In the middle of the morning I went to pull the plug and let the rainwater out of my boat at the Garhole.  I just had to make a few casts off of the bank.  Caught a tighteye on the first cast.  That’s usually the kiss of death on a fishing trip.  I left the Garhole proper and went to a small part that has been cut off by the falling water. There I caught another 14 bass and a chain pickerel.  My thumb came too close to one of the pickerels sharp teeth and was punctured. It bled freely and I had to retreat to the first aid kit in the truck and the Nuskin. The double hole was next and it had come up a couple of feet since the last time I was there. The river is high but was not running in. It must have been coming in through the bottom of the blewhole. Caught only one more there. The total was 16 but they were all small. The water was running in another hole where I saw 5 river otters. Three were at close range. They are neat animals that always seem to be having fun.

This morning the sunrise was gorgeous but I didn’t see it fishing. I was walking down the road, trying to keep warm, and trying to hear a turkey gobble. Pretty quickly I heard one but it was waaay off, as Duke Morgan is prone to say when asked what he heard.

I got some good exercise too, to the tune of about a 3 1/2 to 4 mile walk.  Fishing started at 9:45.  Hal has been having good luck at Beaverdam with a swim jig so I started with one of those.  It was quickly discarded after two bumps and nobody home when the hook was set.  The bass that were biting were so small they were grabbing the trailer and missing the hook. The Booyah came next.  It caught some but it also got bumped too much to suit me so out came the shakey head with a baby brush  hog on the back.  I caught some on that combination until I had a fit of bad luck with missing bites.  Next I pulled out a DT-6 and started catching right off the bat.  So armed with a shakey head, a DT-6, and a Booyah, I circled the Garhole keeping everything under 13 inches, which were most of what I was catching. When the back ends started getting pulled off the baby brush hog, I switched to a small Zoom tube bait. I screwed in the tube nose to the small spring on the shakey head, then I snipped a small slit for the bottom of the hook and then put the hook point barely sticking out the top of the tube.  It worked well.  The 4-7 FOD was the first customer.

Those Garhole bass are really pretty.  I caught 35 in all. All of those under 13 inches, which were most of them, were invited to Willie’s house for supper.  They are close to being overpopulated so it’s important to keep as many of the small ones as possible and take them out. When Mickey cleaned the fish last week, he found a high percentage of the small fish we kept to have eggs. If all those small fish spawn, numbers could get out of hand quickly. Then there’s the River. Forecasts say it’s going to crest at 35 feet at Arkansas City and that will be close to getting in the Garhole.  If it gets in the numbers of bass in it now will be fine.

There was only one truck at the landing when Jackson and I arrived this morning. The boat was sitting on the side of a sunken road with two guys fishing with shiners.  We immediately left for what we considered the best spot in the lake.  The water temperature was 49 degrees to start off and there was a cold wind blowing.  We were not having any luck and were fishing near the shiner men when we watched them catch 5 fish in pretty rapid succession. Finally after lunch I felt something that felt like my swimbait hitting some submerged sticks and I looked down just in time to see a 5 pounder spit the swimbait out.  I cast right over to that spot again and felt one pick the bait up but no one home when I set the hook. Another cast and another bite but this one held on and was caught, chasing off the skunk. We circled that spot several times and fished it hard but no more bites. When we trailered the boat the shiner men came in and Jackson asked about their day. They caught 15 with the three largest at 6 1/2, the rest from 3 to 5. Had we known the water was so cold we never would have gone there. Maybe we should have gone to Lake Enterprise where Jackson and a friend caught 60 one day last week.

Mickey and I started fishing at the Garhole about 11:00 today.  The fish started out a little slow but quickly sped up to wide open. Out of the first 8 fish we had two 3 – 7s and a 4 – 12.  A chartreuse Booyah spinnerbait was once again the bait of the day.  The fish were concentrated in a cove with the wind blowing straight into it.  The wind must have blown in debris that the baitfish feed on and then the bass were there for the baitfish. This is a photo of one that Mickey caught. The photographer got him to hold it out to the camera so you could really see the fish.  Also making it look larger.

In our first pass around the Garhole we had 18 including a 4 – 15 and a 5 – 1. When we started feeling kind of smug is when the worm started to turn. The bite started to shut down. We circled the hole a few more times but fish were harder to come by. We ended up with 34 bass, 3 crappie, a grinner, and a silver carp hooked in the bottom lip. Photo of the 5 -1 FOD.

As we arrived at Mickeys house, Jackson called and said he had been out on Lake Enterprise with a friend and saw bass schooling. They let the wind blow them into the schooling fish where Jackson hooked 7 on the first 7 casts and caught 6.  They went on to catch 60 with 3 in the over 4 range and 6 to7 more in the over 3 pound range.  They caught the fish on a rattle trap and a Xrap 10 jerkbait.  Mickey and I just thought we had a good day.  I guess we did have a good day but Jackson and friend had a great day.

UPDATE:  Mickey invited all the fish under 13 inches home for supper, and while cleaning them he noticed almost 90% of those small fish had the yellow egg masses in them. We are trying to keep the population in the Garhole from getting out of hand and it appears that we had better catch some more quickly if we plan to accomplish our goal.

After refurbishing two turkey blinds in preparation for the season, I gobbled down a quick lunch, grabbed an auxiliary rod and reel, hopped on the four wheeler and headed for a blew hole or two.  The first one is actually part of the Garhole that has been cut off by the falling water.  I started off with a Booyah and the fish cooperated so well I never thought about changing.  The fish were all small except for a few. The FOD was a respectable 4 pounds. There were lots of hits and misses and before the day was out I found you could improve on your catching percentage by speeding up the retrieve.  The fish must have thought the Booyah was going to escape. That’s what I call fishing a spinnerbait “Jimmy Houston style”.  He always said if you can’t see your bait you’re fishing it too slow.  I disagree with that generally but today it worked like a charm. By the way Jimmy Houston is not one of my fishing heroes.  He giggles a little too much for me. I ended up catching 31 total which was enough to rough up my thumb.

Since the last time I went to the Garhole, I’ve had a weeklong bout of the flu. The weather was pretty so I was ready for some fresh air. The fishing started at 10:00 and at first bites were hard to come by. When the morning really warmed up so did the fish. I started  catching them on a Booyah. They were biting a shakey head last time but I could not get a bite on one today. So a Booyah it was, close to the bank, out from the bank, and on top of every log I could find, especially good was the Lazy Ike log. I ended up with 31 and a FOD of   5 – 8.

Other notable fish were a couple of 3 1/4s, a 3 – 10, and a 4 -1 . The best 5 weight was 19 – 9. I lost another three fish in the 3 pound range with most of those not staying hooked for over 3 seconds. Regardless, it was great therapy for one recovering from the flu.

I went up to load the project into my truck and put it in the Garhole. The added deck made it so heavy I had a problem getting it in the truck.  Kevin and Tate came by and put it in, followed me to the Garhole, and encouraged me to drive down the bank to put it in the water from the back of the truck. A trip back to the house to get some pallets and some 2X4s was next. Out of those materials a place to pull it up high and dry on the bank was made. Had to put some grease on the skids before I could pull it up however.  By this time it was 1:30 and the cows were up eating and the deer were out feeding so I had to try the fish. This is the first one caught from the refurbished craft.

It was a chunky 2 – 13, how appropriate. By the time I caught two bass I had also caught two chain pickerel.

Neither of them fared the day very well. The small 28 pound thrust trolling motor was too much. Even on the slowest speed it went too fast. The boat was a lot more stable than I expected.   There was a small amount of water in the bottom when I quit so it did have a leak somewhere, on the transom I think. I put two concrete blocks  in the stern along with the battery to hold the back end down. I’m going to have to engineer some sort of rudder to keep the back from passing the front when you cut the trolling motor off. Back to fishing. The first few were caught on a Booyah but I missed some nips so I tried a shakey head with a baby brush hog on it.This is a photo of the first 4 pounder I caught on it.

I caught 15 bass in all with a FOD of 4-4 and two more at 4-0. Not bad fishing from 1:30 to 5:00.It was a great debut for the GHB (Garhole Boat), as Hal calls it.

I’ve been looking for a comfortable boat to put  in the Garhole so I don’t have to haul my boat up there on the gravel roads every time I want to fish. The dust or the mud, take your pick, is not the best for your boat.  There has been an old Fisher Marine in the weeds for many years, and when I inquired as to ownership, I was told the owner had sold his membership and left the boat, and that it was in the way and needed to be hauled off.  So that’s what I did. Here are photos when we pulled it out.

You can see, especially in the second photo, the condition of the interior. The flotation foam under the floor was soaked and was so heavy that Willie and I could hardly lift it in the truck. I stripped everything out, took all the junk off, and tried to clean it out. The weather was so cold everything was frozen together to start out.  The previous owner had made a duck blind out of it and had gone drill happy on the upper part of the hull, holes everywhere. When all the foam was out it was the perfect time to check for leaks.  With the boat on some sawhorses I filled it to 6 inches deep with water and not a drop came out. To  start putting it back together I wrapped some foam , cut to fit, in some heavy contractor trash bags, taped them well and installed them in the floor with all new over sized screws.  The front seat box had to go. Then I cut a front deck from treated plywood along with appropriate braces and had it all fitting right.

Then everything was removed and painted olive drab and put back together. An old trolling motor was installed on the front, Mickey donated some seats and swivels, and here is the result.

I put the rods I’m not using on the front deck pointed to the stern so I had to put some rod savers on the front deck to keep them from getting kicked overboard because the front deck was almost flush with the gunnel.  Can’t wait to try it out.

This afternoon when the sun came out I made a quick break for Lake Ferguson which was 25.1 feet and falling.  The water temperature was a cold 41 to 43 degrees. Not only was the water cold, the sun only stayed out a short while.  I started fishing at 2:15 and quit at 4:15 and did not catch a fish. I fished with a jig mostly and a short while with a DT – 10, pulling it very slow.  I saw Taff when I was coming out of the lake and he had caught 3, one of which was 6 – 10. He said the fish were extremely deep and just were barely taking the bait. Looks like I need to wait for things to warm up or take a lesson from Taff on cold water fishing.

Since it is so cold and messy I had the time to edit the photos on the site.  Some were added and some were deleted the ones that made the cut remained but the order of all were  changed.  I tried to put the ones of all my friends  first for your viewing pleasure.