[January] February 2002 [March]

This afternoon we went out to check some launch ramps, and get groceries. It gets so dark outside and cold once the sun goes down that we decided to cook a one pan meal for dinner - Dinty Moore beef stew. We ate in the tent so it would stay warm, and it was pretty good.

Annie writes:
I was so thankful Dan did not ask me to go fishing today. I piddled around the campsite, cleaned up some red clay out of the tent, did the dishes when I thought it was the warmest part of the day, and made Dan’s lunch for tomorrow so I would not have to do so after dark when it cools off so quickly.

Dan came in and we had a nice night. We are still eating dinner in the tent, but it is comfortably warm in there when we have the electric heater running. Outside, it is long johns and wool sweaters though.

Anyway, Beau and I put the boat in the water up at Decatur, and spent the morning fishing the flats there. This is the most famous and the most popular fishing area on the lake. It is a section about a mile wide and three to five miles long, north of the main river channel and directly across from the town of Decatur. It is one huge stump flat, with channels and ditches scattered throughout, and is about the only area on the lake that has hydrilla. Beau and I spent about three hours wandering around in there today, but between us caught only one fish. Water temperature, like yesterday, was thirty-nine degrees.

The rest of the day we spent moving upriver. This far up, thirty miles from the dam, the lake is very river-like, that is, narrower with a lot of current flow. We fished the mouths of various feeder creeks, we fished rip-rap, and bluffs, and we flipped the wood up some of the creeks, but caught only one more fish all day. The water temperature never rose higher than forty-two degrees.

Annie writes:
Dan was fishing with Beau today, so I got another day off. I am not slacking - I am taking care of computer work I need to catch up on, including taxes, calendars, and working on our budget, so I have plenty to keep me busy.

This afternoon Cooper and I went for a walk, and there was no one around so I was not making him heel. He decided to run into a big field on the side of the road, but he didn’t know there was barbed wire between us and the field. He ran through it, and I heard him yelp. Then I had the problem of getting him back onto this side of the fence. He finally got back through, but the barbed wire had given him a bloody cut on his neck.

Dan got home around 7pm, and we cooked another one-pot meal and ate in the tent.

Now I’m really getting nervous. I have fished three days, and in that time have caught one, that’s right one, fish. I’m running out of time to find them, too. I know there are fish up on Decatur flats, but they’re going to be all largemouth. The water down in these creeks near the dam was significantly warmer, almost 45 degrees, and the fish there are going to include largemouth, smallmouth, and spots. The smallmouth and spots should be easier to catch in the cold weather. With only one full day of practice remaining, I think I’m going to spend it in these creeks, fishing deeper, and fishing slow… real slow.

Annie writes:
I offered to go fishing with Dan today, but it was windy and raining. He said it would be better for Cooper and I to stay home. No need for the three of us to be freezing and miserable.

I had plenty of company throughout the day to keep me busy. When I was not entertaining visitors, I tried to dry out the floor of the tent. One half of the tent was completely dry, the other completely wet. We are still experimenting with the best way to set it up.

Dan came in around 5:00 and we decided to go out to eat at the restaurant here in the park. We saw Bobby and Elaine, and went to their room in the lodge to visit. On the way home we stopped by John and Laraine’s, as Dan still had not seen them yet this week.

With only two hours of daylight remaining, I considered calling it a day and returning to camp. The weather was nice though - fifty degrees, sunshine and no wind, so I decided I should take advantage of it while I had it. I began idling around at the mouths of the pockets, looking for baitfish on my depthfinder. It wasn’t until I had moved across to the other end of the dam that I found some. I fished a little point nearby with a Carolina rig first, and there I got my first bite of the day. It felt like a decent fish, and he held on to it for a long time, but I didn’t set the hook on him. No more bites on that point, so I decided to try something that I had never done before: doodling. I tied on a five-inch Gambler finesse worm, with a brass weight and a brass bead to make noise, and I was going to shake that worm straight underneath the boat, down there in the middle of the baitfish, and hope there was a bass nearby.

I moved out off the point into deeper water, and when I found a school of shad holding in twenty-five feet, I dropped the doodlin’ rig and started shaking. Bang! Ten seconds later I had a three pound largemouth in the boat! Yeah! I fished the remainder of that pocket without success, until I got over to the point on the opposite corner. I fished a Carolina rig up on top of the point, but when I saw bait underneath the boat in twenty five feet, I quickly dropped the doodlin’ rig down, and sure enough, quickly caught another fish. That’s three fish in one hour, out of this one pocket, after having caught only one fish in the past twenty-five hours of practice. Talk about waiting until the last minute to figure something out. I now have less than one full day remaining to try to duplicate this pattern in other areas, but at least tonight I’ll sleep better, and I’ll be excited about getting back out on the water tomorrow morning for the last day of practice.

