Harley IV and I went to the Garhole again. This time arriving at dark and having to await the sun to make things bright enough so we could fish. As we sat in the truck, at first there were just one or two mosquitoes bumping up against the closed window of the truck. As the light increased, more and more arrived looking for a snack. Finally it was light enough to start to load the boat and start to fish. The mosquitoes were not as bad as I thought they would be. I don’t know how, but the mosquitoes seem to know just when you are distracted and trying to concentrate on something like tying a knot in your fishing line. That’s when they attack, totally messing up your knot or whatever else you are doing.

He caught these two before I was able to put my DT-6 on. He was using an XD-3. Things started popping right off the bat. The big fish was the FOD at 4 1/2 pounds. When I finally got a bait in the water I came up with a 3 1/2. Then Harley hooked something that pulled drag and went down and sulked. The 8 pound line on the relatively light spinning reel was no match for whatever he had on. He did a good job of fighting the fish but its size was winning the battle. We got a glimpse of the fish twice and could not definitively tell what it was. It appeared to be hooked in the mouth. It was not a catfish because it didn’t roll. It was not a bass because it never tried to jump. It went under the boat for the fourth or fifth time and the hook pulled out. I wish we could have at least been able to tell exactly what it was.

As you can see, it had him bowed up and he was tired after the fight. We then crossed the hole and caught a few more bass. When that spot gave out we went to a place that I just have to check each time I go to the Garhole because it has been so good in the past. I have not caught a fish there this year until today. They were there in spades and we caught several more getting the total up to 14 bass. We also caught three big bream on the crankbaits.

The three were good sized and we were glad to see them as we had brought an ice chest and planned to fly fish later for a mess for supper. One of them was a “government bream” which I think is a red eared sunfish. I believe it was the first one I have ever caught around here. When it got to be 9:15 we put the bass rods and picked up the popping bug. Again the small bream gave us fits but we managed to catch enough for supper. Since I was going to do the fish cleaning we were selective on the fish we kept. I really did not want to have to fillet a bunch of really small fish. We caught enough before it got hot and quit at 10:30.