 Welcome back to another LFG outdoor episode, folks. Lakeport guy, that is me doing outdoor things. Fishing, hunting, surviving, sometimes thriving in the great outdoors. And today we got a special episode. Look what's on the truck right over there. That is a kayak. I have yet to have this tandem combo where I'm gonna be taking the kayak out and we're going to be catching our fish. I'm gonna give myself a challenge. We gotta survive on fish for the next 24 hours. It is noon right now, so we're gonna head to the lake. We got a camping spot set up close to the water and we're going to get the kayak out and try any means necessary to get a fish to eat. Another reason I'm taking the camper is I'm prepping it. I'm priming it. I'm greasing the skids for Colorado. We wanna make sure everything's smooth, working. Now I actually have not fired up this camper since I installed the lithium batteries. I installed the pro guide lithiums, three of them. And we are about to find out how much juice is in here after sitting for months. So this is the big difference in lithium and AGMs. You go back to AGM or regular, just let-ass battery after a few months, not charging it. It's probably not gonna be that good. But lithiums, I'm hoping for like 90%. If we have 90% power, I'll be very impressed. Let's open it up. Now last time I set everything up, I installed a master power switch, which is awesome. I even did labelings because I knew I would come back to this in a few months and forget some things. So everything is nicely labeled. Master power, cutting on. While bam. So to get an accurate reading on our power, we're actually gonna look at the Victron app. I installed a Victron power monitor in here for the solar and the batteries. We have a smart shunt. State of charge, 97% guys. So it was 100% when I put it away, 97%. That is amazing. So I've actually got a separate switch installed for the solar panels. Let's pop these babies on. Wah, bam. Where are we going? We got two watts, 29 watts, 37 watts. There we go, 42. We got an overcast day, so we're probably not gonna be slamming in the wattage. But hey, everything is working. We'll probably get back to 100% while we're driving. We got half tanks on both. Fantastic. Black tank for poopies. We're empty, that's great. I'm excited. I did all this work back in the spring when it was cooler inside of the camper so I could avoid not having to do it at this time of year. Now we're getting into camping season. So let's head out to the water and let's see if everything's working. Give her a dangle, hopefully we're gonna get some fish. Use our outdoor kitchen. Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna use our outdoor kitchen to cook it up. Oh, check this out, guys. There is the water. Yeah, buddy. So this is gonna be camp for tonight, you guys. I got good sun exposure right here for the solar panels, but I got electrical hookups, turn on that AC, which is very important right now, if you know how hot it has been in Texas. Gonna be a slight challenge getting the kayak down to the lake with the lake being so low, but I think I can do it. I got tons of poles, so I got a good dangling setup. Now part of this challenge is going to be eating what I catch. While I'm kayak camping here in the lake, I gotta eat what I catch. And I'm gonna show you guys what I've brought in the fridge, which isn't very much. Oh my gosh, it's hotter than Satan's tain out here. So we got the fridge running. I'm gonna show you guys what I have. Let you know I'm not cheating out here. So nothing in that side. And here, and now I do have some butter. We're gonna be cooking with that. We have some rice for our fish. I did bring a thing of pickles. Add a little something to our meal. Got some vitamins. Brought some AG1. Some fresh okra from the garden. Pick that right before we left. So that's gonna be going with our fish. And I did bring a local selection of Dallas Blancs. Gotta have some cold pops. So the goal is to catch fish, eat them in this 24 hour period as our food, using the kayak. We're gonna have to get that down. That'll be something. So let's get the camper popped up. Let's see if everything's working. Fingers crossed that AC is gonna be nice and cool. That was gonna be tough to get to. Okay, a moment of truth. AC is our AC gonna turn on. I really didn't get this camper to plug in at places and use, you know, the 30 amp power. But in this instance, I gotta have it. Got to have it. Turn this on. Not so much. We'll see how it does in like 10 minutes. That's gonna be brutal if that doesn't work. You guys probably can't see it all the way out there, but I see a school of white bass coming up and busting already at 3 p.m. in the afternoon. That is our dinner, folks. If I can launch this kayak and get down in here, I've even got a battery for the electronics. I can find them. I can spoons. I can get them. I got crepe baits. I got top waters. AC's in there starting to cool down. It's not very effective, but I don't really expect it to be. It's, you know, a soft top, which I love. You get all the sounds of nature. I'm gonna be able to sleep with the sounds of the waves coming in tonight. It's gonna be great. I'm so excited right now. Okay, this is gonna be challenging. LFD helped me load this up here. It's been a while since I've done it by myself. We're gonna have to harness the strings to get this thing down and possibly even mule it down there by