Jackson and I met at daylight at Grand Lake and were greeted by a Nissan truck nosed over into the water almost half submerged. Someone was going to have a worse day than we were. Our target was some lily pads on the North end of the lake with some frogs, both Ribbits and floating frogs of several descriptions.  Strangely enough the wind was already blowing a gale when we launched and blowing directly into our pads. Reminded me of last week. We tried anyway to no avail.  After the frogs got old spinnerbaits were the bait of choice and Jackson also pulled out an Alabama rig. Nothing was working well until we arrived at one dock where I had one to hit and jump off, Jackson caught one on the A-rig , and I caught one on the Booyah, all on three casts. We tried and tried there but could get no further cooperation. By then the waves were like the ocean. The eye on my boat where the winch line is attached had a small crack in the metal just under it. Jackson had volunteered one of his employees to weld it for me. The plan was to leave Grand Lake, pull the boat to Wilmot to get it welded and then try it out in Lake Enterprise. The lake has a good bit of duckweed and we had reports of fish being caught in it. Frogs again. We caught one right away and then another on a Booyah a little later but then the rain started. We fished a little longer but I’ve never caught many in the rain and today was no exception. I think our total was 7 and none big. I received an email from Hal saying he and Richard caught a 6 3/4 and a 5 1/4 at Beaverdam just before being chased off the lake by a thunderstorm.

Could also be titled Wind II . From the time Jackson and I reached the landing to the time we launched the boat, the wind had picked up noticeably. By 9 a.m. it was howling, which sent us to the bridge over the dam. We caught a bass, a stripe and the Goo FOD there.

The goo had a really fat stomach, just like a bass before it spawns. I don’t know whether the goo was full of shad or getting ready to spawn but it appeared to be about ready to pop. From there we went to some of the spots I fished last week and had about the same amount  of luck, nips but no real bites with a fish here and there. Most of those places were sheltered from the wind. The fish made us go down from a spinner bait to a shaky head worm. Even with the worm we had pick ups and put downs before we could set the hook.  We had to quit at noon thank goodness so we started back. There were whitecaps after we went under the bridge that made for a pretty rough ride in my flat bottomed boat. Putting the boat on the trailer was pretty dicey too but Jackson did a masterful job. We ended up with 8 bass.

Since the weather was forecast to be windy Thursday I planned to go to the North end of Lake Chicot where I might be able to get out of the wind. The forecast was correct in spades. Early it was not too bad but the fish were playing hard to get. I caught a few on a Booyah but they were few and far between. For some reason I thought I might make it to Jackson’s squirrel log, but when I approached the dam that separates the North and South ends of the lake, I could see whitecaps on the other side of the bridge. When a strong South wind blows it creates a current through the passage under the bridge.  Indeed I caught the 3 pound FOD there but could convince only that one to bite. The wind was blowing so hard that, had I not caught my hat, I would have been blown into the drink.  I’ll have to admit, I became a little bored and started tinkering with my depth finder and took a couple of screenshots. The first one is a side finding view of a stretch bank I had just fished and caught nothing . Earlier I fished down it and caught a few until a man mowing the grass right down by the water ran me off with his noise. I wanted to see if there were any fish there that would not bite.

There were some there. If you click on the image to blow it up, you can see a few fish at the top between the 40 and 48 lines. There is also one around the 16 line at about a 45 degree angle from the temperature reading. The second screenshot is of the bottom under a buoy set to mark sunken Christmas trees to attract fish. You can see all the fish around the trees. A couple at the top of the screenshot are very long and I would bet are gars.

I ended up with just 8 bass.

After  church I decided to make a break for the private hole for an afternoon of fishing.  I called Mickey at the last minute but no answer so I left a message.  He called when I had made it a little over half way.  We decided for me to go get the battery and depthfinder and to meet him at the gate. It worked perfectly as I had just made it to the gate when he arrived. We started fishing around 2:30. After we put in the water we headed for our favorite spot but we caught none there. We started with worms, spinner baits, topwaters and crank baits. Finally we caught a couple on worms so that bait got the early call. As we continued around the hole, we caught a few on the spinner baits and finally on the cranks. Mickey had a DT-6 and I had a Strike King 3XD both of which dive to 6 or 8 feet. As the afternoon passed , we began to see more activity along the banks. Some of the time the bass would be gone by the time we arrived to within casting distance.  When that happened the crank baits were a good bait to sniff out which direction the fish had gone. I thought that as the evening progressed activity would pick up  but it tailed off. We ended up with 16 bass, 3 crappie, a grinner, and a bream, caught on a crazy shad topwater bait. None of the fish were over 3 pounds.