Home

Lake X

Monday, March 04th, 2024 | Author:

Sunday morning I went to church for the 8:30 service then went home and prepared for fishing. I started at 12:30 with a jig, a Rugby head with plastic, a Keitech swimbait and a 3/4 oz Red Eye Shad tied on. The wind was blowing about 10 MPH out of the Southeast making fishing with plastic a little problematic, so the swimbait got the call. Also I figured the bass would be on the bank. I haven’t been fishing in a while with a swimbait so I had to remind myself to wait half a count before setting the hook. That reminder came in handy very soon as a good solid thump bite came before I reached the first light pole. A good fight ensued and soon I reached down and pulled in an 8-0. Pretty good start I thought. Wanting to get the fish back into the water quickly, I forewent trying for a photo. The fish was so fat, I’m sure with eggs, it looked like it was about to pop. After a few more casts I threw downwind with the Red Eye, mainly to get the new line straightened out, and was surprised to get a bite. Another bass looking as if it would pop but this time about 2 1/2 pounds. After a start like that I got to expecting more, but as has happened in the past not so. Things slowed to a stop for a couple of hours, nothing . Finally on the windblown end another tap on the swimbait and another 2 pounder , this one not fat, must have been a male. The first time I went to Lake X was about this time of year and the fish were on the bank so that’s where I fished yesterday. If I had it to do over I’d try a little more of the wood out in the middle with plastic but if they quit on the bank they were probably quit out there too. Other than the 8, the other good thing that happened was that all my reels worked perfectly after being taken completely apart, lubricated, and fresh line put on. No backlashes or other problems.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

Garhole

Tuesday, February 27th, 2024 | Author:

I started fishing a little before 10 It didn’t take long before I caught the first fish which was an enormous relief because of the scolding on the previous two trips there. A second one followed quickly also good. They were on a shallow top, or actually a branch. One on a Booyah and the other on a Shaky head on that same branch. I worked around to another shallow spot with a whole tree on the bank and some of the top was in the water. Caught 2 there on a Booyah and one nearby on a DT6. I circled the hole keying on shallow wood and managed to catch a few more. There is a standing tree out in the middle in 13 feet of water that’s been there since at least the 1960’s. The water level has to be extremely low for it to peek out. It is not in shallow water but I had to give it a few casts and caught one on a DT6. On the second time around the hole things changed a little. The fish were on a little deeper wood and I even saw some out in the open chasing shad and was able to catch one of those. There were only 4 more bites than the 11 fish I caught, so they were biting to eat. Had problems with shaky heads hanging up around all the cover. I finally ditched the shaky head and put on a rugby head, much more weedless. I quit at 2 with 11 fish and a 2 1/2 FOD. Did I say the wind was blowing? About 20 MPH and the boat was doing DOSEY DOEs all afternoon.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

Finally, something to write about

Friday, February 09th, 2024 | Author:

This afternoon I drove to Blackhawk to fish with Ben in one of the lakes there. We started fishing around 1:45 and the water was slightly turbid with visibility a little over 6 in. Ben started fishing with a flat max crankbait and I used a rapala DTF3. Ben caught one on about the third cast which was a good sign. The flat Max caught two more in rapid succession while the DTF3 didn’t get a bite. I changed to a booyah spinnerbait and things started picking up a little. We circle the lake twice and ended up catching 18, 14 of which we took out. Ben caught this beautiful 6 lb. 1 oz. Bass. We weighed it on both Ben’s scale and my scale which is over 10 years old. Both read the same. We quit about 5:00 or maybe a little later. Great afternoon!

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

Hal’s New Boat

Friday, November 03rd, 2023 | Author:

I met Hal at Enid yesterday morning at 8 a.m.. He had his new Alweld 17/52 with a 60 Yamaha tiller steer in tow. The boat is nice with plenty of storage and lots of room for my stuff in the back. It has depth finders front and at the helm which I found particularly nice. The one in the back is a new Humminbird with Mega imaging which gives super detailed picture of what is below.

