The only way to get to the Garhole is on an ATV, which in my case is a Yamaha 4 wheeler. This is because the river came over the main road to it and the rains have the other road through the woods muddy and in places rutted up. Sunday I was going to go down and check on the boat that has been strapped to the rack with the plug in. Almost there was a large tree that had fallen across the road in a thick place so there was no going around. On the way back I told Rob and he immediately went down and removed it with a backhoe. This morning I put the new battery, tackle bag, boat bag, new boat hook, and fishing rods on the Yamaha. It was all strapped on with ratchet straps and bunge cords and quite a sight to behold. The water had fallen to where the boat rack was on the ground, which was just right as I didn’t have to bail the boat, just pull the plug. The new marina is great, pull the Yamaha right up beside the boat and transfer your stuff, which I did. After I hook up the battery and depth finder, I usually tap the trolling motor button just to make sure everything is right. This morning it was not right- nothing. Just to check, I touched both terminals with a piece of metal an there was barely a spark. When I bought the battery I asked the man if it needed charging before I used it. “No”, he said, “just use it”. It’s on the charger right now. I hope it’s not a bad battery. I dug the paddle out from under the deck and started. A DT-6, a swim jig, and a D&L 1/2 ounce Advantage jig each occupied a rod with one in reserve. It didn’t take too long to figure out the DT-6 was not working. Next up was the swim jig. It was on a small spinning rod with one of the new spinning reels spooled with Berkley Nanofil 17 pound hi-viz line. Nanofil is not braid but has a lot of the same characteristics, as in no stretch. It is slick and casts farther and easier than any line I have used. You have to use a leader and tying one on you need a small knot. The Albright knot or the uni to uni are the ones most used for the job. On my last leader I used the uni to uni and could hear it going through the guides on most casts so I tried the Albright this time. It came out small and in my opinion better than the uni to uni. I have a new version of WordPress and can’t figure out how to put the picture in. Just figured it out. Here it is. Pretty small.

The bass started biting the swim jig, and unfortunately the bream did too. The would pull off the tails of the trailer. It was one here one there for a while but I found a spot where the water was running out and there was some duckweed. A cast on top of the duckweed and pull it off of the side was good for a bite when the jig came off the side. Caught the 2 3/4 FOD doing that. I also caught a nice crappie with the swim jig. After a while the bite seemed to slow for the swim jig so I broke out a regular jig with a trailer. I caught a couple on it but now the wind had picked up a little and since I was paddling , it did not take too much for me to decide to head for home. The gnats didn’t help either. They were out in full force and if you got close to the bank the mosquitoes were too. The buff that I wear for the sun helps with the gnats but the mosquitoes can bite right through it. The total was 10 bass.