Lake Ferguson was 18.6 feet when I launched Tuesday morning at 10:30. The weather was forecast to be perfect, and it was. Light winds, high in the 60’s, and sun interspersed by clouds. I was apprehensive due to some negative reports, but the lake was down from the levels where the bad reports came from. The water was not as clear as it was a couple of months ago, with visibility around a foot+. Water temp on top was 54 degrees. I figured the fish would be deep and lethargic so I started with a DT-16 on the 70 bank. Soon the DT-16 came up with a small one that seemed pale, I’m sure due to the low water clarity. Going down the bank further with no bites, I began to see some shad dimpling the water so I threw a DT-6 to see if there were any bass around. The 3 – 1 that was there must have had its mouth open because it hit immediately. Nothing more until I reached the 70 spot where the 5 – 5 FOD put a summertime solid thump on a worm in relatively shallow water. A little later there were some gulls diving on shad in water that was 1 1/2 feet deep. I went to that spot and right out from it in 3 feet of water, a 4 – 11 hit a redeye shad. These bites were not coming one after another. It was a long time between them. I moved East into relatively shallow water where the water temperature was 57 degrees. There were shad dimpling the water in every direction and there was a 3 1/2 lurking to feed on them but no more in that area. Back to the 70 bank I caught one more 2 -13 and a small gar that were chasing the shallow shad. 19- 6 for the best 5 of the 6 bass caught, not bad. I saw Terry at the waterfront and he had caught 10 in water 10 feet deep on a Carolina rig, one of which was 7 pounds.

Edward and I went to the Garhole today about 11:30 to correct the wiring mistake I made last time, put on a new depthfinder and fish a little bit. The new trolling motor has a picture of a boat on the handle. If you turn it forward it goes backward. That caused all the problems. My paint pen is going to fix that by covering up the picture and drawing a simple arrow saying “F” and one saying “R”. The “nused” depthfinder from Ebay was easy to put on and worked very well. The only problem was I couldn’t find a color palette that I liked for the regular sonar. There are about 15 and I didn’t try them all. Going to do that on a rainy day in the garage. Downscan was jamb up, great. It took a long time to catch the first fish and that was on the back hook when I stopped the DT-10. Water temperature was 50 Degrees. We fished down the sunny bank getting a bite or two but no fish. The fish were on the shady bank. As it was getting late, I circled in one end trying to locate a tree that is standing up straight in 25 feet of water. In doing so , Edward put out his bait to troll and came up with a large spoonbill hooked by the tail.

I was casting trying to find the tree as well as watching for it on the sonar and I came up with a gar about 5 feet long with my bait in its mouth. It clowned a little but nothing like it would have done in the summer when the water was warm. Unbelievably, I got it to the boat and saved the DT-10 by sticking the needle nosed pliers in its closed mouth to make it open up and rescued the bait. We caught a couple more bass on the way to the boat rack. Six bass in all with a FOD of 3 1/2 with another at 3 pounds. A few more photos of the day.

The gar. You can see the parrot colored DT-10 in its mouth.

Using the boat hook for a gaff.

Hooked in the tail. Getting the hook out and saving the DT-6

Happy with the FOD.