Last night I had intentions to go fishing today at Eagle Lake but during the night I thought about the intelligence I had received about things not really going on at Eagle. Fishing with a Ribbit was really on my mind so I changed fishing spots. I planned to go very early and both spots were the same distance away so wake up time was the same for both. I arrived at the landing at a little before 6 a.m.. The moon was full and was not long before setting. There was no activity on the surface to start off and the pads were not as thick as they have been before. It was an hour before the first bite. I saw a fish make a move and threw to it and it did not hesitate to hit the Ribbit. I hesitated, set the hook, and the fish came to the boat. The water was clear and when a bow wake appeared behind the Ribbit I let it drop but nothing so I pulled it in and the wake continued and parked under the bait. It was an enormous grinner. It just sat there and had its dorsal fin just waving from front to back. I threw over some thick pads to a shallow opening and a nice bass charged 15 feet to get the frog. The hook was set and the fight was on but the fish got hooked on one of the pad stems and since I was holding tight it had a something solid to pull against and pulled the hook out. Had four to do that to me today. On a fish later in the day that dove and became hung up in the pads, I immediately gave slack and it became unhung and got caught. The fish bit pretty much all day. They were still biting when the wind came up at 2 p.m. and made me quit. I was a good way from the landing and had to idle all the way back. That lake is so stumpy you have to idle everywhere you go. Hit 6 stumps on the way back. Got back at 2:40. I caught 7 fish out of probably 25 bites and the FOD of 5 3/4. Wish I could have landed a higher percentage of the bites but I got to see each one and had a ball. By the way, the full moon was the first full moon in May which is when the shad spawn. I didn’t see a damn shad.

On my second trip since turkey season, Hal and I went to the Garhole with fishing starting around 7:30. Still a little rusty, I had a pretty bumbling start, while Hal caught a few fish to start off. We had a few topwater bites but it was evident that the fish really were not too keen on the topwater bite. Plastics were best but Hal had a small swimbait on a spinning rod that he could skip under green bushes that was effective. I caught a grinner on a topwater after it hit at Hal’s bait and missed. I “saved his place for him” , as Mack would say, by immediately casting to the spot. Most of the fish caught were near the bank in the shade and on some sort of plastic. As the day went on my fishing improved somewhat. As we went in to retrieve a snagged bait near an old boat rack of mine that floated off during high water, four two pounders came out from under it and one caught a small bream three feet in front of the boat. I dropped my plastic right in and caught one of them. Tried for another but too much activity had made them shy. Not long thereafter, I had a good bite, and upon hookset, the fish made a line singing run to deeper water just as big fish do. Alas it was big alright, but a catfish, and not that big, 3 pounds. After noon clouds began to appear and we began to cast a wary glance at the weather since we went to the hole in the jeep and the top was not up. We continued to fish until we heard some thunder, which is usually too late. I took Hal to his vehicle and almost made it back to the house before it really started to rain. We ended up with 20 Bass and coFOD’s at 4 3/4 pounds each.

Went with Ben on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 and Thursday morning for two hours. Everything was perfect, in that the weather was most comfortable, we were not overwhelmed by bugs and the water clarity was good. I started off with a cripple killer and Ben started with a DT-6. It became obvious that the fish were feeding when we started and the bite tailed off after a little while and picked up again late. Caught a couple on the cripple killer and Ben caught some on the DT-6. I thought I had a DT-6 on but three hours later I finally figured out it was a DT -10. I also caught one on each a swim jig and a swimbait. We ended up with about 30 (I didn’t count close like I usually do) and had a Big fish of 4 3/4. Ben had one to get off that was larger than that. The lake record there is 14+. The lake is well managed and all under 16 inches are taken out. I had a wonderful time because there was the great expectation on every cast of catching a monster.

This morning about 10:00 I took Albert Augustus my 3 1/2 year old grandson fishing on Lake Ferguson. His parents were along to watch. No photos of him fishing but these are of his equipment. He caught one every cast. He would reel it up and exclaim “Got one”.

