It had been almost a year since I had been out to do some fishing and I was long overdue. When I called Dale Stokes he told me he had retired from guiding after some medical issues. However he said he would take me out one last time but would not be able to fish the long 12 hour days I like to do. He set me up with Lake Fork legend Hollice Joiner for Monday evening and long time Lake Fork guide Jeff Steele for Tuesday and Wednesday. I planned to do some fun crappie fishing with Rhandy Simmons on Sunday evening.
I made it out to the Lake with no problems around 3:30 pm, checked into Hook, Line, and Sinker, and wandered down to Rhandy's place for some crappie fishing. Unfortunately Rhandy had injured his back jumping out of his boat. Dr. O. prescribed internal application of beer and pork ribs while watching the sunset from his back porch. The miracle healing occurred, but we were in no shape to go out in a boat after that. Bud got some extra petting instead. We'll get the crappie next time.
Monday morning I met Dale down at the Minnow Bucket and we headed out to a main lake point. My first fish of 2018 was a nice one a little over 6 pounds.
That poor fish had swallowed a shakey head at some point and was passing it out his ass. It fell out while Dale was weighing the fish. I'm sure that was a relief for that poor fish!
We spent some more time on that point chunking split shot flukes, then headed up into Little Caney for the rest of the day to avoid some high winds. We caught a few more here and there, then Dale hooked a 9 lb 10 oz monster that pulled like crazy.
We caught a few more through the day, mostly nice little chunks in the 2-3 lb range and ended up with 15 for the day. I went back to the hotel at 2 pm and got a nice siesta before joining Hollice at 4 pm. We spent 4 hours poking around the island and park shoreline north of the 154 bridge and caught another 8 fish. I did catch a fish on my first cast with Hollice. I hope I get a chance to fish with him again, soon.
Tuesday morning I met Dale again at 6 am and we were off to Little Caney again to get out of the wind. I caught a fish on my first cast and told Dale we should just go in now because that was bad luck. Fortunately he just laughed and we kept fishing. We hit a bunch of good spots catching fish here and there and ended up with 12 for the day. We mixed things up a bit throwing split shot flukes, baby brush hogs, senkos, shakey heads, and worms, mostly shallow, but never found a killer pattern. I did love the color, markings, and black spot on this one Dale caught. That's a pretty fish.
After repeating my most excellent siesta pattern at 2 pm, I met up with Jeff at 4 pm and we were off for some more fun. Jeff actually went straight back to the same spot Dale and I had finished at, and again I caught a fish on my first cast. Jeff said that was bad luck, but I reminded him I had already been casting for 8 hours earlier that day. That broke the ice. We fished that same area a little differently than I had with Dale earlier and we had a few more fish. Jeff had me pitch down a shoreline at about 6 feet and I got a nice 6 pounder right where he had called the shot. It was 6 even on the scale.
We switched back and forth between split shot flukes and carolina rigs and ended up with 6 or 7 more decent fish before dark. When we went in Rhandy was waiting at my truck with a cold beer. I could get used to that!
Wednesday morning was dark and cloudy and remarkably the wind was a bit lower. Dale took us over to the hog ditch and we worked that bank for awhile and caught a couple. After that we headed up to a high spot near the dam where we had a double. We saw lots of big fish moving around, but couldn't catch another near the dam. Chainsaw hump was next and we worked our way around til I caught a nice 7 lb 1 oz fish. She was a fightnin' son of a gun. That was a fun fish.
We poked around a few more places and ended up with 11 for the day.
I met Jeff again at 4 pm and we headed up in the northeast arm to get out of the afternoon wind. Jeff caught a 6 pounder on his first cast and hardly fished at all after that. He worked really hard to get me bit the rest of the trip but the fish were just being ornery. We hit some great spots and used several techniques but the fish weren't playing. That never bothers me, it happens sometimes, but it always drives the guides crazy. When I was ready to go in at 8 pm, Jeff insisted we make one more stop, but the fish remained stubborn. I think we ended up with 3 in the boat, but I still had a great time. We did have a few sprinkles of rain so my reputation as the Lake Fork Rain God remains intact. Sadly, the beer girl was not waiting at my truck when we went in, but my fridge at the hotel room made up for that. I really enjoyed fishing with Jeff and I hope we get to go again, soon. He is running to become mayor of Wilmer (again) and I hope he wins!
As always we saw lots of wildlife around the lake. Raccoons, snakes, buzzards, nutria, deer, and lots of song birds. The soundtrack was awesome and we even found some banks with sweet smelling honeysuckle. I did get a surprise when I looked at this photo I took of a pretty yellow song bird. Notice the 6 foot banded water snake on the log behind the stump? I didn't til I saw this photo on my computer!
Lake Fork is full of surprises and I hope to get back for some more at the end of May or early June. I don't know if I'll get to fish with Dale again, but we have had a lot of good times on the Lake and I really appreciate him coming out of retirement for a couple of days to fish me one last time.
