Mickey and I went to big bass Lake X this morning about 7 and fishing started at 7:30. The fish were very close to the bank and Mickey proved it quickly by catching two in the three pound range right off the bat. Anything under 16 inches went into the ice chest and the “overs” went back. By the time we had figured out the lay of the land the wind had picked up. Lake X is not protected by any type of windbreak, so the wind caused serious problems. I had planned to use a small worm with a light weight but the belly in my line made it impossible. The spot lock on the trolling motor made it possible to fish some . Sit in one place and fish the area and then move up the bank to the next spot. Soon my line broke on a hookset. I figured I had just tied a bad knot and retied. Not long later another line snap. The realization came to me that my line was rotten for one reason or another , most likely age. I backed off on the drag and continued to use that rod but with caution. A new spool is sitting in my room just waiting. Close to noon Mickey set the hook on a good fish that jumped to show us how big she was. After a good long fight where the fish pulled drag, it became tangled in a submerged log. I could reach the bottom with my pole with the hook and proceeded to try to unhook the lure because by this time Mickey nor I could feel the fish on any longer. Finally we decided to break the line and continue fishing. Mickey took the cut off hoe handle to wrap his line around and pull to break the line and was pulling when it came loose and the fish was still on. FOD 7 1/2 pounds.

We kept fishing around the bank but by 3:00, it was just about over. We caught 11, 5 of which we kept and 6 we released. We found out later a 9 – 9 was caught there yesterday.

Hal and I went to the Garhole Tuesday morning. When we arrived at the boat landing, we found the boat floating because all the recent rain/ice had caused a rise in the water. We winched the boat up on the bank and with the help of a bucket, drained the boat in short order. I hooked up the depth finder and we set sail. The newsed (Ebay) Lowrance depth finder down imaging worked great once I got the settings right. Fishing started around 9:00. It was slow going to start as we had to figure what the game was. Hal started catching a few on a “lunchworm”, a small Berkley worm on a slider head. It took me a long time to catch one. I remembered that I used to catch bass this time of year on a Booyah spinnerbait, so I put one on and finally long handled netted one on it. On one of my rods there was a Berkley Chigger Craw and since it is close to a worm I reverted to using it. The fish were not concentrated, one here and one there and most were shallow and close to the bank. That scenario was perfect for the spinnerbait so I picked it back up. It started working right away and the fish seemed to be larger than on the worm. It seemed the bite really picked up around 1:30 when the sun came out and it got balmy. It seemed to slow back down about 4:00. We quit at 4:30 not only because the bite had slowed but when I tried to crank the jeep that morning the battery quickly died. Not to worry we had some booster cables and the trolling motor battery but that would take time. It cranked fine but going for a new battery today. The old one was new in 11/15 because that was written on it. We also had to rearrange the boat rack and get it all squared away. Hal did all the heavy lifting as I just had a back surgery on February 2nd. We caught 22 with a FOD of 5 pounds. There were also a 4 3/4, a 3 3/4 and a couple of 3 evens. The FOD:

This morning I read this article on how Bass populations are affected by different factors. It comes from studies done on Kentucky Lake by state game and fish people. The whole article was interesting but my attention was particularly drawn to the effect of silver carp on bass populations. The article said the effect was not much. As a fisherman I tend to agree. Also of interest was the effect of tournaments on bass populations, especially the survival of summertime caught tournament fish. The article is at the following address:

https://www.wired2fish.com/fishing-tips/largemouth-bass-populations-what-affects-bass-fishing-on-large-reservoirs/

Lake Ferguson was 18.6 feet when I launched Tuesday morning at 10:30. The weather was forecast to be perfect, and it was. Light winds, high in the 60’s, and sun interspersed by clouds. I was apprehensive due to some negative reports, but the lake was down from the levels where the bad reports came from. The water was not as clear as it was a couple of months ago, with visibility around a foot+. Water temp on top was 54 degrees. I figured the fish would be deep and lethargic so I started with a DT-16 on the 70 bank. Soon the DT-16 came up with a small one that seemed pale, I’m sure due to the low water clarity. Going down the bank further with no bites, I began to see some shad dimpling the water so I threw a DT-6 to see if there were any bass around. The 3 – 1 that was there must have had its mouth open because it hit immediately. Nothing more until I reached the 70 spot where the 5 – 5 FOD put a summertime solid thump on a worm in relatively shallow water. A little later there were some gulls diving on shad in water that was 1 1/2 feet deep. I went to that spot and right out from it in 3 feet of water, a 4 – 11 hit a redeye shad. These bites were not coming one after another. It was a long time between them. I moved East into relatively shallow water where the water temperature was 57 degrees. There were shad dimpling the water in every direction and there was a 3 1/2 lurking to feed on them but no more in that area. Back to the 70 bank I caught one more 2 -13 and a small gar that were chasing the shallow shad. 19- 6 for the best 5 of the 6 bass caught, not bad. I saw Terry at the waterfront and he had caught 10 in water 10 feet deep on a Carolina rig, one of which was 7 pounds.

