My Christmas present from the Millers was a Jerry Rago swimbait that is extremely realistic. It looks just like a bream and has a big hook on top and a place for a treble under the belly. I put the largest treble (#2) I had on it but think the next size up might be the ticket.  It should be dynamite in Lake Monticello or the Garh —oops, the private hole where the water is clear. Here is a photo.

It’s as realistic a bait as I’ve ever seen.  Hal has totaled up the year and caught only 1916 fish for the year on 125 trips.  Both numbers are down for him since he has caught over 2000 bass for the last three years. The number of trips are down too 125 vs 143 last year if my memory is correct. He had two days of 100+ fish and 37 fish over 4 pounds. His largest was 6 pounds even.  The average per trip was 15.32 fish. No info was provided on zero days and I forgot to tell the other day that my zero days were 2.

Today I did a preliminary add up of the results of fishing for 2011.  Since there were only 54 entries in the book there will be room for another year of data in that same book. I caught 979 bass in those 54 trips for an average of 18.13 fish per trip vs 14 per trip last year. Last year I went 80 times and caught 1146 fish. This year I caught 25 fish that weighed over 4 pounds for 2.16 trips per 4 pound fish slightly more trips than the 1.9 last year.  The largest fish was 6 – 6, a fish from the private hole, vs  a 6 – 2 or 4  from Enid last year and way behind the 4 over 8 and 1 over 9 in 2006, my first year of retirement. That year I did not keep records but there is no telling how many fish I caught over 7 that I have no count of.  All of the big ones were caught on a Ribbit frog on top. I didn’t realize what a  spectacular year I was having then. My summertime flood project had a dampening effect on my fishing by cutting down the number of trips. It has cut down on my hunting too, reducing the trips to 9 in 2011 from 29 by the same date in 2010. The main part of the project is over and I plan to press the fishing until turkey season.  The low water on Lake Monticello and lack of lily pads contributed to lack of large bass numbers. I’m going to try to master several new fishing techniques in the coming year. Among those are 1. Drop shot rig  2. Suspending jerk bait 3. Carolina rig and 4. Alabama rig.

It’s been almost a month since I’ve been fishing, for bass that is.  The river has been rising, the deer are in rut, and it’s been cold, all negatives for fishing around here. Yesterday I was sitting up high in a tree watching deer running around in courtship, when they are most vulnerable, but I was thinking how much fun it would be to be fishing.  So today Mickey and I went to the private hole and there were no tracks on the bank to indicate anyone had been fishing there lately.  As we rigged up, the wind blew us toward one of our favorite spots. We had declared since it was cold, we were going to try the North bank first since it would be the warmest but the wind changed our plans.  I threw a suspending jerk bait on a spinning rig with 8 pound test line. When I pulled it down and paused it, a fish loaded on. The first one was the regular size but the second one was a 4 – 6. A good way to start.

The fish seemed to want to bite the bait when it was paused. I would crank down the Rapala XRS 8 ( I believe those are the letters) a few turns, and then pause, and then rip it and wait.  Here is a photo of the bait.

After we left the first spot, I tried my home made Alabama rig.  I think the fish need to be very active for it to work well.  I caught nothing on it today. A slight disappointment but it would have been better on Lake Ferguson two months ago. As we continued things were changing as the  temperature was rising.  Mickey got out his Spike It, which is a jar of garlic flavored coloring.  Just dip your plastic bait in and it has a chartreuse or orange tail and has a strong garlic smell. You really need to be careful not to get it on anything else or it will be colored and smell to high heavens. He put it on the tail of his worm and I put it on the tail of my swimbait.  It worked on both but it worked better on the worm, I think.  We finally got to the sunny North bank and Mickey caught the FOD, a nice 5 – 8 on a spinnerbait.

There were shad “flicking” out in the middle and I’ve been reading all these articles about fishing a jerk bait in the winter. I just had to cast out in the middle to see if there were any bass under the shad waiting on a meal. On the first cast there was a hookup with a big fish and I was thinking how smart I was. The fish continued by the boat and started pulling drag. Not so smart. A silver carp. In another spot, more shad were active and I couldn’t stand it again. On about the second cast a bass bit and came aboard. Redemption. We ended up with 32, the largest 5 being 5-8, 4-10, 4-10, 4-6, and 3-11 for a respectable 22 – 13.

