I went to Ferguson this morning after early church. That put me up the lake talking to Tom and his son at 10:30. They had been there about 30 minutes and they already had 8 fish. When I put in they were the only truck at the landing. After a short conversation I headed to my starting spot and had a DT-10 on. It had no interest so I put on an XD-5 because that is what Tom and his son were using. It took me a long time to put the first fish in the boat. After the first couple there was a lull in the bite but later it picked back up. I tried to call Tom but cell coverage was spotty. As the bite picked up, I began to get more optimistic but I soon slowed and I left that spot. The wind was blowing pretty hard and when you say fluorocarbon and wind in the same sentence there is a backlash. The XD-5 is not as good at laying out on the wind as a DT-10 is so I put on a DT-16 to see if it would equal the 10. It did and with a small reel adjustment the casting problems were solved. In my new spot I wanted to cast toward the shallows and pull to the deep but the wind was in the exactly wrong direction. I put the boat in 12 feet of water and made casts parallel to the drop, sometimes out a little bit and sometimes in. Soon I hung something heavy that I thought might have been a large gar. When a large bass came up and jumped it surprised me so much I shouted. It was a fat with eggs female that weighed 5 3/4. I was eager to get her back in the water so no photo. Later I felt a tap tap on the DT-16 and on the third tap I hung a 3 3/4 . Almost every bite down that stretch of bank was the tap tap variety. Down that stretch I caught 5 fish but on the second trip there was not even a bite. I figured the bite was over for the day so at 4:30 I left with 16 fish and an FOD of 5 3/4. The top 5 were 20 pounds even. Tom and his son caught 19 with a FOD of 4 pounds.

The photo is not of a large fish but one that had black spots all over. I’ve seen them before but not very often. Catch and release works ! This afternoon I caught one weighing 4 pounds even that had a boo boo on the side of his jaw where it had been hooked before. When I weighed it the membrane at the top of its mouth where I hook my scale had already been punctured. I have fished that spot a good bit in the last few months and I guarantee either Mickey or I have caught that fish and weighed it. Maybe we can catch it again.