Daughter Gayden Bishop went fly fishing for salmon in Scotland and caught one.  It is a beautiful fish. A couple of photos.

Lake Ferguson was 23.8 feet this morning. Since I caught most of my fish in one spot the day before yesterday, I figured that spot was burned out. So I went in a different direction and tried some new spots. At the second one I caught a 3 3/4 that had the whole Poe’s crankbait in his mouth. Caught no more in that spot even after an extensive combing of the area. I hit 8 more spots in rapid sucession with nothing more than a small one here and there. At the nineth place, out in the open, on the edge of the ditch to the upper lake, I found an old friend, a 2 -13. Then I went to Monday’s good spot, where I casted without results for the first 10 casts. Then a good one hit. When it jumped I thought it had the whole bait in its mouth. As it came to the boat, I was thinking about how to get the net out from under the front deck. The fish made the power dive they always make near the boat. I stopped it but when it changed directions it came unpinned. Seven pounds easy. Managed to catch one other 3 pounder but the day was ruined. Six bass in all.  One good thing happened today. I found a crankbait to replace the “found” one I lost Monday.  This one is almost pretty and adds a new color scheme to my collection of “found” baits. If they all work like the Poe’s did Monday, I’m in business.

I just changed the name of this post because it had become a spam magnet for some reason 09/30/09. Today on Lake Ferguson, 23.7 feet, I started just where I left off the other day, not doing very well. The old stuff wasn’t working so I thought I’d try something new. Tried a lot of new places. Stripes everywhere. Silver carp were everywhere too. Snagged one with my DT-6 up near it’s head.  When snagged near the head they do not fight very well for their size so I got my bait back. Finally I caught a nice bass, 5 1/2 pounds on a DT-10. About 2 casts later I snagged a carp that blazed drag and then broke my line. I decided to put on one of my “found” baits a Poe’s crankbait.  Then the DT-10 came floating up. Since I had felt no more carp, I put it back on. Two more casts and it was gone again courtesy of a carp. The Poe’s stayed on for the rest of the day although the DT-10 came floating by about 15 minutes later.  I had a 2 3/4 pounder coming to the boat and behind it were two bigger fish, 3 1/2 and 4 my guess. While I had the rod with the bass on in one hand , I picked up the rod with the DT-6 on and was doodlesocking trying to catch one of the other fish. It didn’t work, but I bet it was hilarious to watch .Caught 17 bass in all.  The FOD was the first one caught @ 5 1/2 There was one other 5 , two 4s, and a 3-13, a 3-8, and a 3-0. Except for about 5 dinks the rest were 2 1/2 to 2 3/4. Top 5 fish weighed 22-6.  All from an innocuous looking spot. I tried several others that looked the same but nobody home.  A very good day on Lake Ferguson. Now if I can just find a few more spots like that.

I went today to the Catfish chute with visions of catching a boatload. I have not been exactly tearing them up lately so I was needing and wanting some revenge. To start off the gar were very adept at picking my pocket and snipping off my baits. Then either the small bass or the bream just vibrated my worm or shakey head and would swim off holding the tail.  A grinner even got into the act, but I caught him. He will not be back. I managed to catch 4 bass in a rain shortened trip. The fish were as healthy as could be, looked like footballs. I weighed a 13 incher, out of curiosity, that weighed a pound and 11 ounces. Besides the grinner, a warmouth bass (goggle eye) and a stripe made up the off brands.  At least I’ll be having some seviche soon. Maybe I should go back to Wolf Lake.

Lake Ferguson was tough for me this morning. Only caught 8 small bass and most of those early. One on about the third cast,  which put the hoodoo on the morning.

Here is a photo of two grinners. As Richard said “One 7 3/4  pounds and one 220”. Beaverdam is covered with duckweed as you can see. They caught 19 bass including two over 5.  Still catching some on frogs. Trip before last was the grinner trip. The GrinnerMeister caught 5 from 7 3/4 on down.