Annie writes:
I feel so bad for Dan, he has been out fishing every day, the tips of his fingers hurt from being so cold, and he is now very discouraged with his practice.

Today I did the laundry and reorganized our tent. The weather is calling for lows in the 20’s tonight, and I want to be sure the bed is as tight and warm as it can get and the floor is dry. It is going to be some cold!

Dan came in around 6:00 and we did our usual one-pot meal. I have realized by now that we are never going to eat outside at the picnic table on this trip. It’s inside the tent every night.

That was frustrating, for what I wanted to do today was to duplicate what caught fish yesterday - look for either deep structure or schools of bait on the depthfinder, and then sit on top of them and drop a worm straight down. This turned out to be impossible without a depthfinder on the bow. I did mark a few more spots on my Lowrance GPS, pockets that I can return to tomorrow that may have what I am looking for, but I never caught a fish today.

We quit around 2:30, went and gassed-up the boat, then returned to the campsite. I spent the next hour replacing the faulty depthfinder with a Lowrance X15 I had brought with me (to be mounted in my new boat when I get it). At least I got that problem resolved. The only problem remaining is… how to catch a few fish tomorrow!!! From talking to various other guys, it sounds like the three fish I caught yesterday is exceptional. The average seems to be one-a-day.

Annie writes:
Up at 6:30 and out the door. Run back into the tent. Are we crazy??? It is 27 degrees outside. The little ponds on the way to the launch ramp have a layer of ice on them, everything was covered in white frost, and the launch ramp itself was a sheet of ice. Thank goodness I wore just about everything I brought with me.

It was hours before I could actually take my gloves off to work on organizing the boat. Dan was frustrated, for the depthfinder issue is preventing him from doing what he wants to do, and I really feel bad for him. By 2:30 when we came in I had organized all his baits, had all his reels stripped and restrung with new line, tied all his baits on, and he is ready to go for tomorrow.

We went to the registration meeting tonight, but when we returned Dan did not feel well. I think it is just stress. We have not had a practice this difficult in quite a while. I told him that whether he comes in tomorrow with ten pounds, or ten ounces, I will be there waiting for him and will be happy just to see him.

Annie writes:
I was up at 6:15 to put Dan in the water. That leaves me with the truck for the day. Weather this morning was below freezing, as usual, but no wind. I know it is tough for Dan to have to go out today without much to run to, but I will just hope for the best. I would love to see him come in with at least one fish.

Carolyn Strand and I decided to go into town for a bit during the day. We had a good time, shopped a little, went to lunch, and returned in time for the weigh-in. Dan came in with two fish, and I was very happy to with that. By the end of the weigh in he was in 83rd place, which is just ounces out of the money. This made for a good night, we ate dinner in the tent and then went to visit at the Hobbie’s afterwards.

TERMINATOR Top Secret Jig

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After that we jumped around from spot to spot, but by 1:00 we found ourselves back at that brushpile without a fish in the boat. We fished the brush some more, then wandered off down the bank towards a point about two hundred yards away. We had not moved in this direction earlier this morning because there was a boat sitting on the point the whole time we were sitting on the brushpile. Now, halfway down to the point, I caught my first fish, on a Terminator Jig. My partner quickly caught another, then hooked and lost a bigger one. Next it was my turn to catch two quick fish, both of which were short and had to be thrown back, and then I caught a nice, fat smallmouth. All of this was in just one pass down the bank between our brushpile and that point.

At the end of the point we turned around. Fishing it back in the other direction we had only one bite, on my partner’s jig, and he missed it. It was now time to race back to the weigh-in. What I wouldn’t have given for an extra hour or two on this spot, though. Between take-off this morning and two o’clock we had not had a single bite; between two and three o’clock we had had seven.

My two fish gave me a two-day total of seven-and-a-half pounds. Just one more bite on that bank we just left may have put me in the money. That, after the practice we had here, would have been quite an accomplishment.