hand, either dragging on the ground or pick it up. I don't know. I got back problems right now, so it's probably not the best of ideas, but I see my dinner out there. We gotta take action. Let's do it. That actually wasn't too terrible. So by myself, I'm gonna guess this kayak's about 180 pounds. So by myself, I just have to do it one side at a time. Now, can I pick this thing up? That's the real question. I'm gonna kill myself getting down there, but it is possible. Kind of just said I was over it. Just drug it down here. Not the best for the bottom of the hole, but we're in the water now. So I'm gonna grab my fins. I got a pack with fishing gear, a couple poles. Since I'm seeing white bass schooling, I may just target those, but I brought some catfish rigs too. We got noodles, but right now, white bass, a couple of those, will be good to go. All right, gear for the journey. What do we need to get our dinner? We're gonna be taking a little seven foot medium power. That was a good boy. I should have packed some spoons, and I did. So I'm gonna throw one of these big boys on here. There's three quarter ounce slurping spoon. This is gonna be what I'm gonna go after white bass with. The meat necklace. We got a meat necklace. We're gonna throw the kayak. I got a cooler full of ice right here. I've got my pedals. We're gonna go light. We're gonna go simple. Okay, let's launch this baby. I'm not really anticipating the graph working, given what happened to the kayak about 10 minutes ago, but we're about to find out for a battery up in here. Got some loose wires going on. Let's see. This one appears to be negative. That one appears to be positive. Wow, Jimmy, Christmas, we're working, baby. She rough out here. I ain't gonna lie. This is gonna be a treacherous journey. Let's get our pedals in before we, oh my gosh. We're already, we're taking waves. We're taking waves, shoot. Well, this is not working out well. Let's touch the bottom. Oh my God. Holy, it's broken. That ain't good. She done broke off. She done broke off the unit here, boys. Yeah, that ain't, that ain't supposed to be like that. Is it possible to navigate with one? Let's try to get, get me away from the, get me away from the bank, I'll be okay. Crock's off, graph working, I see we're in six foot. Let's get it, let's get it. We got half a pedal. We gotta go gingerly on this thing. Captain's vlog. One thruster is down. We're trying to go into the waves. Getting a half, one half knot at best. Captain needs a little luck here. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I found a floating creature potential food item. See what we got here. Okay, yep, expiration date is coming gone on this guy. That would be a gar. I ain't gonna eat no gar. It's pretty fresh though. Probably, somebody poked him probably last night. We still have about three hours till the sunset. So I might change tactics and go to a bluegill strategy in the shallows. I got so excited when I saw the white bass schooling on the splat behind me. Rushed to get the kayak down, got it out there, just took a spoon basically and they were gone. You know, that's the thing about flats. They'll move up on them, feed. There was a little bit of shad up there then they pushed out. So usually in the evening time and in the morning time they're up there on the flats feeding. So we still got a few hours until that happens. In the meantime, we're gonna get after some bluegills. So I brought all my fly gear like I would be going to Colorado so we could play around with that. And I think what I'm gonna do is wade out in a pocket, try to get out of this wind and just nip around for some gills. Then I can use those for bait or I could just eat those. We got nothing right now, except a bag of pickles and some water. So, it's hydrate, let's get our fly gear together. Let's go get some meat. All right guys, we found a cove that's not extremely windy. Ooh, I see some bluegills shooting off right now. Look at the meat necklace on hand. We're flyed up, we're flyed up ready to go. Got my nymphing rod. I've got a small nymph on it with a little bit of split shot. And we're gonna use that to sort of just drag this around and get some bites. Smoked it, here's a gill. Going on the necklace buddy. All right, second one or at least getting some bait. Starting low on the food chain. All right boys, see some, see some in the chalice. Oh, it even smells like fish right here. Hope there's one right there, come on baby. Yes sir, come to papa. And that should be plenty for bait. But if I get a big one, he's going in the skillet. I can assure you, oh, there's one. I might have it's shoulders. No, not really. I'm gonna assure you there's no shortage of alcoholic beverages here at the Ray Roberts boat ramp. There's a decent one, we'll throw him on. It is absolutely ripping now. Not good kayak conditions, but we gotta eat. So I have gathered some jugs. We should have plenty of bait with the gills we just caught to bait these lines. I got six ounce weights on here. I don't know if it's gonna hold up in the wind. It's blowing straight in the bank. My hope is I'm gonna get out on that break and hopefully there's gonna be a lot of bait coming in and maybe some catfish that are gonna cruise through. I'm gonna leave one bluegill in the cooler because if all else fails, I'm gonna at least gonna have a nugget of protein I can munch on. For bluegill, I typically will get three pieces