FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

The Wade Right Fishing Belt

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Another great sunrise.

It has been a fishless week until today.  One mid week trip with a friend never happened when we over heated leaving the ramp at Froggie’s and had to find someone to look at it.  Some of my luck the last month or so.

I did manage to get the plate mounted on the Mako tunnel and it is curing nicely, and should be ready to go Monday.  It says a 7 day cure and I am not going to rush it as it is not a job I am interested in doing again.  Then the Boss wanted to go out of town a couple of days so this morning was the first chance I had to fish this week.

Weather

78/92.  Partly sunny and humid with a 40% chance of showers.  Wind SSE 8 – 17mph.

Lake Level

Today  95.47 msl.   10 days ago  95.79 msl.  (It is really dropping fast.)

Solunar Times

No periods when I fished today.

*****************The Knockin Tail Lure with a built in tail rattle!   Look for it this winter.

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The morning started off perfect, it was really cloudy and raining off and on heading to the lake.  I dropped it in at daylight and unfortunately it did not live up to the forecast.  It immediately completely slicked off and every cloud in the sky evaporated.  The rest of the morning was hot and humid, in fact for a little bit early I could not wear my glasses as they fogged up it was so humid.

Deja Vu all over again.

The catching is ok right now, considering I fished 5 hours and caught 15 – 20.  But like it has been just nothing with any weight to it.  Though I did throw other stuff they were not interested in any of it.  It is real simple right now –  watermelon red stick worm, 3/16th tungeston slip sinker pegged with a 4/0 hook.

Lots of smalls but most are fat and sassy.

Can you say wood?  Whether it was on flatter banks with stickups, or a couple of deeper points with wood, they were there.  Several places 2 or 3 jumped on, and just going down the bank quickly and pitching to visible wood would get a bite.  So the wood is the pattern, but depth does not seem to be particularly important.  Some as shallow as a foot or two, and 3 or 4 in 15 foot.  Today they were hanging on pretty good and swimming with it.  The ones that were harder to stick were right in the thick stuff.  When you would pick up it was hard to tell if it was a branch or a fish, and if you did not stick them right away they were gone.  Wood don’t shake.

They bit fairly consistently up lake not so much down lake.  The water color is a little darker up lake and there is more wood, which is the key.  One thing about the dropping water the flat around the island is really shallow and I managed to run over it, so be advised things are changing fast.  And I am really concerned about the ramp.  If it keeps this up you are going to have to be really careful as there will be lots of wood, flats, and humps coming out.  So just keep that in mind.

Not a bad morning, hate to complain about catching over 15, it is just puzzling why while I have been catching that number most mornings none are big.  Usually when you work through that many on Coleto you can expect a good fish or two.  But I am reserving judgement until we start cooling down.  Hard to not be concerned about the fish.  Where have all the big fish gone?  Only time will tell but I am worried about the lake.  Killing the grass has turned one of the best bass lakes around into a dink fest.

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Thoughts on last weekends football.

1.  Michigan gives over rated a new meaning.  They were pounded by Wisconsin.  (I had a good friend in the old days who went to college with the Wisconsin head basketball coach and we got some great tickets.  Fun place to see a game.) I don’t know how the ratings are actually done but it seems to be a case of rank them because of who they are, not what they are.  They are headed to total melt down and it will be interesting to see who Harbaugh blames now.
2.  A&M.  Definitely over rated after Saturdays performance.  A&M has become living proof you can spend all the money you want (Jimbo and the remodel.) but it still comes down to blocking and tackling.  And they had way to many killer/stupid penalties.  Mond again looked tentative early and out of his league.  To bad the offense only started playing in the 4th quarter, it could have been a different game.  And when your fans start emptying the stadium when you are only 2 scores down it does not say much for the fan base.  (I am no A&M hater, in fact I like watching their games.  And we have enjoyed going to games there, the fans have been nothing but nice and respectful to us as visiting fans wearing our Arkansas stuff.  But facts is facts.)
3.  Arkansas.  Definitely not rated and rightly so.  First half, we get beat up on the line on both sides of the ball, play no pass defense, tackle like girls,  (No offense to girls.) play no pass defense, and have 2 interceptions.  Terrible.  Not much else to say about that.  Second half more of the same.  No offense to San Jose State but we are in the SEC and there is no way we should not make a couple of 4th and ones.  Man for man they should not be pushing us around.  This 10 year pathetic downhill slide is really disheartening.
4.  Dallas.  What is there to say but keep it up.  A slow start Sunday then they beat the Redskins like a drum.  Looks like they are the real deal but only time will tell.  But the haters are out whining like puppies that they have not beaten “anybody.”  To bad, you are supposed to beat certain teams and they are.  So if your complaint is that, probably says more about what your team is doing.

And a last couple of comments on college football.  If I were a head coach and we are down by 20+ and my player makes a play that he is SUPPOSED to make, then jumps around acting a fool, he is taking a seat.  And one other thing, if a player who after making a tackle does the standing over/walking over the downed ball carrier strutting his stuff he is taking a seat.  It is not all about you.  In the final analysis your program either has class or not.  Houston Nutt may not have been the best coach ever but I loved one of his philosophies.  We knock them down, we help them back up, then we knock them down again.

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And SA Joe dropped this comment on the last post.

OH DOUG,

I got to comment on the trespass of the hunt lease. Siding with the guys that paid for that lease. If they didn’t have the trail cam, the owners of that land could get angry because deer were being over harvested and the lease guys wouldn’t even know. Good on them.

Thats one reason why i don’t hunt, would love to, but to pay $2500 each for a lease and got to share. Rather spend that money getting some high end beef for the house.

Couple of comments.  The lease thing has gotten so expensive, squeezes out the common man and keeps me from hunting.  In my case I love to eat them, and does and culls are fine with me, they all look the same on the plate.  But at a couple of G’s for the lease it works out to about $50 a pound, a little stiff as far as I am concerned.   And on the cam, you  can not call yourself a sportsman or outdoors man if you look the other way.  It is incumbent on all of us to report bad activity that we witness.  If you don’t not only are you complicit, you open us all to criticism that we face from the anti’s.  Good to hear from you.

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The Boss will be out of town most of next week so I will be batching it.  Monday the Mako is back in action and with it I intend to fish a bunch.  All I ask is for it not to be 90 (We hit a 100+ heat index yesterday.)  at 11:30 like it was today when I took out.  So a short trip somewhere is in the works next week, just waiting to see how the weather plays out before I make a plan, but there will be a plan.  And I appreciate you all sticking with me the last month as I took a break, but I am sick of the break and ready to put the hurt on them.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines