The Garhole was looking good this morning.  You can see the brown on the bank where the water has fallen by about 18 inches. As hot as it was today, the water has to be evaporating at a rapid rate. The surface temperature was 93 degrees when I quit.

The bass were biting a Ribbit early but later I had to resort to a worm. I used the last two of my favorite kind. Digging into the side of my tackle bag where the plastics are stored I came across a purple worm with a red tail. Tom Mann made worms back in the 70’s with fruit flavors and a red tail. You could smell them when the package was opened. Mickey immediately named them” firetail smellyworms”. These did not smell nor were they from the 70’s  but I started to use them.

The first fish I caught was only slightly longer than the worm. The bream gave me fits for they seem to like the red tail and would grab it and run making me think it was a bass. I caught 23 bass and 2 grinners, to which I gave a hoe handle sedative. The FOD was 3 – 1. The size ran a little smaller than the last couple of trips.  About noon I had a visitor.

Same gator as the last trip. When he saw the boat, he came swimming up like I was a long lost friend.  I didn’t particularly like the fact that it showed no fear of humans. Not too bad now at 5 – 6 feet long but what about when it gets to 12 – 14?  I got the camera out and took the photos and then got my 11 foot boathook. It had moved a small amount so I trolled over closer.

I wanted to hit it just behind the head just to scare it and make it more afraid. When I came down with the lick, it saw it coming and made a crash dive out of the way.  I never saw it again.