Mickey and I were going to the Garhole but the weather was dicey and the landing there was even more dicey so we went to the chute.  After we caught the first fish it started raining, not  hard but wet.  We fished through the rain and were catching a few all along, mostly on a worm. I caught the first one on a swimbait and missed a few more. Mickey did his usual trick by calling one up with a crazy shad.  Called it out of an ironwood bush and it had the lure sideways in his mouth.  Then Mickey picked up a worm and started catching them on a regular basis. I’m hardheaded, but not that hardheaded, so I picked up a worm and tried to catch up.  Occasionally Mickey would pick up his crazy shad and throw a few times. One of those times he got hung up and pulled it. The lure came loose and was coming straight at his head. He put up his arm to stop the bait and it hit his forearm and went through the rainsuit and up to the barb of the hook.  Dr. Metcalfe, having recent experience in this sort of thing, sprang into action. We unsnapped the bait from the line, took off the rainsuit except the part that was pinned to his arm. I worked the needlenose pliers down the hook until I was close to the barb and pulled gently to see if it would come out. No deal. We decided to count to 3 and snatch. It came out with no blood. We continued fishing until our cutoff time. After putting up 2 rods, I picked up the one with the swimbait and made one last cast and got a bump.  Not wanting to let the fish get off that easy, I made a couple more casts and caught the FOD, a 5 – 8 on the last cast. We caught 18 total and had a wonderful time despite the rain. A photo of the 5 – 8.

Got another email today from John Eddleman today. He’s been tearing them up in his secret spot for the past three weeks.

I met Mark on the bank in front of his house at 6:30 this morning.  Curb service. It was , I believe, my second time to use the running lights on the boat. Lake Ferguson was falling slightly and was at about 20.4 feet.  We went right to the good spot but we went down the whole bank almost before we caught one. Slowly the fish started to cooperate and bit a worm better than anything else to start.  Mark put on a Yozuri lipless crankbait and started to work on them to the extent I rattled around in my tacklebag and came up with one too.  The fish were here and there but seemed to regroup in one place. We would fish there until no more bites and then go down the bank and come back. When we came back some others had moved in and would bite. As those schooling fish will do, they nipped at the bait, with many missing it or coming unpinned on the way to the boat. For some reason this morning I did not pull my book and mark each fish down. Maybe it was because of the slow start. About 9:00 I asked Mark how many he thought we had caught. 25 or 30 was the answer and that was about what I thought a conservative figure would be. We managed to catch about 5 more apiece before Mark had to go. The FOD so far was 2 – 14 . We both had invited a few home for supper.

After Mark left I went back for a few more casts. Nothing was happening when I returned and I had almost come to the conclusion Mark had left at the right time. There was some activity down the bank in what was supposed to be the best place but we had not had a bite there so far.  It was a bite every cast with the Yozuri to start off.  The willow leaves had accumulated so badly they fouled the bait on almost every cast so I used a worm. They didn’t miss it. I caught 20 more at least with  one being a 3 – 7 FOD. If you add 25+10+20 you get 55, not a bad fishing trip.

The lake was rising this morning and was at 21.8 feet. The rising water seemed to spread the fish out as opposed to the falling water concentrating them.  A 4 1/4 pounder was pretty in the early morning sunshine.

Notice it was caught on a worm, as the fish would only bump the DT – 6.  I saw a few chasing shad spread out all along the bank.  I’m beginning to really believe in the scent that I’ve been using. Since the fish were biting lightly, and some hit it and spit it out, I put the scent on everything I used today. On the worms too. I caught a catfish, a grinner, and a warmouth bass otherwise known as a goggle eye.

I only ended up with 17. Only 5 of those qualified (less than 13 inches)  to be invited home for supper.

The 4 1/4 retained the title of FOD.  I have edited the cypress tree post with a better photo of the tree.

It’s a whopper alright but it’s not a fish. It’s a prize winning cypress tree, I think the largest in the world. The tree is located in the Sky Lake WMA in Humphreys County. It is said to be 2000 years old . I don’t know who figured that out but it’s massive. It’s not the only one either there are many large trees in that stand. The picture does not do it justice because there is nothing in it so you can judge the size of the tree. The swamp that it’s in is dry because of the drought and the MS Dept. of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks is building a walkway out to the tree so it will be accessible when the swamp fills again with water. It’s worth the ride over to see it.