Edward and I went to the Garhole today about 11:30 to correct the wiring mistake I made last time, put on a new depthfinder and fish a little bit. The new trolling motor has a picture of a boat on the handle. If you turn it forward it goes backward. That caused all the problems. My paint pen is going to fix that by covering up the picture and drawing a simple arrow saying “F” and one saying “R”. The “nused” depthfinder from Ebay was easy to put on and worked very well. The only problem was I couldn’t find a color palette that I liked for the regular sonar. There are about 15 and I didn’t try them all. Going to do that on a rainy day in the garage. Downscan was jamb up, great. It took a long time to catch the first fish and that was on the back hook when I stopped the DT-10. Water temperature was 50 Degrees. We fished down the sunny bank getting a bite or two but no fish. The fish were on the shady bank. As it was getting late, I circled in one end trying to locate a tree that is standing up straight in 25 feet of water. In doing so , Edward put out his bait to troll and came up with a large spoonbill hooked by the tail.

I was casting trying to find the tree as well as watching for it on the sonar and I came up with a gar about 5 feet long with my bait in its mouth. It clowned a little but nothing like it would have done in the summer when the water was warm. Unbelievably, I got it to the boat and saved the DT-10 by sticking the needle nosed pliers in its closed mouth to make it open up and rescued the bait. We caught a couple more bass on the way to the boat rack. Six bass in all with a FOD of 3 1/2 with another at 3 pounds. A few more photos of the day.

The gar. You can see the parrot colored DT-10 in its mouth.

Using the boat hook for a gaff.

Hooked in the tail. Getting the hook out and saving the DT-6

Happy with the FOD.

This morning Son in Law Edward and I went to the Garhole primarily to put a new trolling motor on the Garhole boat. The old one quit the last time I fished there. I found an old photo of when the previous one quit and the date on it was 2013. Can’t complain about that service since it sits out in the weather 100% of the time. Like most expeditions of this sort, we started a little late. We arrived around 10 and started on the transition. I hooked up the wires to the switch backward after checking the connection three times but misunderstanding the picture type direction instructions that even an idiot is supposed to understand. After we reversed the wires on the battery we were good to go. We started off with a DT-6 but there were no takers even moving very slowly. Since Edward had never fished with a spinning reel, we had our share of tangles and tree shots to start off but nothing terminal. We fished around the hole with no DT-6 bites. We decided to move from the sunny side to another spot where the shallower water might be warmer. I told him to put the bait out the back of the boat as we travelled because I have caught some out in the middle during times of cold water. Before we got 50 yards he came up with this one.

We circled and circled close to the shore and out in the middle but no more volunteers. The quest continued to the shallow water . On the way another accident happened off of a treetop in six feet of water.

The shallows were unproductive and we returned to the treetop area and caught two more. One was on a worm where the bite was so light I didn’t feel it but just saw the line moving slightly. Since nothing was going on we called a halt at 2:30 with 4 fish and a FOD of 3 – 13. It was a beautiful day to be there, so much better than being cooped up inside.

Today was forecast to get to 70 degrees but was going to start off pretty cool so I was not going to go at the crack of dawn. I signed in at 7:55 and still had to get the jeep and the leaf blower. When I arrived at the Garhole I saw my boat sitting high and dry because the water had dropped about two feet since the last time I was there. I placed a small log behind the boat so when it was pushed off of the rack it would not dig in the mud. The leaf blower is an indispensable piece of equipment during the fall and made quick progress blowing all of the leaves out. The boat was then launched by pushing it off the rack and over the log into the water. There is an old can of car wax that I keep under the seat of the boat to wax the runners of the rack. I applied a good coat while it was still cool and I figured the fish were not doing too much. Although when I drove down the levee all the cows were up and eating. After I moved all of the winch paraphernalia closer to the rack because I was low on rope, I launched. The first cast was at 10:00 and was with a wacky worm in water about 4 feet deep. It was on a new spinning rod that I was using for the first time. Nothing. A DT-6 came next and when that came up empty, a regular worm got the call. Still nothing. I also had a Tokyo rig on with a small swim bait to fish a little deeper. Not any better. I began to get a little worried because I was in one of my favorite spots. Some friends have been catching fish deep so I tried that but still nothing. Finally I came to a very shallow spot, only a couple of feet deep and threw in there with a worm and caught a 4 – 5. Then I threw back with the wacky and caught a 3 – 11. Things began to look better. A couple of smaller fish came out too. When that ran out, I began to go around the bank and came up with some small ones. At the 5 pound log I threw a DT-6 across it and a big fish ate it. It was a 5 – 15. When I first put the fish on the scales they read 6 – 4 but settled down to 5 – 15. All the jiggling in the world would not get them to 6. The next cast came up with 4 – 8. The day was getting better fast. After this I visited a place that in the past has been great but not a fish from there this year and there was no change today. It looked like shallow was the ticket so I headed to a place that was shallow where I have caught fish before. I believe it was 2 feet deep but there were fish there, mostly small, 2 pounds and down. I used a DT-6 and held the rod tip high because on the edge of the flat there was a little drop. Everything was slower today. A lot of the bites came when the DT-6 was stopped. When that ran out, I hustled around to the other shallow spot but I caught only one there. Next I thought the 5 pound log would be a good bet. I was just fishing around the bank with a DT-6 heading it that direction when a good fish loaded on. It was another 5 -15 and had the same scale action.

