Lake Ferguson continues to fall rapidly. It was 14.6, down 8/10’s, today when Mickey and I met at the ramp at 3:30 this afternoon. The spot we caught them in on the last trip was the first stop. We really were suspicious the fish had moved again since the lake had fallen some more and the fish seem to be moving with the falling water. Our suspicions were correct as we only caught one or two anywhere close to what was the good spot. We tried along a long stretch of bank with just one here and one there.  Another place we caught some the other day was marginal at best. Close to it we caught a few but they were on the small side. At the end of that stretch, I slowed down the retrieve on my DT 6 almost to early spring speed and caught a couple out in the deep water relatively close to the boat. I could not figure out whether the fish were coming up from deep or just following the bait out before they hit. We tried another place catching a few but we just never hit the mother lode. We ended up with 14, one under our Lake Ferguson limit, and a FOD of 2 1/2. It may be some time before I go again, but when I do, I have a radical plan on how to find the fish a little more quickly. I will let you know if it works.

Thursday Mickey and I left the ramp at 11:30 with the lake at 16.3, down 1.4 from Tuesday when I had good luck. We went directly to Tuesday’s good spot but only were able to catch two small ones that reluctantly bit a worm. Right away, I thought a gar snipped my DT6 off and I waited for it to pop back up like it sometimes will. As I was fussing and tying on another bait, I saw a catfish just under the surface trying to get the DT 6 out of its mouth. I tried to get the boat hook out to save the bait but the boat blew too close and the fish left. The truth was I had tied a sorry knot and had not pulled on it to check. After the catfish episode, we tried the 70 bank with about the same luck as the first spot. After a couple of spots on the steep bank with no luck we stumbled onto a few fish in a place I haven’t had any luck in a long time. Mickey quickly caught the FOD , a 6 -2 on a DT 6.

We were still quizzical about where all those fish from the other day had gone. We went back to that spot and tried again but still nothing. Mickey looked down the bank and said “that looks like a slight point down there” so we went to investigate. We were sitting in 9 feet of water throwing into probably 4 feet. It was not too long before we had one, and then another all on a DT 6. The fish were of good size in the 2+ pound range. The action was pretty fast but the pressure really went up when we both caught a 5 pound fish at the same time. It was a great photo op but we were in a hurry because we wanted to catch some more of those 5’s. It reminded me of this old pic when Hal and I caught two biggies in Enid. This one will just have to do.

There was not much of a point and also not much of a rhyme or reason for the fish to be in that spot. It is such a nondescript spot you would never think of fishing there. They were three tenths of a mile from the spot they were in last Tuesday. I guess it makes sense that the water is falling and the fish are following it . We then went back to the old time spot and caught some more. One big one gave me the scold by jumping a foot out of the water with its mouth shut and threw the bait back at me. After that gave out, it was getting late and so we made a break for the ramp. I have two Shimano Citicas that I have had for a long time. One has always been better, as far as casting is concerned, than the other. Last fall I changed the bearings and some other parts and inadvertently swapped the rod the reels had been on. The bad one now was on the rod I use for a DT 6. The bad one would throw perfectly one time and fuzz up with a backlash on the very next cast. Under the cast  adjustment cap was a small piece of material like thin cardboard that I figured had to be the problem. I cut out a piece of plastic from a chemical jug that would be slick and fitted it to the hole in the cast control cap. Today I tested it and it worked perfectly. If I had not caught a fish it would have been a great day just for getting that reel fixed. But we caught some fish 32 to be exact with a 6-2, 5-2, 5-0, 4-3, and a 3-12  for a 24-3 for the best five.

Lake Ferguson was at 17.7 feet this morning when I launched at 6:30. There were already a good many boats in the lake and more were coming each minute. There is going to be a big crappie tournament Saturday I found out. I had top water fishing on my mind again.  When I stopped at a, new to me, sunken barge that was just sticking out of the water, I felt pretty good but the boats started coming two by two. About the time the waves subsided two more came. Although I did catch one on a cripple killer, it was obvious that top water was not going to work.  Where we have been catching most of the fish seemed the obvious place to go.  I only caught two there.

