I don’t know what has happened but I can’t catch the fish I used to at Lake Monticello.  Jackson and I went there today on what should have been a good day and we caught 7 but again none over 4 pounds.  F O D  = 3 – 10. The fish were hesitant to bite a Ribbit, most following it and took it only after you stopped the bait and let it sink.  Some were caught on a swimbait but we fished them in some places that in the past have been great this time of year. I’m full of questions but have no answers.

After having spent the last two days preparing our house on the river for the high water, I went fishing today to clear my mind.  The water is going to get into the upper floor at the projected crest.  We even took off the doors to the outside and put them up, putting plywood in their place. With the levee closed I will not be able to even take the boat to look and see if I still have a house. The current may get severe when the water comes over the point that protects it. We’ll see what happens.

Now fishing. On the spur of the moment at 9:00 last night, I decided to go to Lake Monticello.  It’s been a while since I got beat over there last. This morning I started slowly with a Ribbit frog. The water temp was 63 degrees. I caught the first fish at 7:50 but by 8:20 I had a total of three.  They were just making a wake behind the frog, making me stop it and let it drop until they decided to inhale it.  All the larger fish had spawned. By larger I mean between 3 and 4 pounds. The frog bite was anemic. It just did not seem that they were in the pads in large numbers. So coming out of one of the coves where I had fished the pads down the sides, I came out the middle with a swimbait.  After the swimbait  I used a shad-O which is a cross between a sluggo, a fluke and a swimbait. It’s rigged like a swimbait but with a light hook that really gives the bait a lifelike look when you let it drop. In Monticello’s clear water I got to watch the 4 pound FOD scarf the Shad-O in plain sight. Finally things got so slow about 4:30 I left after catching 7 for the day. Ribbit 5, Shad-O 1 and swimbait 1.

It’s been almost a month since I fished last. The last day was April 9th. Turkey season and dealing with the flood have taken precedent.

And what a flood it is ! This is a photo of the river in front of  the house at Catfish taken a few days ago. The water level by now will be up to the bottom edge of the picture. I had to do something to take my mind off of the water getting 5 feet into the bottom of the house so I took some fishing therapy. Mickey and I went to Lake Jackson to try to ease my mind. Lake Jackson is divided into two parts. The North end has  a lot of coontail moss and the South end has grass carp to control it. We started in the North end thinking Ribbit frog. We caught two there and had this guy bail off of his perch and try to eat my Ribbit.

The moss was so bad we had to leave for the South end. Upon arriving there, the Booyah spinnerbait came out and caught one pretty quickly.  We had a couple to miss the Booyah so Mickey pulled out a Paca-Craw and started to catch some. I rattled around in my tackle bag and came up with one but Mickey had the technique down pat. Hit the tree and let it slide down. The FOD at 4 – 11 was caught that way.

When that one came to the top it looked a lot larger that it was and that caused a lot of quick activity in the boat as he tried to keep the fish on and I dove for the landing net.  Late in the afternoon the fish got close to the bank and would bite the Booyah again. We ended up with 14 and had a great time.

Yesterday I came across some men from the Fish and Wildlife Service who have been trying to catch pallid (white) sturgeons, an endangered species, in the Mississippi River. They catch them and put transmitters in them to study their movement. Receivers have been placed on bridges on the river to record their presence. Over 80 have been captured and implanted with transmitters. They also catch some shovelnose sturgeon which are brown and more common. They are now attempting to catch some up and down the river to keep and send to the lab to make sure the brown ones are all the same species.The ones they had are all shovelnose.

The fish have a prehistoric look as you can see from the picture.  The man it the background is measuring a small one, that is small, but bit never the less.  They are caught on trotlines set in the river with worms for bait.  I think catfish are a nuisance but welcomed for supper. A closeup of the head.

The fish have feelers much like a catfish and have a mouth that extends down to vacuum the bottom. A closeup of the mouth shows it retracted, but it will extend down about 2 inches.

The photo also shows four catfish like feelers.  Sturgeon eggs are the source of caviar.  Some from Russia, Beluga,  sells for $200 an ounce.  Evidently they are plentiful in the River but in all my years of fishing I’ve never seen one until now.

Since turkey season is still on there has been nothing for me to report on the fishing front but as soon as it’s over I already have some places I want to go. It will be Ribbit time. I put on new line yesterday, some Seaguar Invisix flurocarbon 12 pound test. It’s hard to cast without a backlash but I’m going to force myself to learn how.

I met Jackson at the ramp of Lake Enterprise in downtown Wilmot, Arkansas at 7:00 this morning.  We went about 100 yards and immediately started fishing and I immediately started catching. Caught one on the first cast after seeing it move by a cypress tree. Fortunately, that did not put the hoodoo on the trip like it usually does.  I thought what a good guide I had. We started with spinnerbaits.Then caught some on buzzbaits and Jackson ended up the trip catching some on a DT-6ish crankbait. Here is a photo of the Lake.