Seviche or Ceviche

Are names for a fish dish made from fish cooked by the centuries old method of cooking by contact with the acidic juice of citrus instead of heat. It originated in Peru or Ecuador and the ingredients are highly variable from place to place and country to country. I have been experimenting with recipes and have finally developed one that I think is good enough to tell about.

Ingredients:

1 pound of fresh bass fillets cut into ½ inch cubes

6 limes, squeezed with pulp

2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced

1/3 green bell pepper diced

1/2 sweet onion, diced

2 (small) fresh Jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced

2 cloves of garlic, pressed

2 tablespoons of white vinegar

4 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro (some may want 2)

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 can Rotel, well drained

Place cubed fish in a glass or plastic bowl and cover with lime juice. Cover and place in refrigerator. Turn or stir after 3 or 4 hours to make sure all fish gets soaked evenly. I like to leave it in the refrigerator for 24 hours. After 24 hours, add other ingredients and gently mix thoroughly. You can serve immediately or place in the refrigerator covered for an hour or so. Keeps in the refrigerator for 3 days or so.

The firm flesh of a bass works well. Crappie gets mushy. Redfish works well too. Frozen fish will work but I prefer fresh. You can alter this recipe to your individual taste. This may be only a good starting point.

This is a photo of the lures I’ve found, refurbished and used. Thought I’d take a picture of them because Mickey and I caught nothing to take a picture of on Ferguson today. I found two of the big crankbaits Thursday. Fished with them today and caught a bass on one. Out of the 12, bass have been caught on 7 or 8. Quite a few on the green rattletrap, as you can see by the condition of the paintjob.

We caught one apiece today along with 2 goos and some stripes. We both lost the best fish we hung today. Both came unpinned on the way to the boat. I saw mine, about 3, but Mickey’s got off right at the boat and we still didn’t see it. They were tentatively biting just like Thursday.

Hal caught 110 fish at Arkabutla Wednesday. He had 36 bass (largest 2 pounds), 51 stripes, 1 catfish, and, get this, 22 goos (up to 7 pounds). They were all caught in a 100 foot by 100 foot area on crankbaits. He and Richard went Thursday and only caught 65 assorted fish.  Hal is going to have to write a column in Goomaster Magazine.  He is the goo champ.

Bad day from the start. Launched the boat, parked the truck and when I to down to the boat, it had drifted off the bank. Some joker had left the ramp wide open and made waves that washed the boat off the bank.  It was getting farther away,  so instead of just getting one foot wet,  I made a jump. My foot got there but slipped and I ended up on my behind in the water. Bad start, or rather, stupid start.

This was my first time on Ferguson in a while but I had my spots all planned out.  Trouble was, not many fish in my spots. I caught 8 and lost 8 on the jump. Looked at the hooks on the DT-6. They were sharp but the front one had been changed out and had really small barbs. Maybe they had been mashed down somehow. I changed the treble but lost another fish soon after.  Maybe the fish were just slapping the bait and not really trying to eat it.  I kept 6 of the 8.  Some will go to seviche and the others will go to the broiler. If this batch of seviche turns out as good as the last, I’ll post the recipe here.

Went to Wolf again today and again had a great day. I was afraid all my spots were worn out so I went on Google maps and looked at the whole lake to try to find some places where ditches drain into the lake to make points either visible above the surface or invisible under the surface.  A few spots showed some promise. Out of 7 or 8 new spots, 2 were great and one was good. The one pictured here was one of the great ones. It is simply a ditch coming out of the bank and has a delta that is underwater and sticks out into the lake. You have to look hard to see it when you’re just riding down the lake. Probably 35 came from this spot. I sat out in the lake a good distance and threw in with long casts. A DT-10 caught most from this spot.

One of the most dependable spots had nothing this morning but 6 or 7 good bass this afternoon.  A spot Hal and I caught a pile of fish on last week yielded only one fish today.  It’s difficult to determine exactly what is going on.

I did manage to catch 90  fish today.  Of those, a lot more were dinks than usual but probably a little over half were respectable. Five fish were over 3, with the FOD at 3-13.