of bait out of each small gill. Big one you can get four or five pieces out of. Always start with a tail and just discard the little finny parts that'll impede a hook set. All right, I'm gonna put this guy back in. That way we got guaranteed food. Bait bag, going in the bait bag. Just getting off the beach is gonna be a task itself. Oh my gosh, absolutely ripping. Just drop this, drop the rudder. Here we go, here we go. Come on. Oh my gosh. I've never tipped my hobby, but today might be the day. We're out here at 20 feet, just starting to see some marks. Maybe some drum, maybe some catfish. I don't really know, but looks like a good spot to toss a jug, so let's get started. All right, two baits on, we'll send it down. All right, that one is actually floating a little bit. Well, it eventually hit bottom, that's for sure, drifting in the shore. Bombs away. Wow, we are so much farther than the other one right now. Bombs away. Okay, number four, send it. Floating slightly. I don't think it's gonna touch the bottom, it's floating. Floating in 27. I really can't tell if I'm getting a bite or not, but I thought I saw a double tap on this first one. Something is seriously wrong with my things here. Oh my God, I lost that one completely, it's gone. I really only have one thruster now. Son of a dick, I knew something was really off. That sucks, fat. Just gonna go up to this jug and just pull on it slightly, see if I see anything, feel anything. I feel like it's running away from me, but it's probably just the kayak. Nope, I feel something on there. We got one, boys. Oh my gosh, it's a good one. Oh my gosh, boys, we got there. Whoo, barely hooked. So glad I checked that. Mission complete already. I don't even have to wipe asshole. Oh my gosh. Such a fan of the jugs. Toss him over the side. Might as well just throw our line back out. Pro tip, whenever you open up one of your meat necklace, deals always close it back, because it'll cause you a mess. There you go, puppy. There we go, that is a delish dinner, baby. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no need to really fish anymore, because that right there will feed me tonight and tomorrow. However, we're gonna go check our other lines. So that literally was five minutes probably in how to fish. I set that one that was the first jug, and then I set the last one. I started going up to the first and looking for white bass, and that one was already, I thought I saw a little nibble like that, but it wasn't very much. That's all it took, though. Heck yeah, homemade jugs. They've been working really well this summer. Baby, we're gonna put a little spice on that. We made golden crispy that bad boy. Don't have enough butter, but we'll figure something out, man. Dag-up. So excited, y'all. Oh, hang on a second. We're getting some movement. I feel something. Might have something here. Two kitty cats. Doubled up. I'm talking no time at all. These are small, so I'll let them go. Thought I saw a little movement. I think this one's got one. Hell, I think they all might have one. Might have breakfast on right here. Oh yeah, there's a bump. It's definitely getting bumped. Feels like it might have a little weight. Oh, it's a double. Another double kitty. You guys are small, man. You're twisting up my lines. It's the size that will stick you to. Don't want that. Technically they're eaters, but small. We got big boys. Caught on something. Oh no, caught on my other catfish. We're a mess. That's how you get hooked on stuff right there. I didn't even think about that. Other catfish hanging on the side. All right, we'll re-rig that later. Now we're about 200 yards from where it was. None of these have been cleaned so far. So we must be in a decent zone. Can already tell you, this one's got something on it. Feel it fighting. Feels small. It is. It's okay, well. Hey, food source. We could eat him, but I like him a little better than that. Fish dinner. We're almost there. He's in chits. That's a fatty cat. And we got dinner, baby. We got dinner for a couple of days. This is actually kind of a dangerous situation here. Sorry, y'all. I'm trying to film everything. It's not working out well. It's not working out good at all. Sun going down and success has been achieved, y'all. Two big old kitty cats. The jug lines were phenomenal. I mean, within an hour. And a lot of that was just me pedaling around with one petal. We had a double. We had two doubles. So that's four. And then we had seven catfish. We got here stunned on them catfish. So those are two really good eating blue cats. We got extra. We got extra. We can feast down all good. I'm almost thinking that I need to just come out here with a crispy and do a camp and just collect. Because the catfish is obviously really good. I've never done it out here. I'm literally just going behind my camper and I caught plenty in an hour. So no need to chase the white bass. They weren't coming up anyways with the waves. So worked out beautifully. And my friends, it is time to crack. We've been working hard. We've been grinding to get to this point where we have food secured. Most important thing, it just feels good to know I'm gonna set up right here. I'm gonna set up on my little outdoor kitchen. I'm gonna watch that sunset. We're gonna fire up cast iron. I've got two cast irons. We're gonna make some little okra. Do our fish and skillet. We set. We set ladies and gentlemen. I feel like I'm