Headed to Wolf Lake this morning with unbridled optimism. I was watching the radar but I figured I could get in 2+ hours of fishing, judging by the way the rain was moving. Fishing started at 6:30 with a Booyah spinnerbait. I was expecting smaller fish. The fish were not concentrated as I had expected / hoped. Usually early in the year the fish will be on a line of cypress trees that are openly spaced allowing for ease of fishing them. No one was home out on the trees but a few were up very close to the bank. When there were no bites for a while I decided to move and figured I might as well go to the best spot. The last time Mickey and I were there it was every cast for a long time. Today, not a bite. I just picked out a bank and went down it, but switched to a swim jig. Many of the bites were as soon as the bait hit the water. I noticed today that the paddlefish were jumping more than normal for some reason. I also noticed that the lake is full of big gars, probably more than Lake Ferguson. One grabbed my swim jig and I thought it was the FOD. It was not the largest one that I saw but it was more than I wanted to fool with. I really wanted to save the swim jig.

It fought out to the open water where I put the trolling motor on spot lock and got out my boathook. After it came by a few times like in the photo, I was able to extricate it from my swim jig. The fish finally quit biting and so I quit with 20 bass and a FOD of 2+ pounds.

On the other hand Jackson and Ben were fishing in Port Gibson and had a great trip. Jackson caught a 7 3/4 and Ben caught a good one too. On an afternoon trip and the next morning they caught ~35 fish.

Mickey and I played hooky from church Sunday to go to the big bass Lake X. We launched at 6:00 so as not to miss any chance for a top water bite. The lake was slick and the water was just the way I like it, with about 2 feet of visibility. No top water bites though. I had seen a little movement and flipped a worm over it that direction and got a 5-1 out of the deal. A great start. A little later, Mickey was fishing in some logs underwater when he got a bite that took him into the logs. He persevered and coaxed the fish out and it was a 5-14. Right at 11 pounds right off the bat was a pretty good start. By then we figured out that the fish were close to the cover and started fishing all that we could see. We had a few more instances where the fish bit and immediately went down into the logs. I had some new line, Fluoroshield, that broke quite easily and it snapped some times when it should not have. Hanging up was just a fact of life, and when trying to shake your worm off, twice fish took it off for us. Caught some of those and missed some. It was obvious around 10:30 that someone flipped the switch and the bite was on. I was watching the depthfinder and we passed over a hump. When I mentioned it, Mickey threw a DT-6 over it, had a bite and the hook was thrown immediately. Not perturbed he threw back and caught one. We started fishing with the DT-6’s because the fish were out of hiding and out on the prowl. It was also obvious when things slowed down. The bite lasted about an hour and a half. In lake X you release all fish over 16 inches and keep all under 16. We released 4 and kept 4. Should have caught 16. The lake is extremely well done but just had some amateurs fishing on it Sunday.

Jackson and I were in the boat this morning at 6:00 and ready to fish. The lake has changed in that there are a lot less lily pads in some places and there is more coontail moss everywhere under the water. It was relatively dark and we really couldn’t see where the pads were so we felt our way until they appeared. I had a Ribbit on because that was the main reason I wanted to go there. Right away a tighteye came from a couple of feet away and made a break at my bait but did not hit it. A short time later the same thing happened but an even smaller fish. At least there was action and we figured that things would pick up as soon as we found the fish. A fish finally hit the Ribbit and got caught but it was not much to it. We were still optimistic. A good bit later Jackson had on a chatterbait and caught 2 in a few minutes of each other. We thought we had it figured out but again we could not reproduce those results. Closer to noon we had a few more bites but only caught one because the fish have to have the bait in their mouth for you to catch them. Most of the fish were just hitting at the bait or grabbing the legs and not really meaning to eat it. We ended up with 4 fish and went home relatively early.

