Hal had a great day on Enid yesterday. His catch included a 6, a 5, two 4 1/2’s, and a 4. A total of around 13 fish. Very impressive size. Caught them on small crankbaits, DT-6’s and 300 Bandits. Nothing on plastic or spinnerbaits. Main spot was the two sisters, two stumps that are just now showing. He caught most of the big ones around them.
He had to go back.
Only 10 today with a 6, 5.5, 5, and 4.75. Two sisters gave up the 6 and a couple of two’s but second trip nada. It was hard to fish with wind and waves. I had finally broke down and bought a couple of Tokyo rigs and caught one on first cast with it, rigged with a 3/8 oz tungsten wt and a max scent worm. One big fish on it and all others on cranks. All fish on vertical snags. Only about a half dozen other boats. Water temp 63.
Today was cold with a North wind, not my favorite fishing weather. Since it was cold I waited until later to go. Then I had to clean all the leaves out of the boat and add some rope to the winch because there are no trees in the right place to move the winch closer to the boat and the water is falling. Fishing started at 11:45. Within the first hour I had 10 fish, mostly on a DT-10. The North wind set the fish up in two spots but they were not as thick as I had anticipated because not many/any people have fished there in the last few weeks. The fish were deeper hence the 10 rather than 6. In the next place the 6 did better because it was shallower. Then I tried yet another place where thought the wind might have the fish bunched up. The first cast there brought a 4 pounder and the next a 4 3/4.
Next a 3 3/4 and a 3 even. I thought I was going to really wear them out but after a couple more they vanished. I circled the hole but if I shook the worm they would pick if up but put it right down. Still nothing in one of my favorite places. Not one fish this year. Can not figure that out. On one cast with the DT-10, something grabbed it and powered away from the boat pulling drag reminiscent of the fish down at Ben’s. The drag was set just right so the line wouldn’t break but would tire the fish out. Finally the fish came up to where it was visible and was the largest silver carp I have ever snagged. Thank goodness it was hooked where its tail would not hit the line and break it. It finally came to the top close enough for me to take the boat hook pole and snatch the DT-10 out and save it. Each place gave up one more fish but no more. It was obvious that it was over so I quit. Caught 23 with the 4 3/4 FOD.
Yesterday I drove to Port Gibson to fish with Ben in a Lake that has been managed for large bass for years. Ben is my children’s age and was truly thoughtful to ask an old guy to come fishing. The lake is in the loess hills west of Port Gibson, a straight up, straight down environment. As we drove back to the lake the road ran down the ridges and you could look almost straight down on either side. It was perfectly beautiful country. The lake is about 30 acres and deep with numerous coves. We started out fishing with a DT-6 and caught a fish in the first five minutes. The lake has Florida bass in it and they are healthy . Part of our job was to remove small fish, since the lake is intensively managed. As we were signing up there was a tally on a board of how many pounds had been taken out. As we worked around the lake you could see that the above the water topography translated into an almost straight down drop below the water. We fished with the DT-6’s mostly, although Ben caught some on a worm and I caught a few on a DT-10. I made a cast on a point in the shadows and got a sharp lick but no hookup. On the second cast a bite resulted in a powerful fish that took off for the middle of the lake. It made another run then turned and ran for the boat which it decided to dive under. I was trying to keep my rod from hitting the side of the boat and barely succeeding when the hooks pulled out of the fish’s mouth. We never got a glimpse of the fish but as strong of a fish as I have ever had on. Disappointment, but that’s just fishing. Maybe there’s another one around. We kept fishing and the bite was steady all afternoon. We quit at dark with 26 bass in the cooler and 4 more released the largest of which weighed 4 1/2. This one was a good representative of the afternoon.
Ben spent the night and returned this morning for two hours and caught 17, 4 of which were in the 5 pound range. Caught a few on a spook but most on a crank bait. I had a great time. What a wonderful place!
This morning was the first time fishing for me in 10 days. Lake Ferguson is at just about the same level as the last time I was there. Of course I went to the place where the fish were caught last time, but not many were there . The ones that were did not bite like they really wanted it. Caught on the back hook and jumping and throwing the hook were the symptoms. There were two boats fishing near the spot. One came by and allowed that they had been catching them pretty well but each day they became less and less. That’s what happens when you keep them all. These people didn’t look like catch and release guys and judging by their girth, they were not going hungry. I passed them by and went down the 70 bank with a DT-10 and caught a 4-1 FOD. Another just over 3 came from the same spot. I got a little happy but could not get any more to bite there. Keeping down the bank, I picked up another 3 but no more. Something just stopped the DT-10, and I was thinking big, but it was just a hybrid striper. Hardest hit all day.
