March 12-15, 2012

After getting blown off the lake by high winds last week, I was happy to see this week's forecast was much improved.  Temperatures were forecast for the high 70's and winds in the 10-15 mph range.  Just about perfect weather.  I booked 3 and a half days with Dale Stokes and was convinced we would hang a gorilla or two.  Unfortunately, the weekend dumped almost 6 inches of cold 50 degree rain around Lake Fork and I think that had an effect.

The lake is up a bit more and is now just 4.5 feet low.  Just!  However that's a big improvement to the 7 feet plus it has been down lately.

We started out Monday fishing the main lake banks and I was convinced slow fishing a big jig was the way to go.  I didn't want to be bothered by little males and had dreams of hooking another 8 lb plus like I did a few weeks ago.  Nope.  After four straight hours of fishing that jig slow and steady, without even a single nibble, I just had to put it down.  Dale had switched to a shakey head and landed 3 fish and missed a couple of more before I made the change.  I still didn't get a bite til after noon and I think I ended up with a total of 3 small fish for the day.  Dale had 8.

Tuesday started out the same way, but I just stuck with the jig for an hour before giving up on it for the rest of the trip.  Things were even tougher on Tuesday as we tried different areas and different water depths looking for some active fish.  I totaled ONE, all day long, but it was about a 5 pound fish.  Dale had another 7 fish, none of them of size.

Wednesday we had a few more bites on a combination of shakey heads and wacky worms.  We stuck 4 fish that got off, don't know why, but it happened twice to me and twice to Dale.  Bites were so light that several fish were hooked swimming off with our worm.  Nothing of any size, again, but we had more bites and boated 11 fish.  We worked hard for those  fish!

Thursday morning was more of the same.  We pulled up on a new spot in Little Caney and I caught a little one on the second cast.  I had another bite on about the fourth cast, then nada. We hunted and pecked them for 4 hours with a grand total of 5.  Dale caught one decent female about 6 pounds, but that was it.  The rest were dinks.  Wackey worms, shakey heads, and dead sticking flukes was not the ticket.

35 fish over 3 and a half days is a tough slog for Fork.  However no one fell out of the boat, no one got a hook in the face, no props were bent (even when running into Little Caney!), the weather was very nice, and we each caught fish every day.  No skunks. 

Check out this interesting stump below.  Sticking up on two legs like it is walking.  When the water level comes back up you would never guess there is a fish umbrella there.  I can't wait to pitch a worm into that and try to get a fish out.