Thursday was the first opportunity to go fishing in quite some time. Dr. appointments, weather and “events” have had my calendar jammed up. In the meantime I have ordered some replacements for baits lost last fall and a few extra things. Today was going to be the test of the new things, a reel, a new line and a new bait. The reel was a Shimano SLX70 MGL 8.2. It was Hal’s idea. He gave himself a new reel for his birthday so I thought I might do the same. The line was Fluoroshield again Hal’s idea because he had some and liked it. The bait was a Strike King KVD 1.5 Deep Squarebill that is supposed to go 8 feet deep, just a little deeper than a DT-6. When I hit the levee this morning the cows were all standing and eating which was a good sign but it was the only one. The wind was hawking out of the North and was cold and not a cloud in the sky. Bluebird day. The roads were posted “ATV Only” so here was my transportation. Cold it was.

Fishing started at 8. First up was the new reel on the rod I use for plastics. The reel cast so easy the first cast went up on the bank. Five stars+. Next came the new line with the new crankbait tied on . The line was five stars too. It was on the rod and reel I use with a DT-6 and needs to cast a long way and it did that easily with no issues (backlashes). I think I’m going to put it on another one of my rods. The new bait became hung up twice in the first 5 minutes which made me rather dubious but that may have been happenstance. A little more worrisome was that the bait sometimes would just do a loop the loop on the retrieve for no apparent reason. I don’t think it went 8 feet deep either. The jury is still out on it because it did catch the FOD. To start, good bites were hard to come by. I finally figured out the fish were very close to the bank and you had to hit them on the head with the bait before they would bite. It was a plastic day although a couple hit the swim jig and one hit the squarebill, the 3 1/2 FOD. Even down in the bowl that is the Garhole the wind made fishing difficult. You know it must have been because I quit at 2:00. Only caught 10. Might take up bream fishing, they were everywhere. I also saw this snapping turtle preparing to lay eggs on an almost vertical embankment. It was digging the hole and I tried not to scare it off but it left shortly after I went by. There is nothing in the photo to enable you to judge the size but that joker was big.

Since the turkeys have been giving me, and everyone else, the silent treatment, I told turkey season goodbye by going to the Garhole fishing Saturday. The Garhole boat was bunged up a little in the high water and although it was straightened out a little I wanted to check it out by fishing in it. Since the rain and the loggers, the road has been posted “ATV Only” so I packed up all my gear on the Yamaha 4 wheeler and drove down. The mosquitoes and gnats were present in force, especially on the bank. I had my Buggins for the gnats, but it does not help with the mosquitoes. This shortens the boat preparation time as it puts you in a hurry. The sun protection that I wear gives good protection from the gnats but the mosquitoes can bite right through it if it is touching the skin. First cast was at 8:15. Another person was fishing and had been there since daylight and they allowed that they had caught a few early on a buzz bait but that things had slowed. Indeed ! 11:00 and still no fish in the boat. A precious few bites but none in the boat. Finally at 11:15 a 3 1/4 hit a swim jig when it came across the end of a green bush in shallow water. The skunk was gone. A skunk in the Garhole would be a major negative event. A little later a 3 3/4 hit the swim jig after missing on the first try. I reached a place where I thought a worm would be better and it was, because I caught 3 in succession. Back on the swim jig, I hung on a root when I cast at a vertical bank. I jiggled the bait trying to get it loose and a tighteye tried to help and after 4 try’s finally did by knocking it loose and swimming off with it. It was too small and did not have the hook in its mouth when I set the hook. There were two other instances where my bait was hung on something and a fish should not have been caught but was. I made a cast under a cypress tree that had a 1 inch vine hanging down vertically. The line wrapped around because of a sidearm cast and the bait came down and just touched the water. A fish hit it immediately and to my surprise hung itself. I rushed over and retrieved it. Later I saw a fish hit under some cottonwood cotton and other debris. When I cast a worm over, it hit the bank that was covered with vines and got hung. All the shaking in the world wouldn’t get it loose. Already right on top of the fish, I grabbed the swim jig rod and just dropped the bait through the cotton. The fish grabbed it and ran and later came to the boat. A few more fish and it became hard to get a bite. Thinking about how bad the bugs would be around dark, I quit at 4:00. I caught an even 20 with the aforementioned 3 3/4 FOD. In fishing in the boat all day I came to the realization that a deck replacement is not necessary. It appears a limb fell on the front deck and scarred it in two places rather than a rodent. I believe some heavy painting over the two damaged places will do the trick. A thorough leaf blower cleanout would not hurt either.