It was with great anticipation and a lot of enthusiasm that I drove southeast to Crockett. I didn't want to have any problem in the dark the next morning, so I checked out the roads to the property and met the landowner, Wade, before driving back to town and checking into the Crockett motel. It took a couple of sleeping pills to overcome my childlike anticipation (I'm like a kid on Christmas Eve before almost every fishing day!).

At any rate, I arrived at the big lake yesterday before first light, petted the two big dogs, and had 13 rods and most of "Tom's Tackle Shop" loaded up and ready to fish around 6:25 a.m. I took the moonset photo below at 6:30, 14 minutes after the sunrise I couldn't see behind me. I started the morning by missing 3 fish on 3 casts under the dock - maybe bluegill. With fairly good water clarity and a water temp of 86.2°, I fished the shoreline from there to the bridge, around the island,  and back to the dock, missing a few on topwaters. No action on spinnerbaits, Senkos, or craws. The only fish I caught was a strong, 16-inch fish that exploded on a green/white belly hollow body frog straight across from the landowner’s home. A whole hour at Hickory Farms with only 1 bass boated? “Enough of this,” I decided.

I soon trailered the boat and very slowly made my way to the back lake, where I fished until I could no longer ignore the heat. When I launched on the 6-acre lake, I immediately noticed several things - some good, some bad. The good was because the grass wasn't growing from the bottom to mat on the surface in very many places, like it was on the big lake.  Bad, because (1) there was not a breath of wind, so I knew the heat was going to beat me down later; (2) my Humminbird wasn't working; and (3), my trolling motor quit on me again for some unknown reason after about 45 seconds. No problem, I thought…I can use the kayak paddle to move my pond boat around a 6-acre lake, especially with no wind. So off I went, ever-optimistic. It was a little late by then for topwater, but I immediately started catching (and missing) fish on a white Sprinkler Frog and the same green/white belly hollow-body frog that had worked a little on the big lake. A lot of bass hit it, but I think that eiher many of them were just too small to get it into their mouths or they were just slapping at it because they were irritated or something – not trying to eat it. I did catch a nice 17" bass on a Sprinkler frog (white with black markings) and one about 19" on a size 130 Whopper Plopper (bone) fished parallel to the weedline on the north side of the little lake. I moved out to deeper water and started fishing Senkos, but had to paddle to get there. Yep, still no trolling motor. I checked it's electrical circuit, but found nothing wrong. I also checked out.the FF's battery connection, and found that a positive connector had broken loose between the FF and the in-line fuse connected to the battery. I put it back together, and lo and behold - it worked. I also somehow managed to get the TM working, and both worked for the rest of the day! I fished all 3 of the obvious mid-lake stumps and logs, and caught multiple bass on all three of them. All were 16-18" fish, and all hit as soon as the lure started to sink on the initial fall. I also caught two dinks, each about 6" long, and one 13-inch bass. Once my FF started working, I was so happy to see the graph that I forgot to note the water temp. It fwas warm, though. Visibility varied from about 4-5 feet in the deep part of the lake to about 2 feet in the shallow pockets and little ‘bays,’ and there was very little matted grass except for near the shoreline.

Although I caught a few nice fish on HB frogs and missed a good one on a Whopper Plopper, stick worms were the answer on the small lake yesterday. Color didn't mean much, either. I caught them on black/blue flake, green pumpkin/chartreuse tail, watermelon/red flake, bubble gum, "cheeto," tomato red, and watermelon red. Most of the fish were picking up the wacky-rigged baits on the initial fall in 10-12 feet of water. Around 11:00, on two consecutive long casts into 11 feet of water, I hooked two bass of about 4 pounds each, only to have each of them throw the bait when they jumped. On my very next cast, the biggest fish I contacted all day, also in 11-12 feet of water, picked up the same bubble gum Senko, wacky-rigged on a size 2 offset worm hook with a 1/16 oz, un-pegged slip sinker above it. The sinker was falling a little faster than the worm, so it must have acted more like a Carolina rig. I thought that it might be a good fish when my line started moving off to the side. I set the hook with my ultralight worm rod and fought her for almost 2 minutes. She made two complete circles around my boat, and never jumped, finally making that typical surge under the boat toward the end of the fight. I didn't boat that bass, but she was big, and she was fat. Unfortunately, as I was pulling her over the net at boatside, my Palomar knot failed, and off she went. It was my own fault, caused by not re-tying after fighting two nice fish - a stupid mistake. I know she was a lot heavier than any fish I've caught during the last three years, and those opportunities don't come along every day. "Oh, well - I thought - that's fishing"....but that rationalization (even though it's true) didn't make me feel even one tiny bit better for my losing a beautiful "big girl" by making a lazy, "newbie" mistake. Once I recovered from that, I re-rigged and then started fishing in water that sloped from 6-7 feet down to 10 feet in depth. Grass was growing up from the bottom, and the key to success there was letting the worm sink into the top of the vegetation, jerking it up, and then shaking it a little as it sank back down. The bass were hitting it aggressively as it fell back toward the weeds. I lost another good fish - long, deep, and thick - after fighting her for almost 2 minutes on my ultralight worm rod. She was about 3 feet below the surface when I saw her (facing me) open her mouth and let me pull out the worm. When I got it back to the boat, I noticed that my hook set had buried the hook back into the worm, past the barb. I had not even hooked that fish – she simply didn't want to let go of the "cheeto." She wasn't as big as the one I had lost at boatside, but I'm guessing that she was a least 5- 6 pounds. I kept working shallower weeds with that same pattern, and kept catching fish >14", but nothing bigger.

Finally, by around 2:15, the day had warmed up to 100°, and I was whipped - totally. I just can’t take the heat at 75 like I used to when younger. I went to the car and sat in it with the AC on full blast. I had consumed 9 bottles of cold water, and still felt dehydrated. Finally, after a full hour in the car and 2 more bottles of cold water, I had recovered enough to trailer the boat and slowly tow it to the only shade I could find over the road. There, I packed up all the tackle and prepped the boat for the highway. It took me most of an hour just to get that done, and I felt ‘parched’ again by the time I was ready to roll. My wife called me while I was loading my gear, but while we were talking, the phone quit due to a dead battery. I knew that she was worried about me in the heat, so as soon as I could get a little charge back on the phone, I called her back and told her that although I felt like I’d been a pig on a rotisserie, I was OK. I drank 2 more bottles of water on the way to my hotel in Palestine. Wow - 13 bottles of water in a day – and I was still dehydrated! I made it 15 bottles before I took a shower!

Anyway, for the first time I can remember in many years, I didn’t record every fish I caught, including weight, length, depth, lure, etc. I know it was somewhere between 20 and 25, with none harvested. It was a brutally hot day, but I still had a great time while on the water.

What worked:  Senkos (black/blue flake, green pumpkin/chartreuse tail, watermelon/red flake, watermelon red, tomato red, bubble gum) “cheeto” stick worm; Sprinkler frog (white with black markings); Hollow body frog (green back/white belly)

What didn’t:  chartreuse/black flake Senko, Yellow Magic (bone); spinnerbait, Chatterbait (white),7”  swim bait (shad), ¾-ounce Rattleterap (color 308, Chartreuse Flash), Texas-rigged Mister Twister 8” curly tail worm (purple/yellow tail), T-rigged Mister Twister 4” Phenom worm (black), T-rigged craw (green pumpkin)

Posted By: Tom Dillon