There was a little difficulty in launching the boat on Chicot this morning due to the low water. The lake is being pulled down to let people work on their docks and for vegetation to grow on the shore so the small fish will have greater survival next spring when the water comes back up. When I finally started fishing, not much was going on except the wind was blowing creating a chop that wiped out any hopes of a topwater bite. I went straight to Jackson’s spot and caught nothing. At the second spot I saw some minnows flinching and threw a shaky head to the spot. Caught 4 there but they quickly quit. I then left the shallow side and tried the deep bank. It has a great drop from 4 feet to 18 feet. Jackson and I have discussed how to catch the fish on that side but have never really been successful catching many. I first tried an XD3, but since it dives to only 8 feet I thought it might need to be upsized to an XD5. Caught one on the first cast. Hoping I had solved the mystery, I continued down the bank for almost a half mile with not another bite. It was a case of the “old Indian trick”. Since the water is so low you can see the brush people have put around their docks to attract fish. One dock had something I have never seen, grocery carts. There were probably 20 around the dock with more being lined up for when the water rose. In the brush around one dock  a bass came up and hit a shad. When I threw the clown colored super spook junior close by, it piled on. Seeing a little action was good for the soul because up until then not much fish activity was seen. It was time to go check on the first spot again. The fish were in it and active. A curly tail grub on a jig head did a good job on the schooling fish. When they became a little shy I threw the shaky head. There was one spot that a top was under the water and anything except a topwater would get hung. The water had a chop but they still would come up and get the spook at high noon. I used a Yozuri too because you can throw it so far and it fished fast so you can cover territory. When one spot slowed, I went to the other, and when that one slowed I went back. I ended up with 29 and a 3 – 6 FOD. There are so many Yozuri sized shad in the lake I wonder why the bass will bite a lure.

Hal caught this 7 – 0 today fishing with Richard in Beaverdam.