Annie writes:
On the way to the launch this morning the temperature was 25 degrees. The ramp was glare ice. There were people and trucks sliding everywhere. Workers were salting the pavement, but it was of little use on the slope, for every trailer that pulled out would wash it away and the dripping water would then freeze up again. I started backing Dan in, slid a little, backed a little more, slid a little more, then became afraid that the trailer would jack-knife. On the steepest section of the ramp the truck just continued to slide, but the boat finally came off the trailer and without further incident I was able to get back up and get out of there.

Back at the campsite, I was planning to go back to bed, but it was so cold and I had so much to do that I stayed up instead. I went to take my shower, as the bath houses are heated and have plenty of hot water. At 9:30 I was going to wash yesterday’s dishes, which I had let soak overnight, but I found I would have had to go through a layer of ice to get to them. So, the dishes will soak until the water thaws. I Went out and did laundry, I cleaned the tent, and then headed to the weigh in. Dan came in with two more fish. This was great. No matter where we finish at least we did not zero either day, and in a tournament this tough I am happy with that.

After weigh-in we loaded the boat and went out to eat with a group of friends. It was nice to again enjoy a big meal, as opposed to the one pot dinners we have been eating in the tent.

Since I will be busy tomorrow and Annie would have to do everything herself, we decided to break down the campsite and pack everything up today. And, since it will be another thirty-degree night and there is no room to sleep in the truck anyway, we will for the first time in five years on the road stay in a motel room overnight.

Annie writes:
As Dan had said, we stayed in a motel room last night for the first time ever. It might have been nicer, had Dan not had to get up at three am, and if I had not had to drive him to the Wal-Mart at four. After dropping him off Cooper and I returned to the room and the king-sized bed. We did not sleep though, probably because I had a TV for the first time in a while. I packed up the room, organized the truck and headed back to Wal-Mart around 11:30. After going into the salon to get my nails done I wandered around in the Fun Zone, and then it was time for Dan to come in. We watched the weigh-in and Larry Nixon, who just squeaked into the Top 10 yesterday, ended up winning it. I was glad for him.

After the weigh-in we were planning to get on the road, but John & Laraine, Stella & Guido, and two other couples were going to the Red Lobster for dinner. We would have to stop to eat soon anyway, so we decided to join them. This tournament is barely hours over, and Dan is already thinking ahead to the next one. From the far end of the dinner table, I could hear him asking Guido about Lake Ouachita, site of the next FLW event.

I started driving again around 6:30 mainly because I was so cold and uncomfortable I figured I might as well drive. We got into Lake Ouachita area around noon. We checked out five campgrounds and only one of them had a bath house with running water. That made our choice easy. Apparently it is off season right now and the campgrounds do not fully open until March. We found a nice site set up the tent and got the great off season price of $8.00 a night. By 6:30 we were exhausted and called it a night.

Dan writes:
The next FLW tournament is here on Lake Ouachita, near Hot Springs, Arkansas. I’ve never seen the lake before. We are here for a few days pre-practicing because I will be fishing a B.A.S.S. event in Alabama the week prior to the FLW. That leaves me only two days to practice immediately prior to this event. My goals therefore for the three or four days I have here now are:

1. To just look at as much of the lake as possible, and note the differences between the many different areas;
2. To identify areas that have higher concentrations of fish (by catching some, obviously);
3. To make some assumptions as to what the fish will be doing when I return next month;
4. To select just one area of the lake in which to fish upon my return. When I come back I will not have time to run all over the lake. I must decide now the area in which I will fish during the tournament, and then spend my two official practice days trying to figure how to catch fish in that area that I’ve already picked out.

Dan writes:
The map shows this to be a highland reservoir - clear and deep, at least from mid-lake down to the dam. We are camped on the south side of the lake, in the south-west corner, fairly far up one of the three river arms that feed into the lake. Along with these there are four or five major creeks, as well as the main body of the lake, studded with dozens of islands.

I launched the boat this morning at the campground and ran west, up the river as far as I could go. Water temperature there: forty three degrees; color: stained; grass: little or none. Turning around I then headed back out towards the river mouth. Here the water had a greener color, and was much clearer. Depth in the main river channel is over a hundred feet, and the deep water continues way up close to shore and far up into the many side branches and pockets. Back in some of the pockets I found water temperatures of forty-seven degrees.

There is grass everywhere in this part of the lake. Too much grass, perhaps. Mainly hydrilla (or elodea), the inside grassline starts at four feet and the grass extends out to about twenty-four feet. It is very difficult to fish anything on the bottom, like a jig, a worm, or a Carolina rig.

