After deer hunting this morning, I arrived at the private hole about 10:30. The water has dropped a good bit since I was there last on October 6th. The boat was high and dry. When I left it last, the back of the boat rack was touching the water.

I used  my leaf blower to get the leaves out and after a little heave ho was ready to set sail. To start, a DT-6, a spot remover, and a swim jig the Mickey gave me were tied on. Look what caught the first one, and notice the fish only had one of the rear hooks.

The next one was hooked the same way and after a while there were no more bites. I started to get the feeling they really didn’t want it. The spot remover shakey head was next. A spot remover has a flat front of the lead head to make it stand up on the bottom and the worm stick straight up. They have good large hooks that are effective. If there is a downside, it’s that they seem to get hung up more because of the flat front of the head. The spot remover caught some but you had to shake it to make them bite and when they did it was light. Today was a blue bird day with a Northwest wind so you could assume it was not going to be easy. Most of the fish were relatively shallow. There is new wood showing each time I go. This time a tree appeared in 20 feet of water. Another top appeared in a favorite spot that gets fished every time but I never knew it was there. The 2011 flood placed a lot of new tops in new places.

This is the 4 1/2 FOD. There was also a 4 and a 3 1/4, 10 fish in all.  I quit at 3:00.

I have heard some good things about Lake Enterprise lately and Mickey and I decided to give it a try.  It’s a beautiful lake with relatively clear water.  The rumor was that spinnerbaits were the ticket in the cypress trees. We fished for a long time before Mickey caught the first one. It was right up against the bank so we started targeting anything close to the bank. Finally I caught one and Mickey had another to hit his bait three times, the last time snapping his line. That was it. We both had come as close to taking a zero as you can come without actually zeroing.  We have no excuse. The only adverse thing was the leaves out of the cypress trees were covering the water in some places. They were hard to keep off of your lure but if the fish were biting we would have caught some regardless of the cypress leaves. Since we didn’t catch enough to write about, I took some pictures of the plug knocker that I have been using to save my deeply hung up crankbaits. I saw it in a trash can when I was throwing away my trash about two years ago. It had a sissy string on it and no chains.

    

Notice the small rope and the strong key ring that holds the chains.  I added the rope and chains. The second photo shows the loop that you can stick your line into without disconnecting it. You just slide the knocker down the line until the lead head hits your lure or the object it is hung on. If just bumping it will not free it the chains will catch your hooks and you can pull the lure free. At worst you may have to change hooks. I love to use my pole and hook but it is only 10 feet long. With the rope you can go to 20 feet or more. I think it originally came from Bass Pro but the stronger rope and chains make it much better.

Mickey and I went to Ferguson this afternoon with the gauge at 9+ feet. My last fishing trip was October 6th so we had no real idea on where to go or what bait exactly to use. We started in relatively shallow water with Yozuris and after no results switched to spinnerbaits after Mickey caught one .  I try not to be too hardheaded and swap baits when someone else has success with one I do not  have tied on. With the spinnerbaits we had some bumps and nips that happen when the  fish really don’t want the bait. We soon left that spot and went to the North end of the lake, where we caught  a couple in very shallow water. The bait had to hit a limb on the tree top to get the fish to bite. We came down the bank from there and could not get a bite shallow so out came the 5XD. After numerous hangups, it finally caught a fish in 12 feet of water. So far, from 2 feet to 12 feet of water.  The hangups were all saved by a piece of lead with a rope attached. On the end of the lead are some chains to catch the hooks and free the hung bait. The gizmo has a piece of metal shaped to enable you to run your line through it without having to unhook anything. If the hangup is too deep for my pole, the other gizmo gets the call.  I found most of it in a trash can at Lake Monticello and just had to add the rope and chains. I have no photo but will include one with the next post. We continued to try both shallow and deep and caught a few more but had more bumps than fish caught. We ended up with just 7 fish but talked to others that struggled too. The fish are still in the lake however because we talked to someone who fished last weekend just before the front and caught 21 pounds for the day. The next day they caught 5 pounds on the bluebird day after the front. The winner of the tourny caught an impressive 19 pounds a day for the two days.