Kept going with the DT-10 and ran into another 3 pounder, again just glomming up on it. It was 11:45 so I headed for the waterfront. I caught only 9 but good size. As I came into the waterfront a guy carrying a piece of paper was walking by and spoke . On the paper was some of his pen and ink artwork that I assumed he had done this morning. He said he wanted to bless me with it and I said I’ll bless you and he said he wanted a monetary blessing. He wrote my name on it. It was good so I pulled out a $10 and also had a couple of ones. He said “give me those too, I want to get some chicken”. I said “I can’t give you my ones, then I’d be broke”. He laughed and was happy. Here’s the pen and ink.
With the lake so low I was not very optimistic about the fishing especially since I would be starting just after noon. The day had warmed up considerably so I figured the fish would be off the bank and in the deep. I started where Mickey and I caught a few the last trip but on the whole bank not even a bite. When I reached the end by the dreaded net, I continued but it is not really a bank but a shallow flat that drops off into deeper water. There was some activity, shad flinching and the like, but no real striking on top. The wind was low and the water varied from slick to a slight chop. I even considered a Whopper Plopper . Having started with a DT-10, I changed to a DT-6 to throw into water that started at 2 to 3 feet deep and came out to 6 to 8 feet where the boat was sitting. It started with a small bass and then a stripe that had another small bass with a bright red wound trying to take the DT-6 away. After disposing of the stripe, I threw back to that spot and caught the wounded bass. It was not a place where you could just sit in one spot and “every cast” them. The fish were moving around so you had to search when they left in order to find them again. The DT-6 was coming up with too much junk on it so I swapped to a Red Eye Shad. I could cast it farther and it came up with less junk in the shallow water. It has new hooks on it but on a long cast it didn’t always keep the fish on. I had to laugh when one bass about 2 1/2 pounds jumped a good ways out and threw the hook and when it did the Red Eye skipped like a flat rock 3 or 4 times. Today there was a minor period from 12:40 to 1:40 p.m. and a major period from 5:18 to 7:18 p.m.. I’ve always said that you need to be a couple of hours early on the periods. Today the fish started around 2:30 and it was over by 4:30, obvious like someone cut off the switch. When the switch was off, I left the shallows to try the deep before coming home. The fish there were caught with a DT-10 casting parallel to the drop off which started about 10 feet deep. The fish I caught there just “glommed” up on it and most were caught on the rear hook, a sure sign that the bite was over. It was 6:00. I ended up with 51 bass and a FOD of 3 1/4 and two others 3+. Outstanding day especially considering I was so pessimistic about it at the start.
Saturday at noon Mickey and I cast off from the waterfront. The ride up the lake was kind of chilly. We caught nothing going down our starting bank where a good many fish have been caught in the last month even there is deep water there. We were looking for the school that resides around those parts, so we went to where I caught them on the last trip. Four fish came from that bank but only three close enough together to perhaps be called a school. One was a good fish that was up beside the boat while I was fiddling around with my grabber. It made one last jump after calmly waiting for a few seconds and threw the hook. Probably would have been the FOD. We were using DT-6’s and 10’s and a 5XD. After going to the first bank again, we were dodging other fishermen, and only caught one. At one point , I looked over into the shallow water of the chute and something triggered the silver carp. An acre or so of them started jumping and kept it up for probably 30 seconds. We thought it may have been a bird flying over but they kept it up with out birds around. We crossed the lake to another old spot that I have been checking on with no luck. They were there today and we caught 4 along with Mickey catching one of those big orange carp. The fish had the DT-6 in its mouth and we had to use the net to get it in the boat. I think I caught one in that same place last week, hooked in the mouth. Everything likes a DT-6. It was obvious nothing much was going on so we started back toward the ramp. We stopped at an old sunken barge where we caught 3 or 4, one acted like a silver carp that was foul hooked but when it got close to the boat it was a nice 4-2 with one of those finesse hooks stuck just above the tail. FOD. We just tried one more place and caught a few small ones and a net, the second one that day. We were both hung in it and when I cut my bait out there was a 5XD hung a little deeper down that I uncharacteristically left right there. On some of the favorite banks we had several hard hang ups, two of which became fatal to a 5XD and a DT-10, even though we tried to save them with the “gitter”. The “gitter” has a pretty good save record but was only about 66% Saturday. I had two split rings to fail on DT-6’s, one was when a gar went crazy next to the boat. The gars have been tough on my DT-6’s lately. We ended up with 17 bass, one 4-2, a 3-10 and another over 4 unweighed.
