I’ve been looking for a comfortable boat to put  in the Garhole so I don’t have to haul my boat up there on the gravel roads every time I want to fish. The dust or the mud, take your pick, is not the best for your boat.  There has been an old Fisher Marine in the weeds for many years, and when I inquired as to ownership, I was told the owner had sold his membership and left the boat, and that it was in the way and needed to be hauled off.  So that’s what I did. Here are photos when we pulled it out.

You can see, especially in the second photo, the condition of the interior. The flotation foam under the floor was soaked and was so heavy that Willie and I could hardly lift it in the truck. I stripped everything out, took all the junk off, and tried to clean it out. The weather was so cold everything was frozen together to start out.  The previous owner had made a duck blind out of it and had gone drill happy on the upper part of the hull, holes everywhere. When all the foam was out it was the perfect time to check for leaks.  With the boat on some sawhorses I filled it to 6 inches deep with water and not a drop came out. To  start putting it back together I wrapped some foam , cut to fit, in some heavy contractor trash bags, taped them well and installed them in the floor with all new over sized screws.  The front seat box had to go. Then I cut a front deck from treated plywood along with appropriate braces and had it all fitting right.

Then everything was removed and painted olive drab and put back together. An old trolling motor was installed on the front, Mickey donated some seats and swivels, and here is the result.

I put the rods I’m not using on the front deck pointed to the stern so I had to put some rod savers on the front deck to keep them from getting kicked overboard because the front deck was almost flush with the gunnel.  Can’t wait to try it out.

This afternoon when the sun came out I made a quick break for Lake Ferguson which was 25.1 feet and falling.  The water temperature was a cold 41 to 43 degrees. Not only was the water cold, the sun only stayed out a short while.  I started fishing at 2:15 and quit at 4:15 and did not catch a fish. I fished with a jig mostly and a short while with a DT – 10, pulling it very slow.  I saw Taff when I was coming out of the lake and he had caught 3, one of which was 6 – 10. He said the fish were extremely deep and just were barely taking the bait. Looks like I need to wait for things to warm up or take a lesson from Taff on cold water fishing.

Since it is so cold and messy I had the time to edit the photos on the site.  Some were added and some were deleted the ones that made the cut remained but the order of all were  changed.  I tried to put the ones of all my friends  first for your viewing pleasure.

Lake Ferguson stood at 15.97 when I went after the rain quit this morning and the water was 47 degrees. The first place I stopped was the Mickey Maranto bitespot and the shad were everywhere. They appeared to be dying from the cold water. There were fish feeding on them although I could not get any volunteers for the first fish of the year.  I tried several baits that would catch a bass or a striped bass there were no takers.  The fish gave me a couple of courtesy bites, just bumping the bait with no intention of eating it.  I finally gave up there and went to the steep bank. Mickey had given me a Hart jig with two rattles and a crawfish trailer, so I put it on. My steep bank baits were the jig, a 3/4 ounce Scrounger jig with a 5″ Kalin curly tail grub, and a DT – 10. Nothing was going on however and I started to smell a skunk. Finally I had a bite on the jig and caught a 2 pounder. When I got the fish in the boat I laid it on the front deck to get the camera, the fish flopped and the hook came out, then it was flopping amidst all the baits I had out and all my rods. I could just see one of my rods going overboard along with a couple of baits. In the end the only thing that went overboard was the fish and that was before I got a picture.  So I took a picture of all the baits that I used today just before I took my frozen fanny home.

Today when  counting up the fish for 2010, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of trips and also the number of fish. The review is meant as a learning process and not a reason to brag, for as my daddy used to say  “Mr. Brag always loses his tail”.  Fishing trips in 2010 hit a personal high of 80, just over ’08 and ’07’s  78. The number of bass was the highest for me too with 1146 fish, a 14.3 fish per trip average which is lower than 2009’s 14.4.  In 2010 42 bass over 4 pounds were put in the boat, with 25 included in the 415 bass that came from Lake Ferguson. The Garhole was second in fish production with 234 on 14 trips. Wolf Lake was best per trip with 169 fish in 5 trips. I should have gone there more often.  On the downside, Lake Monticello did the worst. I think the only 2 zeros I had came from there and some trips only with one or two fish caught. Hardheadedness came into play . After catching my largest bass there in 2006, and 4 over 7 there last year, I just could not resist the temptation to try for a big fish or two. Not being one to accept defeat, and actually losing two good ones there this fall, I kept returning for another whipping. The largest of the year a 6 – 2 came from Enid on a trip with Hal.  The lesson from this exercise for me is to go to Ferguson even more, as well as the Garhole, the Catfish Chute, and Wolf Lake. Leave Monticello alone except for a few times in the spring and when they are in the pads and will hit a Ribbit frog. The bait of the year for me is a tossup between the Ribbit and the DT – 6. The Ribbit caught fish for most of the year with the excitement a vicious topwater strike brings but the DT- 6 really caught the numbers of fish especially in the late summer and fall.  I’m looking forward to next year with great optimism and anticipation.