Due to the low level, there are some tremendous stumps that your motor can hit right in the middle of the lake.  We hit one shortly after this photo was taken, one of many for the day. We ended with 18 bass and a FOD of 3 – 6.  It’s the first time I’ve fished there in a long time and I hope to fish there again soon.  If you go, BE CAREFUL OF THE STUMPS. I would not even plane the boat off.

I had to take one today on bass but I did catch one stripe.  Jackson and I went to Monticello despite a terrible weather forecast that was accurate. It was cold to start and the wind howled.  We actually had a couple of good bites, mine on a ribbit and Jackson’s was on a wake type swimbait. In the middle of the afternoon we saw a few in the pads but they weren’t thinking about biting.  Too early once again. I will not be back there until after May 1st.

This afternoon Mickey and I went to Ferguson. The water temperatures ranged from 61 to 66 degrees. The water was that beautiful color of green with at least a 4 foot visibility. The first spot we stopped was back in the willow trees where there are a lot of log drifts.  We caught one (3 – 5) there on a swimbait that was about a foot deep in 27 feet of water. We then tried to find the cow pen where back in the 70s we caught a lot of bass together. The trees in the upper lake have changed so much we could not find how to get there. We knew about where it was but the small bushes were so thick we couldn’t get the boat to the spot. We tried to fish back in the trees but quickly tired of that so we went to the meadow.  We caught 2 bass there, both on swimbaits.  Mickey missed one by a bush, and 20 minutes later when we came back by he hung it and it threw the hook on the jump. It would have been the FOD, probably around 4 pounds. He threw back in the same spot and caught one about a pound. The one I caught in the meadow had already spawned. It had a bloody tail and a sunken belly and weighed 3 – 9.  We had a lot of tap tap bites on the swimbaits from 6 to 8 inch bass that many times followed the bait to the boat. It’s shaping up for another good year on Lake Ferguson.

Mickey and I went to Wolf Lake this morning finding it turbid (muddy), with a surface temperature of 60, and a water level of 91.2 feet which is high. We fished around for a couple of hours and only caught one and one other lost on the way to the boat.  With this kind of start we made the decision to leave and go to the Firetower at Belzoni which was relatively close. At the landing we spoke to a fisherman putting his boat in and we came upon the information that the Yazoo River was backing into Wolf Lake due to the high level of the Mississippi River. Things started to make sense.  At the Firetower we found the surface temperature of 66 and water that was turbid but not to the degree of Wolf Lake.  The fish were relatively timid hitting the Booyah spinnerbaits but not sticking.  We were making contact.  Every now and then we would catch one and even some crappie. We surmised the crappie were some of the bites we were getting that did not stick. Mickey broke out a paca craw and caught two but Booyahs were the bait. The bite picked up after lunch but still their aim was off as we got a lot of misses or fish that came unpinned shortly after the hook set. Mickey lost the fish that would have been the FOD at 3 pounds which tells you they were small. We managed to catch 17 bass and 4 crappie in all.

The wind was too high to turkey hunt and the river was in the Garhole so the only choices I had were to take a nap or go fishing in Lost Lake.  It is an extremely shallow lake that only gets the river in it at a lot higher river stages, the ones we don’t want because of the threat of my cabin getting flooded.  The deepest place is probably 3 1/2 to 4 feet deep.  We sometimes pump water our of the chute with a relift pump to put the water up to a better depth. Now would be a good time for that since the river is high.  I barely was able to get the boat off of the trailer. I started off fishing with a Booyah spinnerbait and started to get bites but no fish. Finally I caught a couple but it was obvious something else moving slower would work better. When one would hit and miss you would see exactly where it was because of a puff of mud. A fluke came to mind, so after I’d get a bump a fluke would be the next serving. It worked fairly well but I think some of the bass were so small that some just had the fluke by the tail. I caught none under 13 inches but no biggies either. The FOD was a 2-13. A lot of the 1 1/2 to two pound bass had bloody tails indicating they were fanning the bed which may be the reason they were not biting so well.  I caught 8 in all. I got 5 bites on one small log from what I am convinced was a decent fish because  he knocked the tar out of it each time I’d go by. Never caught it.

I went to the Garhole Sunday afternoon seeking relief from the mistreatment from the turkeys. They were giving me the silent treatment so I sought relief until they became more talkative. The fish were not much better. I only caught 11, the FOD weighing 2 1/2 caught out of shallow water where she was spawning. The cold river water is on the brink of getting in and I am concerned it will affect any eggs that already been laid. The fish were caught on a variety of baits, including Booyah spinnerbaits, shakey heads with a tube, and a “steady Eddie” DT-6. When the water comes in, I plan on being on the bank with a Booyah, fishing the running water.

EDIT: I was there but the water was cold and no bites were to be had. The river water was 50 degrees.