This morning I went to Beaverdam with Richard. We didn’t even crank the motor, starting fishing right from the dock. One of the first things Richard said was he liked seeing the spiderwebs between the cypress knees because it showed no one had been along casting to knock them down. It just shows, if you pay attention you can learn something every day. It was a great observation. We were fishing with a baby Paca Craw with the claws dipped in garlic dye, his was Texas rigged and mine was on a screw on shaky head.  It was not far before we caught our first fish. They bit pretty evenly all morning. Casting was short range. Richard uses all spinning gear and is adept at putting it close, especially with a backhand snap cast. I on the other hand was not as accurate as I should have been but the fish helped me out by following the bait out almost to the boat, many times hitting almost right under the boat. The boat seemed not to bother them although the water was only 2 or 3 feet deep, but not very clear. I also was using a short spinning rod and yellow 15 pound Power Pro which was good for setting the hook.  Fishing along, we saw a wasp nest 8 to 10 inches in diameter just covered with those big black wasps. I shuddered to think about running into the limb with that nest. We were weaving in and out of the cypress trees bumping trees and brushing limbs. I became hung right next to a tree and as we moved in to free the bait a couple of wasps came from nowhere. Then I saw the nest.  I took off my hat for anti aircraft protection and it worked until we were out of range. When I tried to figure out how I was going to retrieve my bait, it was already free. In the brushes with the trees we acquired a hitch hiker.

A big fat preying mantis riding on Richard’s hat.  They eat wasps. Where was he when we needed him. It was a good day with a breeze most of the day, good conversation, and steady action.  We ended up with 20 bass, no biggies but each one stretched our line.

There was a little difficulty in launching the boat on Chicot this morning due to the low water. The lake is being pulled down to let people work on their docks and for vegetation to grow on the shore so the small fish will have greater survival next spring when the water comes back up. When I finally started fishing, not much was going on except the wind was blowing creating a chop that wiped out any hopes of a topwater bite. I went straight to Jackson’s spot and caught nothing. At the second spot I saw some minnows flinching and threw a shaky head to the spot. Caught 4 there but they quickly quit. I then left the shallow side and tried the deep bank. It has a great drop from 4 feet to 18 feet. Jackson and I have discussed how to catch the fish on that side but have never really been successful catching many. I first tried an XD3, but since it dives to only 8 feet I thought it might need to be upsized to an XD5. Caught one on the first cast. Hoping I had solved the mystery, I continued down the bank for almost a half mile with not another bite. It was a case of the “old Indian trick”. Since the water is so low you can see the brush people have put around their docks to attract fish. One dock had something I have never seen, grocery carts. There were probably 20 around the dock with more being lined up for when the water rose. In the brush around one dock  a bass came up and hit a shad. When I threw the clown colored super spook junior close by, it piled on. Seeing a little action was good for the soul because up until then not much fish activity was seen. It was time to go check on the first spot again. The fish were in it and active. A curly tail grub on a jig head did a good job on the schooling fish. When they became a little shy I threw the shaky head. There was one spot that a top was under the water and anything except a topwater would get hung. The water had a chop but they still would come up and get the spook at high noon. I used a Yozuri too because you can throw it so far and it fished fast so you can cover territory. When one spot slowed, I went to the other, and when that one slowed I went back. I ended up with 29 and a 3 – 6 FOD. There are so many Yozuri sized shad in the lake I wonder why the bass will bite a lure.

Hal caught this 7 – 0 today fishing with Richard in Beaverdam.

Mickey and I planned to go to Ferguson this afternoon after 5 p.m. but I arrived early, launched the boat, and went looking with the sidefinder. One of the things I discovered was this sunken barge.

If you click to enlarge the photo you can see the fish and the shadows they make. Continuing in the same area I located  an underwater point that I knew was somewhere in the area but not exactly where. When I take a screenshot it also marks a waypoint on the map.

Again you can see a few fish. When I turned around to make another pass I passed over the next place that was full of fish. Some of the larger ones were carp but there are many smaller ones of unknown species. The shad are plentiful too.

When I picked up Mickey we went to the 70 spot. We started far from the bank with the boat in 16 feet of water. A 5-XD was my weapon of choice and it struck quickly. Since we couldn’t catch any  others there we went to the Watzek bank and continued with the deep diver until a large gar relieved me of it. Starting on the way back we made a fortuitous stop where we caught 8 or 9 fish on worms fairly quickly. When that  spot was worn out we stopped at a similar one where Mickey caught the FOD, a 4 – 11.

When we could not get another bite there we headed to our last stop, the place I saw the so and so catch two fish yesterday. Instead of catching two, I got hung up two times, the first came free as I was getting out the “gitter” that I use to unhang baits that are hung up deep. The second required the “gitter” to get it free. Scared to make another cast we headed to the ramp. We caught 11 bass and all looked healthy except one. That one was not in terrible shape but was just not fat like the others.

This afternoon Willie and I went to Ferguson with the purpose of catching an ice chest full of striped bass. The word was out that they were out in force. We headed to the chute but after an hour or two we had only caught one. There were some that followed the bait right up to the boat but would not hit. We saw none hit on top like they usually do. A large mouth cooperated and a gar but no stripes. Usually things are the other way around. Willie was delighted with the gar and the one stripe made enough for a mess. The heat was so oppressive  we started home early. On the way, there were two places I wanted to try but there were boats on both. I stopped close to one to try another spot and watched the guy catch two small bass. He tried to be nonchalant and bring the fish over to the side of his boat that was away from us so we would not notice him catching a fish. Sneaky so and so!