 More roseate spoonbills today. It’s funny how they like to line up down a log

For some reason today the gar were horrendous. There were two or three that I had to put the gar priest on and two more of gargantuan size. One of the big ones finally came up and did the crazy gar dance next to the boat and slung the DT 10 back at me. When I say big I am talking 5 feet long. The next big one did not spit it out and was firmly hooked in the corner of his mouth. There was no way I could get this one close enough for a gar priest lick. I got out my boat hook, AKA “gitter”, and when the gar came cruising by, I deftly took the hook part of the boat hook and snatched the DT 10’s hooks out of the gar’s mouth. It was time to move so I went to a spot nearby that I have caught a few fish in but never loaded the boat. There were small fish chasing minnows in some shallow water and I thought there may be some big ones close by. Sure enough a DT 6 rooted a couple out as did a Yozuri. The fish were chasing shad and were not getting the whole bait in their mouths. I lost 8 on the jump. The hooks were not dull, I checked. The hookups with a worm were better than the DT 6. When the fish left the shallows, I turned and cast to the deep water in the 15 foot range. Three straight fish on three casts and then nothing. I had to hunt up and down the bank and in and out to find them. When they were found you could catch 3 or 4 before they would disappear again. Even with all the waves, I ended up at 2:30 with 35 and a 4 -14 FOD.

Friday morning I went to physical therapy early and then hurried home and to the lake getting to the fishing spot about 10:30. Where the previous day the fish had been relatively shallow Friday they were deep. I could not catch any with a DT 6 but soon I backed off of the bank to where the boat was sitting in 18  feet of water and pulled out a DT 10 which caught a 4 -15  FOD right off the bat. The fish were not in one place like they had been the day before but more scattered up and down the bank.  On the second pass down the bank I hooked a nice fish that had the bait all the way in its mouth with the bill of the crank sticking toward its gullet. It had a 6 pound head, was blind in one eye, and had a 4 1/2 pound behind. The thing was skinny and hungry. Most of the fish were between 2 1/4 and 3 pounds. I quit at around 3:00 with 9 fish total. Of interest also was a group of roseate spoonbills that were sitting in a dead willow. I idled over in the shallow water to take a photo. The sun was so bright I could not see the screen of the phone.  Several pictures were taken before they flew and this one was the best of the batch. You can click on the image to make it larger.

Saturday morning Mickey and I launched in the middle of a tournament. They had just started taking off when we idled through the middle of the pack and took off ourselves. Of course, they all passed us on the way up the lake but, much to our surprise, none were sitting in our spot when we got there. Things started off slow with us having to go up and down the bank several times, going in with a DT 6 and out with a DT 10 or a worm to try to figure out what was going to work. We caught a few  but things were so slow we decided to move and try another place. It was a good idea since Mickey caught this 4.93 FOD.

After catching a few, we returned to the first spot to see if it had rejuvenated. It had slightly.  We caught a few more including the blind in one eye 4 1/2 I caught yesterday. It had to be the same fish because it was blind in one eye, 4 1/2 and still hungry. Instead of a DT 10, this time it hit a DT 6. That just shows the benefit of catch and release. Mickey caught some on a worm including the FOD but the majority of the fish came from the DT’s.  For the day the total was 18 fish all except 1 were of decent size. After three straight days of fishing, I think a rest is due for this old guy.