Craig invited Jackson and me to accompany him on a duck hunt in the Louisiana marsh South Of Abbeville.  It is a wonderful spot that is reached only after a 30 minute boat ride. On our first day’s hunt we killed the limit, ate a wonderful lunch, and then returned to the marsh to fish for redfish. We fished in canals from a boat that looked more like a pontoon raft. At first we used a shrimp under a popping cork in very shallow water. I had no confidence in catching anything but our guide/captain caught two relatively quickly. His name is Shawee (I’m sure the spelling is wrong but that’s the way it sounds) which was Cajun French for Raccoon. Quite a character.  We found some running water and started catching some small redfish and some channel catfish, believe it or not. Here is a photo of a small red we caught.

You can see it is a pretty spot and the weather was perfect. We reached one spot where a good volume of water was coming through a pipe and the fish were there and biting.  By the time we got there we had ditched the popping corks and were just feeling for the “electrifying tap” before we set the hook. Jackson caught a large channel catfish and also a couple of crabs beside some reds.

We caught about 10 redfish and were able to keep all and take them back for appetizers before dinner. They were really good fresh out of the water.

Since we planned ahead with a well stocked ice chest and had a designated driver we fixed a drink and enjoyed the pleasant ride to the camp.

Saturday morning I went deer hunting on the farm, and not getting a satisfactory shot, I came back to the shop to manufacture an Alabama Rig that has set the fishing world on fire. You can not buy one from the manufacturer because it is way behind on orders. You can, however, buy one on Ebay as I found out this morning. Mine was made from the wire on surveyor’s flags. A line tie was made and then the individual wires that come out the back were looped around the back side of the line tie. I took my thumb and made a mold for the lead with a piece of buckshot mud. It was easy to fashion and the wires could just be pushed into the mud and sealed with some more mud on top.  Obviously the mold was a one time thing.  I had a 5 pound piece of lead that melted readily when the acetylene torch hit it. The molten lead ran down in  a stream into the mold until it was full. The front part, that you will not be able to see in the picture, ended up being too large but a grinder and a file took care of that and enabled me to make the whole thing more symmetrical. After the split rings and snap swivels were connected, the wires were bent into place and the baits were snapped on. Swimbaits were the baits I used, I guess because they  are the ones you see in all the pictures.  Looking in my tackle box there were some small crankbaits or rattletraps that may work better.

If I can get this venison business over with I’m going to try to see how the Alabama Rig will work and will report on the Bitespot.  People will come in to fill a need. There are plenty of them for sale on Ebay for $9.99 plus shipping.

Today Mickey and I went to Lake Ferguson in his new boat. It’s a War Eagle with a 90 Yamaha two stroke. It rides well in the heavy water as we found out coming in with a 20 MPH South wind. Here is a photo.

We started in the end of the lake where it starts to get shallow.  We caught 2 extremely small bass to start but the fish were just bumping the Yozuri which prompted us to switch to worms and in Mickeys case a Carolina rig.  He dipped the tail in a dye solution with a strong garlic flavor and promptly started to wear me out.  I switched, dipped and tried to catch up but I could not. As we worked back down the bank I pulled out a DT-10 and started to make a small improvement .  We swapped back and forth from the DT-10 and a Carolina rig, or a “ball and chain” as it is known.  The fish seemed to be in small schools because where you’d catch one you were very likely to catch another. Then continuing down the bank it might be a long stretch with nothing. The fish did not hit on top very much. We saw only minimal shad chasing going on, and when the fish did show, they were generally small. We were not alone on the lake today. There were two tournaments and a bunch of other fishermen. If you will click on the following picture to enlarge it, you can see 6 or more boats at the mouth of the chute.

We didn’t see anybody just loading the boat and there was a lot of riding, a sure sign of a slow bite. I’m sure there were some fish being caught, but we did not see anyone catch one, and believe me, we are always paying attention. We ended up with 22 fish and a FOD of 4 – 4. For you tournament guys, our largest 5 weighed 17 pounds.

This morning I went for a quick bowhunt, and after it warmed up, went for a short fishing trip to the private hole. I started fishing at 11:15 and quit at 1:45. In that time the bite switch went from on to off.  At the start, the fish were doing pretty well, as 12 came from one spot pretty quickly.  As has been the case for the most of the year a DT-6 did most of the catching. A worm, a Yozuri, and a Timber Tiger DC-13 all helped a little.  Toward the end of the trip, the fish had completely vacated what I consider to be one of the best spots. On the way back to the boat launch I saw some shad “flicking” out in the open water and just fired the DT-6 out in their direction and caught one.  Figuring I had solved the riddle, I started to cast to every “flick”. It didn’t work again so when I reached the launch, I quit.  Caught 20 in all with a FOD of 3-3.  I let the largest fish of the day jump and put the scold on me, throwing the DT-6 all the way back over the boat.  It weighed in the 3 3/4 to 4 1/4 pound area is my guess. Only one grinner today but he was well sedated when I saw him last.