on an episode of alone. Just the redneck version with a little more accommodations. Awesome y'all. Smash that like button. Let's get to cooking. Cleaning these catfish. You guys already know the drill. You've been watching this channel for a while. If you haven't, go check out some of my other catfishing videos where I show you how to clean these. I think on this tonight, since I don't have my big cutting board, I'm just gonna do the peel method. Kind of trace the skin, peel the skin off, and filet it right off the ribs and the skeleton. The skeleton, that's what you're doing. You're fileting the meat off the skeleton. I'll show you guys the cooking part, but you know what's up on the cleaning. The old wood splitting baton came in handy for dispatching tonight. I'll always keep that in my truck. I also keep one of these in my truck. Little truck camping pro tip. This is kind of a walking stick and a depth checking stick when I'm trout fishing, but I picked a cedar tree that had a limb right here and I left that nub so I can reach into my truck and I can pull stuff out. It's like a little grabber. I keep that in the, right on the top there. She's good to go. So you don't, when you start getting older, you know, you don't want to be banging around on your knees, getting stuff all the way in the back. Anyway, pro tip for all you middle-aged fishing freaks. I apologize for the lighting. It's not the best. The bugs are really bad right now. I'm trying to keep them out of my grill. They're just swarming the camper. I'm hoping they go away, but anyway, I don't want to turn on my big lights and turn this into a bug show. I'm not out here to eat bugs, I'm here to eat catfish. Always, always, always butter. Always carry that camping. Can't go wrong with it, cooking. Usually do about a quarter stick for the cast iron and usually I'll get the cast iron pretty hot. I'll turn it on like three quarters of the way high. Get it pretty hot. I'll throw the butter in and then I'll turn it down to about medium, medium high and then just depending on what I got. I'm going to go straight Cosmo SPG onto the catfish that is in the cooler right now. I filleted. Flays are sitting in the cooler, just chilling. I only did, I only cleaned one. I'm going to let the other one firm up and I'll clean it tomorrow. Tonight, we're probably going to do four or five minutes each side and that'll be about it. You don't want to overcook the fish, but I just go by the, when it starts to flake, it's done. When you can take a fork and it's just flaking off and it's tender, it's done. Bugs are terrible. All right guys, let's cook these dang things. I had to turn the catfish off. It was just too stinking bad. I'm going to turn my head left out and they're going to swarm me. They're just swarming me. Turn it off, all right. Just trust, I'm cooking catfish right now. I'll give you guys some headlamp action when the skillet's getting hot. We're feeling good right now actually. Butter going in. Yeah, baby. We're inadvertently cooking a few bugs here in the process. You want it brown, but not black. Blackening. You don't want to blacken your butter. There we go, she's hot. She's ready. We've got to come in half so we'll fit in our skillet. There we go, baby. That's the sound of greatness right there. Yes, sir. There we go. Oh, catfish skin is curly. I'm going to get that ochre going here in just a second. All right, fresh ochre. Getting that dice. All right, we're going to fill that in. Quarter stick of butter. Oh, she's hot. She's real hot. I don't need gloves. Quick shot with the light. Throwing the ochre in. Wabamp. All right, the ochre is starting to condense. And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take my rice to heat it up. I'm going to put it in there. Put it in there very low. Almost just going to turn it off. Let that rice soak up some of the butter and the juices. Salt, pepper, garlic juices. Here's my headlamp. Sorry, guys. I'll take my headlamp back. Cooking, culinary. Culinary process. You know what's dark, guys, but I'm going to plate this up and we're going to take it inside. This is going to be amazing. Okay, boys, it's cooling down in here. I am going to shut this off so you guys can hear. Quietness. This is actually how I'm going to eat this. Over the bed of rice with the ochre, the filets, they look phenomenal. Now here's a pro move. Let me get my dinner table set up. That's how official this is. We've got to get the dinner table set up. All right, dinner table set up. Now here's an elite move. Elite move. This is a spicy mesquite honey. I got it at Bucky's. All right, here's what we're going to do. Drizzle over. That's going to be that sauce. It's going to hit the fish with a little sweetness and some spice. Also soak in with the rice. Pair it with our Dallas Blonde while I am. Pair it with a spork. All right, this might as well be an episode of elite camp dinners, because that's what this is. Catfish looks cooked perfectly. My eight inch cast iron that I carry around truck camping. It's flawless. It's seasoned so well, zero stick. Boys, about to do work here. Oh my gosh. With a spork. Eating it with a spork, it's so tender. Get the heck out of here. Oh my gosh. This is one of the best catfish dishes I've ever cooked in my life. The catfish, oh, it doesn't get fresher. It's falling apart. This is like four or five minutes each side. That okra, adding in a little something