When I crossed over the Levee on Thursday it was still dark and Lake Ferguson was falling at 21.4 FT. I had whopper plopping on my mind but the fish didn’t have it on their mind. As I went down the bank and had no bites another man behind me had a topwater on but it was one that he was twitching slowly and he actually caught a couple. The Whopper plopper was a little too fast for the fish. Since the Whopper plopper didn’t work I put on a DT6 and caught a few. About 11 while going down the bank by the 70s spot I caught a couple but nothing in one place because I had swapped to a DT 10. Then I saw a shad jump in the shallows and threw a DT 6 over and caught one. I caught one every cast for about 30 minutes including a 6 lb 11 oz FOD . Most of the fish that I caught there were from two and one quarter to three pounds. Most people know that I love a DT 6 but in the last few months I have lost hooks due to a stretched split ring. Thursday I lost a fish and did not pay that much attention but a couple of cast later I saw the front hook on my DT6 was gone due to a stretched split ring. So I quickly put on another bait and continued fishing. About 30 minutes later I caught a fish, looked down in his mouth and there was my hook from my DT6. You would have thought the fish had better sense than to bite again. I ended up with 26 fish with an f o d of 6 lb 11 oz. Also caught a 5-2 and a 3-2, throw in a couple at 3 and the best 5 weighed 21-5. The biting was over by 2.

I met Jackson at the ramp on Lake Enterprise at about 6:30 Friday morning. An ominous sign for fishing was blowing from the North, not hard but there. We started near the landing but after no luck we moved to one of Jackson’s favorite haunts. As we sat out in the lake fishing the trees with diving baits, I was sitting in the back of the boat observing the depth finder, where some fish suddenly appeared. When I mentioned it , Jackson quickly picked up a 10 inch ribbon tail worm and dipped it into a small jar of “shrimp Stuff” that smelled to high Heaven. He quickly caught 5 and had some other light bites, when I had caught zero and had zero bites with my worm even though it had been doused with garlic flavored spike it. Being careful not to get any of the “shrimp stuff” on my hands, I dipped my worm into the almost jellylike substance. A small piece smaller than a number nine shot dropped off of the worm and when it hit the water began to swirl around and put out an oil slick, powerful stuff. Immediately I got a bite, although was not able to bring the fish to the boat. After another unsuccessful bite, I changed to a DT-10 and caught 3 rather quickly. From that point on the depth finder fish disappeared. We trolled around looking but could not find them again. We left that spot and went to the 72 spot from earlier this summer. Nothing there either from a DT-10 or the sonar. We caught a couple more in different places, one on a red eye shad and another on a fluke like top water pulled on top of the duckweed. There was duckweed everywhere but we could not find any fish under it and was so prevalent it prevented us from fishing a lot of places. We ended up with 10 bass, FOD 2 1/4 . Lessons learned: 1. Watch the depth finder and 2. Get some of that “shrimp stuff”.

Made the first cast at the Private Hole this morning at a quarter to 9. A whopper plopper has been good there so that is what I started out with. After fishing with it for a good while, it was obvious that it was not the bait to use since I did not get a bite. Swapped to a worm and caught three pretty quickly. Then threw a swim jig a few times and caught two more. All of this in the same spot. Venturing over to the place the WP has been so good did no good as not a bite with a swim jig or a WP. Dropped back to the worm and caught one more but not a whole lot was going on. A shallow flat that is usually good got nothing but a bass crashed a shad only feet from the boat. The flat had some muck in the form of rotten weeds on the bottom so the worm would not work too well and the WP ahd been tried to no avail. I thought a swimbait just might work and used one of the new ones from Basspro that have all the ridges and the slot top and bottom for the hook. Of course, the tail was dipped in the garlic scented red spike it. A bite came pretty soon and it was on. The best way to fish that place is to just fan cast 360  degrees. Other than a couple of times when I was asleep at the wheel and set the hook immediately, the hookups were pretty good even though the bass were not all large. Toward the end my self control on the hooksets became much better and I would even let the fish have the bait for a while before setting the hook. One fish came up and scarfed the bait just before I lifted it from the water. I stuck my rod into the water, and when I felt the fish, I set the hook on a feisty 2 1/2 pounder, which was the FOD . Quitting time was 1:15. 20 bass in 4 1/2 hours was a good trip.