Previously, In an effort to combat the volume of spam, I cut off the ability of readers to comment. It did not help.  I’m turning the comments back on and will continue to delete the spam.  Thanks for visiting The Bitespot.

Saturday, Taff and his tournament partner Gene won the event on Lake Ferguson. Their catch was 20.25 pounds which included two twins about 4 3/4 pounds each. Of course, the spots they caught them is classified information but they did not catch them where I’ve been burning them up.  Taff called to thank me for wearing that spot out because 4 boats went straight to it the first thing.  A 4 pound average was great. Congratulations !

I went Friday morning at daylight, really a little before, but someone had beat me to the lake and I was nervous they were headed to my spot. They were not however and the fish were not there either but I knew they were somewhere close.  Early you could tell it was just not going on. Slowly the bite started, little ones first and then the larger fish.  I found a spot, on the same bank that I’ve been fishing all along, that was full of fish but I could also see fish schooling chasing shad about 100 yards away. It was hard to stay put with the ones I had because they never came up. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.  I began to notice the schoolers were very small and was glad I stayed put. I caught fish on all these baits this morning.

From the top DT – 6, DT – 4, Rapala Thug, DT – 10.  The only other bait I caught some on today was a worm.  The DT – 6 and the DT – 10 caught most of the fish today, even this Goo which is the smaller of the two I caught.

The Goo was after catching around 20 bass and I hoped the bass bite was not over.  I don’t know how many times I have been in a spot catching bass and then catch a Goo and not another bass. Today the bite continued and 53 bass was the total for the day.  I quit at 11:30. The FOD was 4 – 13 with 4 others over 3. The largest 5 weighed 18 – 6.  A day like today makes up for all those days Lake Ferguson sent me home with my tail between my legs.

Mickey and I put in Lake Ferguson at 3:00, or a little after, this afternoon with the lake at 22.4 feet and falling.  We went straight to the good spot and started catching.  DT – 6s were the bait of the day. Some of the fish had the whole bait sideways in their mouth. This is a photo of the one I used.

It is Darrell’s bait that I found earlier in the year.  When things cooled in the good spot we moved down the bank and found another hot spot, this one a little deeper. Since it was deeper we pulled out DT – 10s and continued the catching spree. The photo is of Mickey with the 4 – 5  FOD.

All the bass today were between 2 and 3 except a few small ones and 4 over 3 pounds, FOD included.  We arrived back at the landing at 6:30 and had a final total of 55 bass after fishing roughly three hours. A very outstanding afternoon.

After starting in another hole and catching only two in about 30 minutes, I was going to the “L” hole again.  The double hole was on the way and I had some intelligence that the bass had been hitting against the bank late in the afternoon. No one had been fishing there for bass because there was too much moss. Sounded like Ribbit country to me. When I got there it looked like Beaverdam jr., except there were no cypress trees. It had lots of duckweed that was flowing with the wind.  Checking it out, I made a few casts from the bank. Three bites and caught one, all small. Just like the experience at the “L” hole, that sucked me in.

If there were as many small bass in the hole as I thought, some were coming home for supper.  The flowing moss determined where the fish were. They mostly were on the moss edges or close to them.  The fish were not shy about biting but they were so small they had trouble getting the Ribbit hook in their mouth.  A few larger bass were present. A couple of two pounders hit just about the time I had convinced myself that none were present. Then a 3 1/4 blasted the Ribbit.

Later the 3 – 9 FOD blasted it right in the middle of a treetop. After I set the hook, the fish was immediately around a limb and sawing my 12 # Vicious flurocarbon. I paddled over and got right on top of the fish and it came off the limb and made for open water. The line held, but after I got the fish in the boat I had to cut off 8 feet of line that was scarred.  That Vicious is good stuff. I ended up with 28, 13 of which made it home with me and with Willie for supper.

While checking on a bow hunting place I found this Luna Moth dead, just lying on the floor of the woods. There are many neat and beautiful things in Nature if we’ll just look.

Hal has just returned from a trip to the boundary waters of Canada. He fished and camped on this lake for 10 days.  The picture is of a 3 1/2 pound smallmouth he caught.  All hooks have to be barbless.