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.