Jackson’s niece’s son Jack with his first bass. He seems quite pleased, as he should be. The fish was caught in Lake Enterprise in a lot of boat traffic. When he comes back down I think I know what he will want to do.

Daylight Thursday , once again, saw  Jackson and me at the landing at Lake Monticello.  When we started, there were fish schooling and chasing shad. After a few casts one gobbled my topwater bait, deep into its mouth, as if it really wanted it. Optimism reigned at that point. A short time later Jackson hooked a good fish on a square billed crankbait, a Strike King KVD 2.5 I believe. The fish eventually jumped and unfortunately threw the hook. It was in the 4 to 5 pound range and would have been the FOD. When we arrived at a shallow pond levee we had a little more action with a Booyah but, by now it was obvious the bite was diminishing. We tried other places where fish have been caught in the past but for a long time had no luck. When the wind stopped and the water became glassy smooth, we saw some activity out in the middle of one of the coves in water 20+ feet deep. The fish were small but one a little larger finally hit the topwater and on the second try the back hook connected. Then we tried some other coves where the water would be slick. Sure enough, we came upon one where the fish came up and were a little larger. Some came up within casting range and we had a double on about 3 pounds each but only one made it to the boat. Again optimism reigned but most of the other ones were too small to get the bait. I had on a Strike King King Shad which is a large bait with good hooks and looks just like a large shad. I believe the fish were coming to the top and then going right back down to the bottom after hitting the shad. My bait would run about 6 feet deep but I never was able to catch anything blind casting. A rain sneaked up on us, no lightning, and started to come down pretty hard so we made a dash for the landing. On the way we ran out of the rain but as we put the boat on the trailer it caught us again. We waited it out in the truck and launched again as the rain quit. We went to a new cove with another pond and they were there too. A few volunteered on top but most were small. It was getting late and had been a long day so we quit after catching 11 with a FOD ~= 3 pounds. Again we let too many that were hooked throw the bait and escape.

Jackson and I were at the Monticello landing again Friday at daylight. As we were putting the boat in we talked to a guy who said he had seen some fish schooling the day before. That ratcheted up our expectations. As we eased out through the snag infested waters we soon saw schooling activity.  Expectations rose yet higher. It took a few casts to catch one but they were striped bass. We were going to a spot in the same general area anyway so we trolled over. There we caught a largemouth pretty quickly. Then I hung another that came up and gave a spectacular jump 18 inches high and shook its head so violently that it snapped my line. The fish was 2 1/2 pounds in my estimation. As I was rigging up another Booyah, I heard a fish jump and also the tinkle of my spinner blades. Before I completed rigging up the fish jumped again still trying to lose the bait impaled in its jaw. A good lesson in the need to retie your line before you start another day of fishing. Jackson then got into the act and had one to snap his line too. I think we caught one more in that spot but all were small. This was out in the open water around a submerged pond. We tried the pads with a Ribbit but could not get even a small bass to bite. I tried a swimbait in a little deeper water but only lost the two that bit. Finally in the edge of the pads Jackson got the FOD to bite his spinnerbait. It weighed 3 – 15. We tried and tried but just could not get it figured out. We ended up with 5 bass that came in the boat and even more that we lost. In years past, this time of year the bass have been in the pads but not now. I noticed none of the small insects that get on the pads so maybe there are no bream in the pads, thus no bass. Maybe that’s the reason for the bass not being there. A theory in progress.