Hal and I started fishing in the Garhole this morning around 10:00 with water 46.4 degrees. I wanted to get a demonstration on how to fish with a drop shot and Hal does it a lot. On Lake Enterprise the drop shot showed me that it was harder than you would think. Hal started the demonstration quickly with a 4 1/4 in the first 15 minutes. His line could be seen twitching before he set the hook but he waited to make sure the fish had it before he just pulled up to set the hook. A DT-6 was calling me to throw it in some shallow water and finally caught a couple of small ones. The fish were really not just burning it up. We tried just drifting up to a top and dipping the rugby head in between the limbs but not a bite doing that all day. We arrived to a spot where last time I was there I caught one I did not suspect out in the middle of a cove where the water was 10 feet deep. The drop shot went in and I caught my first fish on one and even another. No more however. As we fished around the North side of the hole where the sun had been shining all day, a fish flashed at my DT-6 and when I paused it, flashed again, missing both times, and finally again where it got enough of the hooks to not want it again. It was obvious things already slow, were getting slower. We fished a little farther around and all of a sudden with no warning there was a loud crack and part of the front deck that holds the front seat broke and fell in. I was fishing to the side and was falling in slow motion toward the water. My feet came over my head and in essence I did a back flip into the water and went under. Hat was floating, sunglasses gone. The water did not seem too cold for some reason. I swam back to the boat and pulled up on the side and with a lot of help from Hal came over the side into the boat. Hal gave a 9.3 on the dive with slight deductions for the expletives uttered before splashdown. We fished another hour with no bites. Being wet was not that bad. What was bad was having to sit sideways on the front deck to fish. Lucky no kinks in the back so far. Phone got wet and son Harley went on the internet and found a way to dry it out by putting it in a sock and attaching a reversed vacuum cleaner to the sock for three hours. I’m using a hair dryer on low. Been on hour so far. We ended up with 11 fish and the aforementioned FOD. EDIT: Much to my disbelief the sock trick worked, phone started right up and worked. Link to video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEjC0Ude8CA

All it takes is a little change in the weather to change what the fish are doing. This morning on Lake Enterprise the water temperature was 47 degrees to start versus 51 the other day. Not a fish was seen chasing a shad and not many were seen on the depthfinder where we caught them the other day. I idled and looked but there were not many to be seen. I turned on the sidefinder so I could cover more area and finally shad in droves started to show up down by the 72 tree, so I started fishing. Caught a 3-0 on a DT-10 in the first 10 minutes but apparently it was the “old Indian trick” because no more followed. I intended to fish a drop shot today to catch those fish right on the bottom but that was so slow and the fish were not concentrated enough. There was a long lull, so long in fact I was almost ready to quit but as a line of clouds came over like a front and it got a little chilly the fish bit a little. First a bite that was missed, then another fish, then another bite missed but it came back and got it . 5 1/2 FOD. It took a long time for another bite but a tighteye bit and got caught. No more after that. Four fish for a tough day but the last day probably for a while because of the weather.

I met Tom at the landing at 8:00 this morning after a beautiful sunrise on the way over to Wilmot. It only lasted about 30 minutes before the clouds came. Luckily I took a photo.

The temperature was in the high 30’s so rather cool idling down the lake. We idled because Tom was looking for the schools of fish. Soon he said “it’s on” because he had seen a fish make a move on the slick water. When we got to the spot the fish showed up on the depth finder and they were there in spades. I had a DT-10 on and Tom had a 3/4 ounce Jackhammer bladed jig. The DT-10 caught the first small fish but the Jackhammer came up with this 5 3/4 FOD.

The DT-10 was just touching the bottom in the 10 + foot water and the Jackhammer was sinking the bottom and was paused every few turns of the reel to let it sink back to the bottom. The bottom of the lake is covered with cypress needles and Spanish moss that has fallen out of the trees so running the DT-10 on the bottom is not the thing to do. It needed to be run close to the bottom and slow. There were clouds of shad with the bass chasing them and every now and then coming up and just blasting them. When the bass would hit sparkling shad went everywhere. Evidently after hitting them the fish returned to the bottom as most of the fish we caught were close to the bottom. It was frustrating at times with fish running shad all around the boat but you couldn’t get a bite. Finally I connected with a 5 1/2 on the DT-10.

We were fishing in the same general area because the fish were not moving much. It seemed they were moving slightly in the direction that the wind was blowing. Even where there were no bass there were clouds of shad. In fact when we tried a Johnson Sprite spoon we both came up with the shad impaled on the hooks. Tom said his goal today was for us to catch 20. At about 2:30 we had 16 and there was a lull on our bites but not on the bass activity. A crappie fisherman came by to chat and as he left all visible activity ceased but Tom soon caught a 4+ right on the bottom.

We surmised the fish retreated to the bottom because of the boat disturbance. The fish continued their assault on the shad and soon we had our 20 at 3:00. There were some other good fish caught and they were all fat because of all of the shad for them to gorge on. After we caught number 20 we were guessing its weight. It looked to be one that in lake Ferguson I would weigh thinking it was 3 pounds and it would turn up 2-13 every time. This one was 3-1 and was fat as could be. A wonderful day of January fishing. On the way home I came up with an idea of how to make them bite next time.

This morning at 10:30 I started fishing in the Garhole. It was cold this morning so it didn’t bother me that fishing started a little late. Water temperature was 51 degrees. It took 30 minutes to get the first bite and it was just a peck on the DT-6. The next one however meant business and hit hard. When it finally came to the boat it was a pretty 4-9. The water in the Garhole is beautiful this time of year and the visibility is very good. When you have a fish on it really looks pretty when it comes to the boat. A 4-9 is a good way to start the year. A little while later I drifted up next to a treetop and dropped the rugby head down between the limbs and a 3 1/2 grabbed it. I missed another in that same treetop and caught a smaller one. A new rod to pull the DT-10 came out and I was trying it out in the open water just to see how everything was going to work and surprisingly a small one bit and got caught with only one hook barely fastened. That happened a couple of times today. Must be those new hooks I put on both the DT-6 and 10’s. In some areas a vibrating jig was able to cover a lot of territory but the only fish it caught was a chain pickerel.

They show up when the water is cold in the spring and are generally not seen for the rest of the year. They must go very deep to stay in cold water during the summer. I keep a cut off hoe handle in the boat to act as anesthesia to the undesirable fish. Mine was lost by some means or other so today I replaced it with an 18 inch piece of large bamboo. This was its first victim. The pickerel has a big mouth with a lot of sharp teeth. I would hate to see a large population of them in the Garhole. The bite came to a halt. I had about a 3 pound fish come up and boil at the DT-6 just as I took it out of the water. Shortly another small fish just followed it up and looked as the bait came out of the water. To remedy this a shaky head came out of the tackle box. In one spot I had some strange bites but could not connect. Another bite and it was a grinner so out came the bamboo again. The very next cast another bite and again a grinner and more bamboo. I thought maybe they were getting ready to spawn or something. The ending water temp was 55 on the North side of the hole when I quit at 4:00. I ended up with 12 bass with a FOD of 4-9. Probably had 6 more that followed it up. One even hit at the rugby head with a craw on it on top as I was rushing to make another cast.