Ooooh Wee did I take a whipping today on Ferguson. I went this morning at roughly 8:00 and fished to 1:30 without a bite. First I killed a lot of time looking for a way to get to a spot where we used to fish in the 1970’s. I tried to find the starting place but the map I had used to locate it was when the trees were green and without the leaves everything looks different. Adding to the problem is all of the dead wood floating and jamming up your ability to navigate once you leave the open lake. I gave up but when home I looked the GPS coordinates up on Google maps and am going to enter them as a waypoint on my electronics. The water temperature varied a lot today for some reason, from 50 in the open lake to as high as 56 in shallower areas that were out of the wind. I fished places where I have caught fish at this level, one of which is where I caught the first fish in Ferguson in 2020, a fat 6 1/2.

None of that today. Wind was blowing about 15 MPH but that was not the problem because I found some quiet spots. With the water this high, Lake Ferguson has turned into a couple of thousand acres of flooded ironwood bushes. My ability to fish those ironwoods is more like the problem.

I went to lake Ferguson about noon today. The water was 32 feet on the gauge and was 51 degrees in the upper lake. The water at the waterfront was 48 degrees. The wind was high. It reminded me of the day back in the 70’s when Hal and I had such a good day. A good day it was not. I caught one bass on a Rapala DTF-3 that I stumbled upon by a skinny lone stick. There are rafts of sticks/limbs from the ironwood bushes that have died. They made a lot of areas unfishable. I’m not crying about the dead ironwoods because they were taking over the lake. Another result of the high water for the last 15 years. Home early.

Mickey and I started fishing around 8:30 this morning at the Garhole. Our expectations were running so high we committed a faux pas by leaving the sandwiches that Carol had so graciously fixed for our lunch. They are always good. When we were launched and preparing to fish, I pushed the wrong button on the depthfinder and it went into apoplexy but not before it showed a water temperature of 51.8. Things were slow to start and it took a good while to get going but Mickey broke the ice with a fish that was in 10 feet of water on a DT-6. Notice that you can’t see the bait because the fish Swallowed it.

We started around the hole trying to find the combination but just could not put our finger on it. Another came off of a log and yet another on a DT-6 right off the bank. All slow. I cast a shaky head into a bunch of sticks that were part of a tree top. It became hung up immediately and I jiggled it trying to get it off. The only way was to go with the boat. As I closed in on it I saw a bass in the clear water that had its head down like it was getting something off of the bottom, and it was, because my line started to move. When I set the hook out came the 4-4 FOD. The trolling motor was about 4 feet from the fish, amazing. The fish was relatively slim and not full of eggs as you would expect for this time of year. We surmised that it was a large male bass that was up preparing to make a bed for his girlfriend. Mickey had already caught one off of that spot with a spinnerbait too. All this was going on in a relatively protected pocket. The wind was absolutely howling. When we came out of the pocket fishing became difficult. In some places the boat had to be pointed into the wind so it could be held and allowed to be controlled so we could fish going backward. We went around a couple of times without much to show. Around 3:00 we started to get some bites and catch one or two more on very shallow logs that we had fished before. The water must have been warming. The depthfinder was still on the blink. We ended up at 3:30 with 12 and the male? FOD. EDIT: After a brush up on the online instructions, fixing the depthfinder was relatively easy. I had pushed the button that adjusted the brightness and had it almost to zero. When all else fails, read the instructions.