with the rice. Soaking in this with the butter and the other spices. Oh, I know you guys didn't see me pick the okra, but I literally just grabbed it right before I hopped in the truck to head up here. It's so fresh. Fun fact, I bought this to put into my mushroom tea to give it some sweetness. I had no idea it was spicy. Now I'm reading it, it says fiery, sweet mesquite. And that totally makes sense, but it is delicious on this fish. So, salt, pepper, garlic on here. A little bit of lemon would set this thing off into the heavens. I am so impressed. I'm gonna say top three best fish dishes I've ever cooked in my life. And it always tastes better at camp, right? But there is a dynamic to this that is quite incredible. I wish all of you could taste this right now. Blue catfish, don't cut them out. And I am done for the day. I have my bellies full. I will see you guys early in the morning for hopefully some white bass schooling and we get some more protein to go into our body and make it this 24 hours successful day. See you guys, manana. Northeast winds five to 10 miles an hour. Tuesday, sunny. Eyes in the mid 90s. North winds five to 10 miles an hour. Hey, guys. See any white bass schooling out there? No, yeah, winds blown about 30. I didn't think so either. Well, it was a good night's sleep in the wagon, y'all. And I came outside this morning. I still have not seen any white bass coming up to the top. And quite honestly, I'm not motivated to get out there and chase them. I've still got a full belly from last night, believe it or not, stuff, stuff myself. So I think I can basically just ride this thing out. Plus, getting out there in the kayak right now, trying to battle around with this. So if you guys have never seen one of these, this is the Hobie Drive System, I think is what it's called. So it works like this and it works really well when you have both the fins, but I lost a fin. And you guys see the waves out there. There's nothing blocking the waves for like 40 miles on this lake right now. So it's very rough. The big decision we're gonna have to make today, this beautiful morning, is do I drag the kayak back up the hill to get it onto my truck or do I try to like drift it down to the next cove where it would be easier, but then again, I'm dealing with the pedal, thinks to get a little wonky, plus I'm gonna have to walk all the way back. You know, I'm kind of just avoiding that whole thing because that's the hill right there. And I haven't had any coffee, you know, no nutrient. I'm not warmed up. I'm reorganizing the camper. I'm gonna clean it up, get things dialed for Colorado. And I got a reorganized tackle and everything. Things got crazy last night. So I'm gonna hold off on that, but that's gonna be interesting. Stay tuned. You're a little falling in. You gotta fall in on yourself. All right, fish and freaks. I have returned from my morning walk and I found three things of interest. Number one, we've got a spot that is way easier to get the kayak up than this whole situation back here. So that was a great find. I also found a deer that was bedded down, didn't care and didn't have a care in the world that I was there. Really cool, nice park deer, beautiful. And then I found a raccoon that at the time when I found it was eating a diaper. And that was gross. As a person that has eaten a raccoon before, I was disgusted. Just know that raccoons, especially park raccoons, not a good food source. So let's put the last hour and a half packing up the camper, making sure everything's functioning right. We're good to go there. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take this paddle. I'm gonna paddle the kayak around, park it in a cove where I can load it easier. And now we're all loosened up. Ready to go. Wind is just still rocking right into this bank. Okay, let's see if we can paddle. See if we can paddle our way over here. Got a little movement. Oh yeah. We got this decent. Look at this pond weed. Pond weed growing around the bank. Bass love that. Sorry, hope you're gonna get a few scratches. Oh, we're on grass. Dipsy-doop, for real. This is worth things to get pretty spicy. Somehow get that on top of it. We are secure. If you guys are wondering what straps I use, so I actually use the Rhino Rack is what I got on this truck. I can, it's a flat platform I can put anything. But I added some cleats. These cleats right here and then also some rings. Those rings you can really do anything with. And obviously they take ratchet straps, but the cleats, I've got the Rhino Rack brand straps that have loops on the end so I can put those on there as well. And they're really nice because they don't slide off, they don't go anywhere. And I've just got three straps on the GAC. So I've got two on the back, keep it stable, one over the front. It just holds the whole thing in place and make sure it won't slide back. And that's how we do it. All right, Fish and Freaks, it is 1130. So we have basically made it the 24 hours packed up, ready to go. Only thing I gotta do now is just clean the tanks and all that gross stuff that I'm not gonna show you. A little over a week away, we are gonna be heading out to Colorado. Gonna be doing a ton of fishing, a lot of camping. I know you guys want to stay tuned for that. So subscribe here to the channel, smash that like button for getting it done here at the great outdoors. And I'll see you on the next great adventure.