The wind was too high to turkey hunt and the river was in the Garhole so the only choices I had were to take a nap or go fishing in Lost Lake.  It is an extremely shallow lake that only gets the river in it at a lot higher river stages, the ones we don’t want because of the threat of my cabin getting flooded.  The deepest place is probably 3 1/2 to 4 feet deep.  We sometimes pump water our of the chute with a relift pump to put the water up to a better depth. Now would be a good time for that since the river is high.  I barely was able to get the boat off of the trailer. I started off fishing with a Booyah spinnerbait and started to get bites but no fish. Finally I caught a couple but it was obvious something else moving slower would work better. When one would hit and miss you would see exactly where it was because of a puff of mud. A fluke came to mind, so after I’d get a bump a fluke would be the next serving. It worked fairly well but I think some of the bass were so small that some just had the fluke by the tail. I caught none under 13 inches but no biggies either. The FOD was a 2-13. A lot of the 1 1/2 to two pound bass had bloody tails indicating they were fanning the bed which may be the reason they were not biting so well.  I caught 8 in all. I got 5 bites on one small log from what I am convinced was a decent fish because  he knocked the tar out of it each time I’d go by. Never caught it.

I went to the Garhole Sunday afternoon seeking relief from the mistreatment from the turkeys. They were giving me the silent treatment so I sought relief until they became more talkative. The fish were not much better. I only caught 11, the FOD weighing 2 1/2 caught out of shallow water where she was spawning. The cold river water is on the brink of getting in and I am concerned it will affect any eggs that already been laid. The fish were caught on a variety of baits, including Booyah spinnerbaits, shakey heads with a tube, and a “steady Eddie” DT-6. When the water comes in, I plan on being on the bank with a Booyah, fishing the running water.

EDIT: I was there but the water was cold and no bites were to be had. The river water was 50 degrees.

In the middle of the morning I went to pull the plug and let the rainwater out of my boat at the Garhole.  I just had to make a few casts off of the bank.  Caught a tighteye on the first cast.  That’s usually the kiss of death on a fishing trip.  I left the Garhole proper and went to a small part that has been cut off by the falling water. There I caught another 14 bass and a chain pickerel.  My thumb came too close to one of the pickerels sharp teeth and was punctured. It bled freely and I had to retreat to the first aid kit in the truck and the Nuskin. The double hole was next and it had come up a couple of feet since the last time I was there. The river is high but was not running in. It must have been coming in through the bottom of the blewhole. Caught only one more there. The total was 16 but they were all small. The water was running in another hole where I saw 5 river otters. Three were at close range. They are neat animals that always seem to be having fun.

This morning the sunrise was gorgeous but I didn’t see it fishing. I was walking down the road, trying to keep warm, and trying to hear a turkey gobble. Pretty quickly I heard one but it was waaay off, as Duke Morgan is prone to say when asked what he heard.

I got some good exercise too, to the tune of about a 3 1/2 to 4 mile walk.  Fishing started at 9:45.  Hal has been having good luck at Beaverdam with a swim jig so I started with one of those.  It was quickly discarded after two bumps and nobody home when the hook was set.  The bass that were biting were so small they were grabbing the trailer and missing the hook. The Booyah came next.  It caught some but it also got bumped too much to suit me so out came the shakey head with a baby brush  hog on the back.  I caught some on that combination until I had a fit of bad luck with missing bites.  Next I pulled out a DT-6 and started catching right off the bat.  So armed with a shakey head, a DT-6, and a Booyah, I circled the Garhole keeping everything under 13 inches, which were most of what I was catching. When the back ends started getting pulled off the baby brush hog, I switched to a small Zoom tube bait. I screwed in the tube nose to the small spring on the shakey head, then I snipped a small slit for the bottom of the hook and then put the hook point barely sticking out the top of the tube.  It worked well.  The 4-7 FOD was the first customer.

Those Garhole bass are really pretty.  I caught 35 in all. All of those under 13 inches, which were most of them, were invited to Willie’s house for supper.  They are close to being overpopulated so it’s important to keep as many of the small ones as possible and take them out. When Mickey cleaned the fish last week, he found a high percentage of the small fish we kept to have eggs. If all those small fish spawn, numbers could get out of hand quickly. Then there’s the River. Forecasts say it’s going to crest at 35 feet at Arkansas City and that will be close to getting in the Garhole.  If it gets in the numbers of bass in it now will be fine.