Well all its been awhile since I have spent much time on the board so I thought I would take aminute to catch everyone up on the goings’ on in the Russell camp. Here goes…
Shortly after the State Farm Tourney I had to report to Little Rock AR for a military school. Right in the middle of the tourney season this year so needless to say I was not real pleased with the school dates I was given. Not one to dwell on things too much I took some rods and reels and a tackle bag with me. I learned the last time I was down there that the local Green Carp fishing is great, as well as a pretty darn good eye bite.
One of my classmates was a good ole boy from Mississippi who fishes a local bass tourney trail inhis home state so we hooked up and started fishing after class. One evening at the lake the bite as the fish bite was slowing down and the pteradactyl sized skeeters were making their presence very well known. We saw a couple of cotton mouths chasing minnows along the shallows. HMMMMM we think out loud to ourselves wonder if we could get them to bite on the flukes we were casting?????? Well guess what not only will they strike at them, but the strike and chase pretty aggressivley. 
Now we end up hooking a smallish to medium sized one that measured right at 3ft. We thought that was pretty cool…. until we got it on the shore and we realized it was REALLY pissed off. Then came the discussion of how we were/who was to remove the hook from said reptile. We decided neither one wanted to get close enough to use the knife and neither one of us had a firearm(post regulations). We would drag the snake over to the rocks and dispatch it that way. Those things are tough. We ended the snake as we were hiking back to the truck the post game warden shows up and asks us how the fishing was etc. About that time he sees the snake and about jumps out of his boots. After a few adult words he asks were we from. I tell him Nebraska. He laughs and says should’ve known ,and he looks at my buddy and says being from the south I figured you would’ve known better. He made us toss the snake into bushes as we weren’t allowed to take our trophy back to the Barracks.! So we never got any pictures the snake sorry. The next day in class our senior instructor comes in and re-iterates that we are to leave the local venomous wildlife alone!! He did not mention any names though 
fast forward to last weekend…
I got home just in time to start making preparations for the Gov cup at harlan.
Work and home ended up dictating that I not leave until early fri morning for the tourney 
Not much time to prefish.
I had checked this board and saw where Zach had said the eyes were waay back in the trees. I played fourwheeler with the boat getting back into the trees we managed a couple of short eyes before we had to be off the lake by noon that day.
Sat morning greeted us with winds that were 180 from the day prior so my partner and I decided to fish the windlblown side of the lake. HAH. As the sun rose so did the wind speed. Sitting in the front of the boat trying to jig I felt like I was on a Mechanical Bull ( at one point I just about threw my hat in the air, hollered and jumped out of the boat). We ended day one with several short eyes , but no keepers caught.
Sunday morning rolls around my partner is sick as all get out. He ends up sleeping in the boat. We stick to our plan of fishing the wind blown banks. Same story as sat we caught some shorts ,but no keepers . we ended up with 0 weight total for the Tourney , a pretty good sunburn and some great laughs. All in all its was a tough bite for everyone fishing. Day one only had two teams come in with a limit and no limits on day two. Sunday saw ALOT of green algae in the water as well.
Tommorrow my buddies and I are taking the bikes up to Rapid city for the weekend, I am sure that will be an adventure as well.
If you have read through this thanks I hope you found it enjoyable….. 
. 
. We finished the tournament in sixth place 