Signs of trouble showed up as I prepared to go fishing on Lake Ferguson Monday afternoon. First, there were no clouds in the sky, a perfect blue bird day, one on which in the past has not had a good record of me catching a bunch of fish. Second, while filling my boat with gas, I saw a guy coming off the lake filling up his blaster, who said he had not even one bite all morning. Third, the wind was blowing 15 miles per hour straight down the lake. I went anyway. The wind made it almost impossible to fish where I wanted to . Mickey and I had a couple of good trips this time last year at this water stage and I wanted to check those places out with a DT10. The job I did was better than I expected checking the places out but with no luck catching fish. I believe the fish were not in a chasing mood and it was too windy to fish a worm effectively. I retreated to some calm water and finally made contact with a DT6 in relatively shallow water. After no more luck with the DT6 I broke out the trusty Booyah and caught the FOD, a 2 -13. In checking out some of the shallow stumps, I made a bad cast, and in a rush to make another, I hurried the Booyah to the boat. The streaking bait spooked some shad and in turn a bass came out of the open and busted in the middle of the shad. The water was so shallow the activity blew up a cloud of mud. After about 10 casts to the open water the fish never would hit. Disgusted, I went home. It’s fun to write on here about the good trips, but one like Monday, not so much.

I received this email from Hal yesterday. It shows how catch and release works if people will practice it. Some people are proud of a big fish and can’t stand not bringing it in so they can brag a little. Of course, that kills the fish, takes it out of the population, and denies other people or even yourself the opportunity to enjoy catching it again. Keeping a big fish is actually a very selfish thing to do. Just take a picture, let it go, and feel good about it. I have released 7 fish that weighed between 8 and 9 1/2 pounds (largest I’ve ever caught) so I practice what I preach. Here is the email:

Caught this six pounder yesterday at the pits. It is the same bass I caught three times in May of 2012, twice on same day then again a week later, all on same cypress. The black spot on her head is pretty distinctive but the tag still attached was definitive. She only gained a half pound and moved about a quarter mile. Caught on a KVD 1.5 the first and last time.  She didn’t look very healthy but put up a good fight. Caught nine others including a three. Had really good whopper plopper action late.

I heard Monticello was undergoing a draw down of 8 to 10 feet. I also heard that a good many fish were being caught. I had to go look.

All the brown dirt used to be covered with water. Look at all those sticks. A guy could get hung up out there. I could not use that landing and had to drive to the other one. I caught some in the 2 pound range on a Booyah pretty quickly but then I lost them. The water had 5 to 6 foot visibility. I ran upon some young guys that have been fishing there often, like every day, and they were fishing out in the open with a chug bug. They caught a few of the very small schooling fish but said sometimes the big ones will come up and bite. I saw them later and they had caught 15 or so but all small. They allowed that they had caught about 350 in the last month and a half. While talking to them, I had a good bite on a swimbait. The fish was strong and pulled drag but came unpinned shortly thereafter. Never saw it . I ended up with 4 . The Florida bass were at it again. After fishing a submerged pond levee with a swimbait, when I got close enough to see it, a bass bigger than the ones that I caught was down there looking at me and had evidently just watched the bait go by. Meanwhile Richard and Hal caught 47 at Beaverdam. This time of year the fishing up there really picks up.

I chose to fish in the morning and deer hunt in the afternoon. Thursday afternoon I went down to the private hole to make sure that the boat would be able to launch. I knew that with the river falling the private whole would also be falling. I was right, the boat was 10 feet away from the water. I cut off some logs and put them under the boat when it came off of the rack and pushed it to the water. Then I moved the rack over to the other side of the launching ramp. My alarm clock quit working this morning and I woke up an hour and a half late. By the time I got in the water it was eight. The extra sleep was a good thing because nothing was going on when I started fishing. By 10 I only had two fish but things started to pick up around 10:30. Once again the swim bait was what they wanted. The fish were biting it so lightly, I just started giving slack even after the slightest bump and then watching the line to see if it did something funny.  If it went sideways, I set the hook. It seemed by 12 things were over so I quit. I ended up with 13 and a few FOD’ s  of 2 3/4.