After physical therapy this morning I came home and loaded up to go fishing with intentions to go to what used to be called the Firetower. I’ve also heard it called the Belzoni cutoff and seen it on the map as Hardcash Lake. Whatever you want to call it, it is long, crooked and narrow and just what the doctor ordered on a day when the wind was hawking at about 20. At a place like that you can always find a relatively calm place to fish. At 1:00 the water temp was 58 at the landing but was 64 in the end that the wind was blowing to. The water was high and turbid, almost muddy so I put on a 1/4 ounce Booyah spinnerbait with Colorado blades. In the past high and muddy equaled the fish being right on the bank but that was not it today. The first one, a 3 pounder , came from a bunch of fine vines that was a good bit off of thee bank. It was a long time before another bit, this time a 3 1/2 off of another log that had a fuzzy tip. So Fuzzy it was but not every fuzzy had a fish. I went a long time without a bite but then had two in close succession, both fuzzy, but they were not hungry enough to get the point of the hook. I quit a little early because it was not happening for me. The best thing that happened today was when I loaded the boat. Since the last trip I put a walkboard on the tongue of the trailer and another one on the side. They worked perfectly and made getting out of the boat and in the truck a breeze.

Hal drove down this morning and we went to the Private Hole about 8:00. My day had started out kind of shaky when I tried to open the door to where I keep my fishing equipment. I could hear the lock working but the door would not move an inch. Using a punch to push the pins out of the hinges was considered but would be used as a last resort. A thin screwdriver was inserted into the crack between the doors and presto they came open. It has been so wet they were swollen so much they would not open. I took a bar of soap out of my boat and rubbed it on the door faces to make sure they would open the next time. Fishing started out very slowly. The last time I was there it was spinner baits, DT-6’s and worms. This morning it was very light bites on a shaky head worm, or a Texas rigged craw in Hal’s case. The fish started out deep except in one place where the rain water was running in from that accumulated over by the levee. A nice little stream about 18 inches wide. That nice little stream had raised the level about 18 inches. There were some fish there but not that many. They would not hit a moving bait but would lightly bite a worm and start swimming toward the boat. The bites were very hard to detect. By the middle of the morning things were not looking too good. The water warmed from 49  to 58 on the windward bank. Bites were still light however. In the afternoon Hal put on a small KVD 1.5 crankbait and started to catch some on it. Of course I rattled in my bag and came up with a DT-4, the first time I have fished with one of those in years. It would catch fish too. As the evening progressed Hal put on a spinner bait and made that bait work too.  We could tell it was winding down just at the time we should quit, so we did. We caught 40 bass, a grinner, and 2 crappie, one on a shaky head and one on a DT-4 that a relatively small crappie had completely in its mouth. We had two co FOD’s at 3 1/2 each.

I went to early church this morning and when I returned home and let the dogs out it was 10:30. There was enough time for a quick trip to Lake Ferguson so I went for a few hours but only a few because I couldn’t leave the dogs in their pens very long. I made a break for the lake. The boat cranked quickly and ran well considering that the first part of November was the last time it was run. There were only three other bass boats on the ramp. I had a particular stretch of the steep bank in mind to fish. A DT-10 started, a worm was second and a Booyah was the last bait I tried, each on a pass down the bank. I had a nip on both the Booyah and the DT-10 but no hookups. The water temp was 48 to 51 degrees, warm enough for the fish to be a little shallower than I was fishing, so I moved. One took the DT-6 as it passed by a tree. The fish was close to 3 pounds so I pulled out the scales, knowing all the time it was a 2-13. Sure enough it was 2-13 on the money and I had to laugh out loud at myself. When I caught that one so quickly in that spot, I thought I was going to “skin em up” as Mickey likes to say.  But it didn’t happen. I cruised down that bank and had only caught one more small one when the good spots ran out. I went back to the spot where I started and went the other way. A good fish hit the DT-6 but got off after a few seconds. Would not even come up to where I could see it. I kept on down the bank and this one bit. A 5 – 8 with  several black spots. You can see one on the gill covers.

After that I fished down farther but nothing but ideas of other spots that were similar to this one. My time had run out however so I had to leave. The water in the lake had about 3 feet of visibility and was that beautiful Lake Ferguson green color. I’m going back as soon as I can.