I arrived at the Private Hole shortly after lunch Tuesday to find it covered with leaves. The wind blew them mostly to one end, which was a help, but fishing in leaves is tough because, if the leaves are thick enough, they hang on your hooks on almost every cast. I put the battery in the boat but the trolling motor would not run. The squirrels had cut into the wire in several places but it did not appear to be completely cut into. After taping the cuts, wiggling the connections, and checking the battery connections, I still couldn’t get it to run. Finally in desperation, I turned the foot switch on and off about 20 times and it ran. Not only did the rodents cut the wire but they chewed on any part of the motor that was plastic. Once I set sail, I pulled out a topwater and got a strike on the first cast, from a bream.  After seeing a topwater was not going to work, I put on a DT-6. Not too long after I put on the DT-6 I caught the first bass.  It was in a spot where you used to  could sit in the same spot and catch 20 but I could not get another to bite.  If they were too lazy to chase a crank bait then they might hit a worm, so I got out a Texas rigged worm and caught 3 or 4. The bites were hard to detect because they were so light. After the worm fishing slowed I tried a XD-5. I was pulling it fast when I hit a deep log. Thinking at first it was a bite, I set the hook and the bait ricocheted off the stump and stopped. When I caught up to it with the reel there was a fish on. Some of the fish looked to me that they would weigh 3 pounds but I had to laugh at myself because four I weighed were 2-13. That seems to be my favorite weight.  I put on a 1/4 ounce Red Eye Shad to fish some shallow water and caught the FOD a 4 – 8 with a 6 1/2 pound head and a sunken belly. A pretty good drought was next until I went to the other side with a DT-6 and caught a few where the wind had positioned them. The snakes are still out because  I saw a water moccasin, water Mexican, as Hal calls them swimming across the hole. If you go to the woods you still have to watch your feet. As the mosquitoes came out I quit with 14 fish. Most were the 2-13 size except the FOD and a few of this years spawn that have grown to 9 inches long.