Monday afternoon I went to the house on the river to take my hunting “stuff'” and prepare for fishing Tuesday. After taking a Bud ride to look at my boat, I returned to the house. My wife likes the old oriole nests that usually fall out of the trees this time of year during spells of freezing rain. There have been none of those this year. The orioles like to build their nests in the trees along the river so I set out to collect some. I took a .22 bolt action with open sights to do the job. The first one was in front of the house. I pulled up in the jeep and took aim to shoot the small limb, about the size of a pencil. On the first shot the  limb parted and the nest came down. I couldn’t believe it. There was another close by so I tried it. Again to my surprise it hit the ground on the third shot this time. Getting a little cocky, I pulled up to another and shot 15 times and it did not budge. By then it was getting really dark and I couldn’t see my sights, at least that’s my excuse. The birds use strands of towboat rope and other things to weave their nests which are a work of art.

The next morning the water temp was 48 degrees at 8:00 when I started. A shaky head got the call and finally caught one weighing 4-0 that was 13 feet deep.

During the day the bite was light. Not the electrifying tap we like to get. The bait would just stop. As the day went on the water heated up to 55 degrees and the bite heated up a little too. In one spot I lost a jig and then was fishing with a DT-10. There came a terrible backlash and the wind started blowing. As I was trying to get the tangle out the DT-10 somehow went deep and hung on a log. I wound up backlash and all but still could not save my DT-10. After it broke off, I had to cut out the backlash. I pulled out some new line and re-spooled which meant splicing the backing and the new lines together with a blood knot, all the while being blown into a treetop. Not a happy 30 minutes but I kept my cool and started anew. Shortly there after A 4-14 turned up on a parrot colored DT-10. The water had warmed and the fish had moved up to feed. I ended up with 8 with 2@ 3-2 , a 4-0, a 4-14 and of course a 2-14 for a top five weighing 18 pounds. Not too shoddy. I quit at 2:30.

My father is the first person that gave me that advice and it was apropos on Friday. When I reached the city front, there was only one other person fishing, they had just launched and were preparing to leave to fish. Wednesday I caught most of my fish in one small spot and  was planning on returning to it. When I arrived, the boat that launched before me was sitting dead on the spot.  I continued down the bank for a quarter mile in hopes of picking up a fish or two until he left. As I passed by he caught one and said it was his first. After I had passed he caught another. He was fishing with a worm or jig of some sort. I didn’t see him catch any more but he was stuck on that spot. And stuck he was, staying there from 9:00 to 3:30. I’m sure he caught more but did not load the boat.He had caught some there before. I was fishing with a DT-10 and an XD5 and had no takers. I also tried a shaky head but the wind was about 15 and hitting me directly making worm fishing difficult. I left and went for some wind protected areas but the fish were not wanting to chase a crankbait, even if it was moving slow. The gars would however. I hooked a gar that looked half as long as my boat. When it come up I could see the line in its teeth and about that time the line parted and it swam off with my bait. I held the boat in that spot until another bait could be put on hoping the XD5 would surface, but no luck. I returned to fishing down the bank, forgetting about finding the bait. In about 5 minutes I looked down and there it was. Best thing that happened all day. I had put all my eggs in one basket but I let someone beat me to it.

I was looking at the radar today while in physical therapy and saw what looked like a break in the rain that might last until dark. I also saw on the river forecast that it had changed to a stand today and Thursday and up a foot Friday. Friday was going to be my fishing day but it looked like I needed to go today. After lunch I hit the water and around 12:45 my DT-10 hit the water on the first cast. It didn’t take too many casts before the first fish came to the boat, and two more in quick succession. My thinking was oh boy I’m getting ready to tear them up here but that didn’t materialize. Then it started to rain and the rainsuit came out. So much for my forecast. No more fish in that spot so I started down the bank. There was a good spot Mickey and I found that was marked by a snag on the bank. It was a large treetop that was in pretty deep water when we found it but was really deep now. The DT-10 would just touch it locating it for me. I threw a worm up and down it with no results. The DT-10 got a second chance and a large crappie bit right under the boat. It was invited home for dinner and was poached with Hollandaise and capers. YUM. Continuing down the bank there were no takers but the rain continued on and off. Finally the worm enticed a deep fish to bite but it was the only one in that spot.  It was also the first fish caught on some new line on my spinning reel. It is made by Ardent and is called Gliss. It is as limp as the 17# Nanofil, is a very small diameter that casts a mile, and is not a braid. It has no stretch and is 40# test just right for my frog rod. Mickey and I had found a spot where we caught a couple on the first trip but caught a lot on the second one. In that one spot I caught two dozen and probably could have caught more but it was beginning to get dark. I quit with 28, three of which were over 3 and the largest was 3 1/2 . Then I made my break for the ramp. The river was at 26 feet and the water temperature was 55 degrees. With the water up 7 feet since Mickey and I went last and two months had gone by, I had to use the GPS on the depthfinder to find some of the spots. They were not marked with a waypoint but I could see where the boat had gone in November. The good spots were where the line was all “squiggley”. We had circled and circled those spots and you could see them well.

This morning in the fog Tom, his brother, Rusty, his son in law Joseph and I went to Monticello. The lake was as calm as it could get, and the water was clear and 49 degrees. I fished with Tom and we fished hard but to almost no avail. Each boat caught one fish, the largest one about 3 pounds. By the end of the day the water was 56 degrees. No way to sugarcoat it we got spanked.

The private hole is a couple of feet lower than the last time I fished there as evidenced by the boat sitting far up on the bank, high and dry.

After launching the boat, I fished right around the launch. The ramp down to the launch has washed over the years and has a small shallow flat before it drops to deeper water. I started there, first with a DT-6 and then with a shaky head with a trick worm attached. The shaky head did the trick and rather quickly the first bass of 2017 came into the boat, a fat 3 pounder. I was quite happy that things had happened so soon but you couldn’t tell it by the expression on my face. I look like an old sourpuss.

I continued fishing that spot but only one other small fish came into the boat. Next I went to my favorite spot in the private hole. The wind was howling all afternoon and had I been anyplace else except the private hole there would have been no way I could have fished. Leaves were picked up off of the floor of the woods and blown into the water making it hard to fish. The anchor was an indispensable item today. The wind blew so hard that a couple of times it blew the boat backwards even with the 30 pound thrust trolling motor on high. At the favorite spot I dropped the anchor and was using a 3/8 oz shaky head. The moving boat often gave the appearance that a fish had the bait and was moving off. Finally it appeared that the line was coming toward the boat, and I knew that was wrong, so I set the hook and came up with the 3 1/4 FOD. Once again only one more could be coaxed out of that spot. I had been fishing on the side that the wind was coming from and I was watching  the depth finder on the way across the hole. When I reached the side that the wind was blowing to, the screen lit up with fish and the water temperature had warmed from 47 to 51 degrees.

To take this photo I stopped the screen and by the time I finally got the snap the boat had been blown up on the bank. Five fish came from this spot with two more putting the scold on me by feeling me first before the hook could get set. The bites were very light and the wind made it even more difficult. I ended up with 9 with 4 three pounds or better. Even the water is down, the depth in the middle is still 27 feet deep. The little alligator was out and on post today too.