The fishing started off slow, I’m sure due to a recent cold front passing and due to the fact it WAS cold. We only caught one at the “Two Sisters” after furrowing the bottom. Then it was one here and there. I had heard of a tournament being won at a top on Point 5 a few weeks ago and didn’t know where that particular top was. It was showing so now I know. Nothing on it now. All the regular spots held nothing until we got to the Rocks that is one of my favorite spots. There were some small ones there but not too many. We ended up with 9 and an unweighed FOD of around 4 pounds. Baits were spinnerbait, plastic, DT-6 and Hybrid Hunter from Strike King.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

Ben’s Pond

Sunday, October 08th, 2023 | Author:

Ben called and wanted to take advantage of the weather change to manage the fish population in one of his ponds. He said Thursday afternoon at 2:00 the pressure was forecast to start dropping and the fish should be ready to feed up. He was dead on ! When we arrived at the pond it was obvious the fish were feeding. We launched and started catching immediately. The drouth has caused the water level to be down by 3 feet or more concentrating the fish and the shad in the deepest part of the pond. It was basically cast around the boat in any direction especially where the creek was located. Pretty quickly he came out with a 5-15 pound fish that had a 7 pound head. As we traveled back toward the shallower part of the pond the bites stopped and so did any sign of baitfish so we turned around and got back out in the middle. This 9-1 came out then.

You can see the bare bank of the pond in the background. Rain began to threaten but putting on a rain suit top scared it off for a while. Ben was fishing with a Bandit flat maxx and a DT-6 and I fished with a DT-6, an unknown crankbait and a Strike King king shad jointed swimbait that I put on to try and it did pretty well. I had a couple of “failing to retie fiascos” but otherwise a good day. The rain appeared to be imminent and “discretion is the better part of valor” so we put the boat on the trailer with a cooler of bass.

We ended up with around 30 counting the extreme tight eyes that were thrown back and of course the bigger fish. A great afternoon with the weather perfectly played. I’m going to consult with Ben before going fishing again so I can get the right day weather wise. He had it dialed in.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

Shocked at Lake X

Thursday, October 05th, 2023 | Author:

They shocked Lake X Friday for a fish census and I went yesterday. I’m using that for an excuse for catching only one (5-1) on the only real bite I got except for the catfish. Caught 3 of those on plastic . Also saw and dipped up a bass in distress swimming in circles. The 5 1/2 pound fish looked fine fat and healthy with no wounds and had not been hooked deep. I put it back and did not see it when I left but recovery was doubtful. As I was loading the boat a mature bald eagle flew by and lit in a tree next to the pond. It may have been looking for stragglers. Don’t think it could have picked up that fish out of the water but I would have liked to see it try.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

Lake Chicot

Sunday, October 01st, 2023 | Author:

Went to Lake Chicot Saturday morning breaking my “no public lakes on the weekend “rule. Had some tips but they were weeks old. The lake was down a good bit. Caught a tight eye in the first place on a red eye shad getting rid of the threat of a skunk. I tried brush around some docks on the shallow side but most was not deep enough. Tried a Booyah some shallow cypress trees with 2 feet of water around them and caught one quickly but no more and the trees ran out. Moved to a place they used to school up years ago along a slick bank with a couple of brush piles. Couldn’t get any interest with a small red eye but saw some bass activity. Changed to a Booyah and caught three going down a slick bank, largest 2 1/2. Checked on the squirrel log and it was gone but saw a couple of rock piles and marked them for deeper times. Wanted to go to the deep side but lots of boats visiting the docks there. Water in Chicot was beautiful and was full of threadfin shad. I will go back on a weekday but maybe to the north end.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

Wolf Lake

Friday, September 22nd, 2023 | Author:

It took two tries to get there. The first ended in this.

