my friends moving away or moving on. Not real fun alone and limping everywhere! But then I found my 1961 Ford Ranchero (laugh and I'll hunt you down!) that my mom helped me buy and my dad taught me how to set the points of the distributor with a matchbook. Sitting under the hood and not caring about anything other than learning how to tune up "The Ghetto Cruise Missile" was awesome. Everyone at school had new cars and bad ethics. I'll take built not bought 100% of the time. But the car...gone! Reliability and my families comfort becomes paramount.  Precision rifle and pistol shooting were some of the funnest things I've ever done and built strong lifetime friendships doing it. But pulling the trigger sounded more like money zipping out of my wallet than hearing BANG! Having some drinks? You can bet your bottom dollar I've ponied up to quite a few bartenders to pay them to help me celebrate and to forget. But it catches up and takes its toll on friendships, bank accounts (I'm a big boy I'm not a cheap date), and health. I'll take waking up at 3am to fish over 3pm with a hangover 24-7 365. But I still get asked the question from everyone. Why go and sit and try to catch stinky slimy creatures??????? CAUSE IT'S AWESOME THATS WHY!!! Fishing is an equalizer. You don't need to spend much to do it, it's rewarding, it builds memories and discipline, tests patience, and is good for the soul. I can only take so much stress from work and home before needing to purge and refocus. Fishing helps to refocus and rid my mind of the majority of stress or things I find stressful. Fishing has immediate rewards, not just a fish on the end of your line, but physical and mental rewards. I gained a lot of weight after quitting smoking and getting married. I went from around 200lbs to 370 at my max. Not cool! But if it wasn't for fishing I'd still be gaining. I recently dropped down to 270 through proper eating habits. Probably still asking how the hell did fishing help you lose weight? Well let me tell you that boats go faster with less weight in them! That 100lbs added up to 2mph on the ProCraft.....Which we quickly replaced with an extra 100lbs of tackle! LOL! But seriously it was a great friend who I met through fishing and we quickly became great friends. Motivation from my family and my best friend who I fish team tournaments with got me to see the bigger picture and not the biscuits and gravy. My family and friends who are extended family are my everything, without them I am nothing. 

For the majority I'm gonna say anglers are the best sportsman on the planet and the best people. We willgive you the shirt off our back, stop in rainstorms to help change tires or trailer bearings, tow you back to the ramp when you've had engine troubles and ask nothing in return except to pay it forward. We need more anglers in this world that's going to hell in a handbag. So let's do our best to set a good example and pay it forward. Remember the good and forget the bad, smile more, love more, and fish more.

Until next time,

Clayton