This morning I met Hal at the Cottonmouth Lake gate at 6:00. That meant me driving out of the driveway at 3:26. The 40 acre lake is in Desoto county and has 20 members. The visibility is in the neighborhood of EIGHT FEET. With that clarity there is plenty of grass at any depth under 16 feet. I took my boat so we could look at the bottom with the side finder depth finder. We started in one of Hal’s favorite spots a deep point with some wood underwater. Along that stretch of bank there is a top lying out into the lake that a lady caught a 9 pound 10 ounce fish off of recently. We caught a couple of small ones as we fished down the bank. I had a 10 inch ribbontail worm with a weighted swim bait hook installed. Needless to say we came up with plenty of grass on almost every cast. I thought I had a wad of grass coming to the boat but it started moving sideways. On the hookset I could tell it was a good fish. Hal got the net and pulled out this 5 – 6 for me. If you click on the picture to blow it up, you can see an orange tag that Hal installed. The fish are cooperative. One five pounder that Hal tagged has been caught twice by the same man, both times in the same spot but across the lake from where it was tagged.

Shortly thereafter Hal caught a 5 – 0. He said that generally the fish bit very lightly but slightly after that I felt another electrifying tap and set the hook. It was another good bass that jumped like  two pounder but weighed 7 – 5. Hal caught a couple more good fish that rounded out our best 5 fish at 25-11.  A little later the small bass began schooling out in the middle. There was already a Redeye shad tied on so I heaved it out into the middle and one got it as soon as it hit the water. It jumped and got free as did the next four that I hooked. They were all small. Anything under 15 inches must be removed so those were some good to eat fish for me or Willie that escaped. As the temperature rose the bite slowed to nothing so we motored around looking for fish or at the bottom . We saw a few fish but the grass made it hard to see the fish unless they were out in the open. A pic of the 7 – 5 is below.

It is a beautiful lake that is over 30 feet deep. It seemed like most of the depth readings were over 20 feet when I looked at the depth finder. It sits on the edge of the hills overlooking the Delta. Based on today, if the lake was a little closer I would try for membership. We ended up with 22 bass.