I noticed the boat had a lean to it and started to slow down but then heard the roar when the tire disintegrated. Had a jack and blocks so no problem changing but did not like the looks of my spare. Was half way there so a U turn and back home and then to the tire store for two new tires. Better be safe than sorry. The next day, Thursday, all went well. Got a nip on the second cast and several more but after getting optimistic when reality set in I figured they were bream because I caught one. I did chase the skunk off relatively early but no more until just after noon. I had become dejected thinking I had overcome all the problems the day before just to get there and have a water haul, so took a ride. Wolf Lake is long and I rode almost to the other end, turned around and was coming back when I passed some trees where I used to catch some fish. There were 5 trees and one yielded a small bass. Enthused, I figured that would give me about 300 yards to catch another or I would be homeward bound. Caught another in about 150 yards with a 1/4 ounce Booyah. Another 300 yards and another small bass. That continued until I caught 7 missing only one bite. They were all small and shallow, some in just a foot of water. Even though the fish were small I felt like I had pulled the fat out of the fire. When looking for the tire picture I ran across the following picture taken September 15, 2006 at Enid. Hal and I caught those bass on the “old fart” point at the same time.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

Enid 245 Feet

Wednesday, September 13th, 2023 | Author:

Hal caught this 4 1/2 by the first visible stump that we fished using a Berkley Slobbernocker. The water around the stump was probably 4 feet deep. It was one of the few stumps visible. We had already caught a couple of small ones around some brush in shallow water and blind casting where there were a limb sticking up here and there. After this we went to the ” Longbranch stump” that Hal had marked on his GPS map. It was under the water but it was found exactly with a DT-6 and then probed with plastic where a 5 came out and later a 5 inch bass came out on a DT-6. Two 5’s, the largest and the smallest of the day in the same spot. From there we fished a couple of great looking spots, one being a large bush and the other a large top with plenty of limbs but nothing at either. From there we went to where some rocks cut down into the water and continued out to about 7 feet deep. There were some underwater brush piles also. We were using plastic as well as DT-6’s and the Slobbernocker. We caught a couple on DT-6’s and I started using a worm. When I had gotten through the good spot, I quickly reeled it in and just as it came out of the water a 4 pounder just blasted it right at my feet almost. It must have stunned me a little, because I didn’t snatch the bait out of the fish’s mouth. Due to the delay, when I did set the hook I had a live 4 pounder on with about 4 feet of line out. It was a rodeo going on at the back of the boat for a couple of minutes. A little later I thought my DT-6 was on the rocks and when it became apparent that it was actually a fish, I set the hook. The biggest fish of the day then came up and the hook came out. We guessed 5 +. We tried several other spots to no avail and only caught one more small one. We quit around 3:00 with 11 fish. The water is falling about .18 foot per day . The lake needs to fall a little more so more of the stumps will be visible. The visibility was about a foot and a half and the water temp is in the low 80’s.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off

New Idea

Sunday, September 10th, 2023 | Author:

In the middle of having the worst fishing year in some time, I decided to try something new to maybe shake me out of the slump. This new bait arrangement might help perhaps.

I saw these in the store and they caught my eye so why not catch the fish’s eye also. The Eagle Claw’s weedless hook was an important addition as it turned out. The Garhole was low and had not been visited recently as seen by the lack of tracks on the landing. There was a reason for that as I would find out later. The water was beautiful with about 2 foot visibility and 83 degree temperature. On the third cast at the first treetop there was a bite but it was a gar and on the next one a gar follow up. Finally a bass grabbed it and was caught, small however. The weedless hook allowed a throw into the middle of a top without getting hung. It worked a lot better than I thought it would. The bait worked well when fish were present but the only ones I could find were deep in the tops and were small. I fished deep too with it and extensively around the 5 pound log where the depth is around 16 feet. Deepest water I could find was 23.5 feet. I even fished in the middle with a jerk bait but no bass only a magnum gar about 5 feet long. When it got close enough to the boat it got the paddle treatment and gave my bait back. Only 3 fish for the day not including a 3 pound catfish with the bubblegum worm. The Garhole seems to have gone bad just like Lake Ferguson but no tournaments on the Garhole.

Category: Uncategorized | Comments off