Hal lives on a lake that has grass carp in it  to control the vegetation.  He noticed the carp hanging out under the oak trees near the edge of the water eating the acorns as they fell into the water.  The carp are large but not big fighters when hooked, so he rigged up a light 7 foot spinning rod with 6 pound test line. For bait he just picked up some acorns. He loves to sight fish for redfish but in this case he substituted the carp. Stealthily easing along the bank, and upon seeing a carp , he casts a willow oak acorn impaled on a hook to the fish. The carp after a couple of drag burning runs usually gives up. Here is a photo.

I believe that one was 23 pounds. The boat has a 42 inch bottom so you can see how large they are. His record so far has been 30 pounds.  Too bad they’re not as tasty as a redfish.

Saturday morning Mickey and I drove up to join Frank and brother Tommy for an assault on the Private Hole for the purpose of supplying the main attraction for a fish fry. There was a good omen on the way to the hole, in the form of a mature, white head, white tail, bald eagle sitting in a tree near some water right off the levee.  When Mickey and I were rigging up, we heard Frank say “That’s one” as he brought a bass into the boat.  That lit the fire in our boat as DT-6s got snapped on and were thrown toward the bank. We had caught a few when the FOD hit, a 5-2. Mickey had his camera on and ready when he saw me throw the fish back and make another cast. The fever was high at that point.  Unfortunately, no picture for the Bitespot.  Soon the DT-6 bite tailed off so we picked up the worms and continued to catch fish, keeping only those under 13 inches. When we had 10 that we were able to keep, we trolled over to the Smith boat to see how many they had on ice.  They had caught about 20 and it was determined the required amount for the fish fry had been attained, so they went to clean fish, as was the deal, and Mickey and I kept fishing, now releasing all. On the way to the landing Tommy caught one that almost made 5 pounds.  The Smiths saw a large 100 pound+ snapping turtle that had a death grip on about a 20 pound catfish. It was going to have a fish fry too. The bite tailed off in the middle of the day but we were undeterred and made repeated rounds to our spots. The day was marked with several mishaps, me forgetting the battery, throwing over limbs, hangups, or tangled lines. We ended the day with 69 bass and about 7 grinners. I say “about” 7 because those do not get marked into the book. A grinner is like John Paul Jones as he does not begin to fight until he gets in the boat where he tears up all your “stuff”.  We did not let any into the boat but removed the hook after they had been sedated with a short length of hoe handle.  Besides the FOD there was a 4-6 and some over 3.   Because the water had gone down since the last trip, when we quit, we had to move the rack that the boat sits on. The only way to position it, due to bank slope and tree position, was to have it at an angle up the bank. When we were removing our equipment, the ice chest shifted and the boat turned up on its side and unceremoniously dumped Mickey out into the water. It happened almost in slow motion and he was laughing before he hit the water.  As we rode back on the levee the eagle was still hanging around to make sure we got back.  Despite the few mishaps of the day, it was great fun.

At 2:30 this afternoon, Frank Smith and I hit the Chute.  It was cold and cloudy with a strong, cold North wind blowing. I have to admit that I had my doubts about a great deal of success.  We started out with a jig pole, but after no luck we swapped it for a rod with a spinnerbait attached.  The bass were biting but were mostly missing.  Frank had a bite in a small open spot on the bank and had a small issue with his bait so I quickly said ” I’ll save your place for you” and threw my bait where he got the bite. The fish surprised me and bit my bait with gusto and was brought to the boat.  I really didn’t think the fish would bite again because I had several short strikes and they would not come back the second time. A little embarrassed I continued fishing. As the afternoon passed, the clouds gave away to a clear sky and a little sun, even a slight bit of balminess. We were close to the dam where there was shad activity.  We circled the area because the fish were schooling feeding on the shad. For the open water out came the Yozuri. It managed to catch a few before we returned to the 1/4 oz. Booyah spinnerbaits. In going down the bank we would catch two or three in the same vicinity and then go a long way before catching another. When you caught another there were usually two or three. They seemed to be in schools. Right at dark the bite was hot. We ended the afternoon with 25, a few of which were invited to a fish fry tomorrow night. The small ones were the only ones we kept. The FOD was 3 – 8. I had a picture of Frank and a pretty chute bass but the sun was wrong and it looked dark. I’ll get a better one tomorrow.