I met Tom at the landing at 8:30 Friday morning. The major period was supposed to be about that time. We rode a little way and started fishing but nothing. As we reached the place where the fish were chasing shad the last time, there they were. Not quite as hot as before but the depth finder screen was covered with shad. I went through my tackle trying to find something they would bite. A 1/4 oz. redeye shad came closest. It got two bites on the same cast, with one being on for around 4 seconds. Really frustrating when you can see them all around but can get no takers. Finally the fish quit, and I’ll have to say it was a relief to go somewhere else. Tom caught a 4 on a jig out in front of a dock and we thought we had it figured out but no more. We tried the spot where I caught a few but nothing. Going back toward the ramp we came upon the bass chasing shad again. Of course we stopped and tried some more. You could see some of the threadfin shad were dying, an easy meal for a bass. Why bite a moving bait when the shad are being served up on a platter. I put on a drop shot because there were a few fish on the depth finder right on the bottom. I got a bite and felt pretty good that I had figured it out, but up came a 3 pound catfish. It was then time to go.

On the way home I got a text from Ben with this photo.

9-12 , Caught around 3:00 on a Bandit flat max shallow crankbait. He caught 14 in two hours, taking out 10 small bass and releasing 4 good ones including the one pictured. That’s what I call a good fishing trip.

Hal and I started fishing in the Garhole this morning around 10:00 with water 46.4 degrees. I wanted to get a demonstration on how to fish with a drop shot and Hal does it a lot. On Lake Enterprise the drop shot showed me that it was harder than you would think. Hal started the demonstration quickly with a 4 1/4 in the first 15 minutes. His line could be seen twitching before he set the hook but he waited to make sure the fish had it before he just pulled up to set the hook. A DT-6 was calling me to throw it in some shallow water and finally caught a couple of small ones. The fish were really not just burning it up. We tried just drifting up to a top and dipping the rugby head in between the limbs but not a bite doing that all day. We arrived to a spot where last time I was there I caught one I did not suspect out in the middle of a cove where the water was 10 feet deep. The drop shot went in and I caught my first fish on one and even another. No more however. As we fished around the North side of the hole where the sun had been shining all day, a fish flashed at my DT-6 and when I paused it, flashed again, missing both times, and finally again where it got enough of the hooks to not want it again. It was obvious things already slow, were getting slower. We fished a little farther around and all of a sudden with no warning there was a loud crack and part of the front deck that holds the front seat broke and fell in. I was fishing to the side and was falling in slow motion toward the water. My feet came over my head and in essence I did a back flip into the water and went under. Hat was floating, sunglasses gone. The water did not seem too cold for some reason. I swam back to the boat and pulled up on the side and with a lot of help from Hal came over the side into the boat. Hal gave a 9.3 on the dive with slight deductions for the expletives uttered before splashdown. We fished another hour with no bites. Being wet was not that bad. What was bad was having to sit sideways on the front deck to fish. Lucky no kinks in the back so far. Phone got wet and son Harley went on the internet and found a way to dry it out by putting it in a sock and attaching a reversed vacuum cleaner to the sock for three hours. I’m using a hair dryer on low. Been on hour so far. We ended up with 11 fish and the aforementioned FOD. EDIT: Much to my disbelief the sock trick worked, phone started right up and worked. Link to video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEjC0Ude8CA

All it takes is a little change in the weather to change what the fish are doing. This morning on Lake Enterprise the water temperature was 47 degrees to start versus 51 the other day. Not a fish was seen chasing a shad and not many were seen on the depthfinder where we caught them the other day. I idled and looked but there were not many to be seen. I turned on the sidefinder so I could cover more area and finally shad in droves started to show up down by the 72 tree, so I started fishing. Caught a 3-0 on a DT-10 in the first 10 minutes but apparently it was the “old Indian trick” because no more followed. I intended to fish a drop shot today to catch those fish right on the bottom but that was so slow and the fish were not concentrated enough. There was a long lull, so long in fact I was almost ready to quit but as a line of clouds came over like a front and it got a little chilly the fish bit a little. First a bite that was missed, then another fish, then another bite missed but it came back and got it . 5 1/2 FOD. It took a long time for another bite but a tighteye bit and got caught. No more after that. Four fish for a tough day but the last day probably for a while because of the weather.