I caught one other fish and then the trolling motor started shaking like it had a leaf on the prop but nothing was there. Soon it wouldn’t run at all and I had to paddle back to the rack. The motor was old and was a $36 Walmart Motor Guide so no big loss and it was time for me to go. I ended up with 22 bass and coFOD’s of 5 15. The best 5 weighed 24 – 6. Quite a respectable day.

Hal has been having great trips to Enid, catching one over 6 pounds each trip. He asked me to come and enjoy the fun. I met him at the Wallace Creek ramp Monday and we were fishing just a little before 8:00 . There was dense fog on the lake so we trolled to a nearby shallow gravel point. Hal was using a shallow square bill crankbait so I put on one of the same, pictured below.

We were fishing toward the bank but when we fished across the point this 5-11 showed up. Ended up being the FOD.

I was laughing so hard because I was holding it out toward the camera to make it look big. We caught another fish there while waiting for the fog to clear but then we decided to idle across the cove we were in to check out another spot that had a visible stump in shallow water. As we were approaching the place with the stump, the depth went from 12 feet straight up to 7 and back down to 12. We started fishing right there with a DT-10 and caught a 4+ pretty quickly. After exploration, we found the sharp ridge was not where the fish really were. There was a rocky hump where the fish were feeding and once that was figured out, we concentrated on that spot and caught several more over or close to 4. The rocks caused us to hang up a few times but the lure retriever managed to save the hang ups all day long, 100% effective. After we explored the hump we went to the gravel bank, once again with the square bills, where we fished very close to the bank because there was a little better dropoff . There were fish there too, both on the square bill and the DT-10, and again, with good size. After we could get no more bites, we travelled to Hal’s favorite spot, the two sisters, which are two large snags that have just showed up in the falling water. There was a difference in the bottom there too, like gravel instead of mud, that could be seen on the depth finder. The sisters produced too and in good size. There is value in multiple casts. When we first arrived it looked as if there were no fish there but after multiple casts to the spot they started to bite. When it stopped there, we then left again on patrol for some more stumps and fished a few with success and again good size. After that we went to a few unproductive spots, then returned to the sisters for a tight eye on a worm. There used to be some sunken tree tops along the dam that could be seen with the water at this level. We attempted to find them with the sonar and were unsuccessful except for a spot where we caught some fish but never hit one of the tops. After bragging about the new hooks on my DT-6, of course a nice fish , never seen, pulled off. Mr. Brag always loses his tail. From the dam we went to a deep rocky bank where the fish are either there or not. They were not today. It was getting over in the afternoon so we headed for the rocky hump . The fish were there again and again with size, and again a large one put the scold on my new hooks by coming to the top and shaking to escape. When that was over we tried the shallow point again as it was beginning to get dark. Only one small one there and another unseen pulloff. We had a heck of a day with 32 fish with 8 fish over 4 and one more 5-11. No 6’s today but close. I must have put the Hoo Doo on that, but WOW what a day. Our best 5 weighed 23-14 and the next best 5 weighed 19 3/4. We figured out that a Strike King KVD 2.5 is a favorite bait on Enid as we found 2 yesterday that people had lost. We divided them up and I am going to shine mine up and put on some new hooks to get it ready to go again.

This morning Harley IV and I went up Ferguson to see if the bass were back to the spots where they resided before the rise. A few of them were but not too many. We caught a few at the 70 spot on a DT-6 but they were timid. The size was good however with about half of the first ones in the 3 pound range. We left there and found a sandy point where the wind was blowing across it. We caught a few there relatively quickly and one that ended up as the FOD, a 4 – 5. We caught one other 4 -3 on a DT-10 but the Northeast wind had them slowed down. Here is one of the first three pounders.

We ended up with 14 fish, 3 of which were over 3 in addition to the 4’s.

Hal had a great day on Enid yesterday. His catch included a 6, a 5, two 4 1/2’s, and a 4. A total of around 13 fish. Very impressive size. Caught them on small crankbaits, DT-6’s and 300 Bandits. Nothing on plastic or spinnerbaits. Main spot was the two sisters, two stumps that are just now showing. He caught most of the big ones around them.

He had to go back.

Only 10 today with a 6, 5.5, 5, and 4.75.  Two sisters gave up the 6 and a couple of two’s but second trip nada. It was hard to fish with wind and waves. I had finally broke down and bought a couple of Tokyo rigs and caught one on first cast with it, rigged with a 3/8 oz tungsten wt and a max scent worm. One big fish on it and all others on cranks. All fish on vertical snags. Only about a half dozen other boats. Water temp 63.