Today was forecast to get to 70 degrees but was going to start off pretty cool so I was not going to go at the crack of dawn. I signed in at 7:55 and still had to get the jeep and the leaf blower. When I arrived at the Garhole I saw my boat sitting high and dry because the water had dropped about two feet since the last time I was there. I placed a small log behind the boat so when it was pushed off of the rack it would not dig in the mud. The leaf blower is an indispensable piece of equipment during the fall and made quick progress blowing all of the leaves out. The boat was then launched by pushing it off the rack and over the log into the water. There is an old can of car wax that I keep under the seat of the boat to wax the runners of the rack. I applied a good coat while it was still cool and I figured the fish were not doing too much. Although when I drove down the levee all the cows were up and eating. After I moved all of the winch paraphernalia closer to the rack because I was low on rope, I launched. The first cast was at 10:00 and was with a wacky worm in water about 4 feet deep. It was on a new spinning rod that I was using for the first time. Nothing. A DT-6 came next and when that came up empty, a regular worm got the call. Still nothing. I also had a Tokyo rig on with a small swim bait to fish a little deeper. Not any better. I began to get a little worried because I was in one of my favorite spots. Some friends have been catching fish deep so I tried that but still nothing. Finally I came to a very shallow spot, only a couple of feet deep and threw in there with a worm and caught a 4 – 5. Then I threw back with the wacky and caught a 3 – 11. Things began to look better. A couple of smaller fish came out too. When that ran out, I began to go around the bank and came up with some small ones. At the 5 pound log I threw a DT-6 across it and a big fish ate it. It was a 5 – 15. When I first put the fish on the scales they read 6 – 4 but settled down to 5 – 15. All the jiggling in the world would not get them to 6. The next cast came up with 4 – 8. The day was getting better fast. After this I visited a place that in the past has been great but not a fish from there this year and there was no change today. It looked like shallow was the ticket so I headed to a place that was shallow where I have caught fish before. I believe it was 2 feet deep but there were fish there, mostly small, 2 pounds and down. I used a DT-6 and held the rod tip high because on the edge of the flat there was a little drop. Everything was slower today. A lot of the bites came when the DT-6 was stopped. When that ran out, I hustled around to the other shallow spot but I caught only one there. Next I thought the 5 pound log would be a good bet. I was just fishing around the bank with a DT-6 heading it that direction when a good fish loaded on. It was another 5 -15 and had the same scale action.

I caught one other fish and then the trolling motor started shaking like it had a leaf on the prop but nothing was there. Soon it wouldn’t run at all and I had to paddle back to the rack. The motor was old and was a $36 Walmart Motor Guide so no big loss and it was time for me to go. I ended up with 22 bass and coFOD’s of 5 15. The best 5 weighed 24 – 6. Quite a respectable day.