Wow, almost 2 years since I had been out to Fork and even longer since I last bass fished there. It's been too long. Since we're all stuck social distancing due to the Covid 19, we decided we might as well do it on a boat. I booked Rhandy for two mornings of crappie fishing and asked him to hook me up with a bass guide for the afternoons. He set me up with Jason Conn, who did a great job.
Monty got us into Hook Line and Sinker and we were the only customers who were there. Sad to see. He should have been jammed in May. My Mrs decided to tag along on only her second fishing trip ever.
We met up at Rhandy's back yard Monday night. Rhandy has a very nice back yard.
Much booze and some ribs were consumed and too much fun was had by all. Seriously. Way too much fun. I was glad my Mrs was there to designated drive me back to our room. I almost didn't make it.
Our Tuesday morning trip started out with Rhandy's boat making a break for it. Fortunately the wind was out of the south and the ghost ship returned after a few minutes floating around with no captain.
Of course, being the Lake Fork rain God, I worked my usual magic. Don't doubt my powers!! The Tuesday morning crappie trip was a bit soggy and we ran back to Rhandy's dock a couple of times to avoid thunder and lightning. The rain never got real heavy, but it was a bit of an annoyance. It didn't seem to bother the fishing too much. Rhandy was on 'em, as he usually is. Even my Mrs caught a few.
Jason joined us for the last trip out from our thunder pit stops and we ended up with a solid 50 fillets. Jason caught a few and we sent those home with him.
While Rhandy cleaned fish, Jason and I headed out to find some bass and Vicki headed back to the room to crank up the heater. We got chased off by a thunderstorm and ended up calling it around 5 pm. We pitched some swim baits and topwaters near a main lake point but couldn't convince them. Later we moved to another spot and I threw a Carolina rig. I did catch a couple of bass in between rain storms. The thing that amazed me was how crazy thick the sandbass were. My fluke got pounded by those suckers and I even caught a few sandbass on a fluke. My biggest green fish was in the 3-4 range. I am really rusty on my bass fishing. I never did get a normal bass bite. What I started doing was ripping it back after getting a bunch of sandbass taps. A couple of bass grabbed it on the fly trying to take it away from the sandies. They wouldn't hit a normal slow retrieve Carolina rig. Or maybe I'm just too slow. Hey, whatever works, I'll do it.
Wednesday morning dawned a bit cloudy, but warmer and not as damp. We had periods of clouds and sun as Rhandy moved us around to different piles where we picked up 8 or 10 keepers a spot. By 11 am we had another 50 keepers plus a 3 lb catfish that wanted a jig. We would have been done sooner, but we had to run across the lake to jump the battery on another guide's boat. My Mrs was the perch queen. I don't know how she did it, but she kept catching bream while Rhandy and I caught crappie on either side of her. She has skills.
Jason had a full day trip so we went back to the room to wait for him to finish up. I met him down at Rhandy's dock at 1:30 pm and we headed out to go find some more green fish. We started off at a great "public" spot I had fished many times with Dale Stokes. Jason graphed some bass and we chunked Carolina rigs at them for a couple of hours. No sale. There were tons of sandbass there, too, and Jason tried to wear them down a bit. They kept tapping on my fluke and I think I hooked at least one of them reeling up. Stupid sandbass.
After awhile Jason decided he wanted to check out the spot we had fished the day before. We found it open and I snagged a 3 pounder on my first cast. It was the first normal bass bite I had this trip and it sure felt good!
After one more cast I got a 5 pounder and another satisfying bite.
A couple of more casts and I got another 4 pounder. I was hoping we were really on to something. Unfortunately that was about it other than the annoying sandbass tapping. Jason caught one bass on a big worm and he also snagged a bunch more sandies. We finally called it around 7 pm.
We came home with almost 200 crappie fillets and have some very good eating ahead. We even got a surprise visit from Dale Stokes before we headed out on Thursday morning.
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