I managed to catch eight bass this afternoon. All largemouth. I was thrilled with this, until I got home and found out the length limit on largemouth is sixteen inches. I caught only one of those.

About an hour into the storm and I tried to call Dan. I got through, but there was lots of static. It sounded like he was on the lake. It is not a good feeling when you are not sure whether or not your husband has come off the lake or not during one of these storms. We have been caught on the lake before and we usually will find land, get out of the boat and find some sort of shelter to wait it out. I continued calling Dan for the next two hours but could not get through. There is nothing I can do except wait. Dan finally reached me. The storm was still going strong but he managed to get the boat out of the water and was on his way home. The storm seemed to finally end around 4:30 and the campground had turned into a lake.

Dan writes:
It rained hard all morning, and because the weather man had predicted thunder and lightning I stayed in one fairly protected creek and never ventured too far from the truck. Still there was plenty of water to fish - rock bank, points, and pockets, and in the three hours of fishing I got in before the lightning started I caught two largemouth (one keeper), and no spotted bass.

Dan writes:
Today I covered the entire northern side of the lake, from mid-lake down to the dam. It is all very similar - no straight shoreline anywhere - all points and pockets and islands. I had expected to find the banks becoming steeper and more rocky the further down towards the dam I got, but that is not the case here.

Anyway after the stormy weather we had yesterday, today we had high pressure with a bright blue sky and not a cloud in sight. Typical post-frontal conditions, and the fish reacted predictably. I caught a few twelve-inch fish on a jerkbait, and a couple of bigger ones fishing a jig on the bluffs, but all were largemouth and under sixteen inches. No good. I was able to see a few good fish back up in the clear pockets, but they were not aggressive like they had been before the front, and I could not make any of them bite. I am going to have to slow down and back out to deeper water in order to catch these fish now. The trouble is, I haven’t figured out how to fish slowly with all this grass.

Dan writes:
I decided that with the sixteen-inch limit on largemouth, maybe I ought to figure out how to catch spotted bass, which have a twelve-inch limit. I spent eight hours down in the lower lake trying, but never caught a spot all day. In fact, in four days of fishing I have not caught a single spotted bass

So lets review. Have I accomplished the goals stated back on Sunday? Two out of four, perhaps. Yes, I have looked at most of the lake, and yes, I have a guess as to what the fish might be doing when I return - moving up into shallow pockets with the warming weather. Have I though identified areas with higher concentrations of fish, and have I chosen the specific section of the lake I will fish upon my return? No. In four days of fishing I have caught only two keeper largemouth, and zero spotted bass. I have to admit that we will be leaving here tomorrow feeling less than optimistic about our return.

Annie writes:
Dan did not go fishing today. The fishing is tough, it’s very cold, and very frustrating. Instead we spent a good part of the day packing up our campsite, and by mid-afternoon we were on the road, headed towards Birmingham, Alabama. We made it most of the way but by 1am were exhausted and ended up pulling into a Walmart to get a few hours sleep in the truck. It was extremely cold, and I slept with my winter hat and gloves on.

In the last six years I have missed only one FLW event; now I am contemplating voluntarily skipping this one, and during our stated "make or break" year. For the longest time I debated even mentioning the idea to Annie, but she knew there was something on my mind and eventually drew it out of me. We discussed the pro’s and con’s during the long overnight ride.

Pro’s:

• We would not have to spend another week fishing under tough conditions, and in below-freezing temperatures;
• We could spend an additional week at home with the kids;
• We would save $2,000 between entry fees and travel expenses.

• Though it would not seem likely after the practice we just had, still I would be missing a potential opportunity to finish well in a major tournament;
• Skipping the event would guarantee that my year-end standings would suffer as a result;
• It is not good in the eyes of both existing sponsors as well as potential sponsors to not be in attendance at these events;
• In what we have defined previously as a "make or break" season, the decision not to attend would definitely, both mentally as well as statistically, shift the scale towards "break".

Annie writes:
Over the past couple of days Dan and I have been discussing the upcoming FLW tournament on Lake Ouachita. After much agonizing, we have made our decision: we are not going to fish. Our pre-practice was both frustrating and unsuccessful. We are not optimistic about getting a check. We are going to save the $2000 it would have cost, and spend an extra week home with the kids. As we stated at the beginning of the season, this is the time of change for us. We are not sure what is ahead for us, but after making the decision late today we feel comfortable with our choice. Only time will tell whether we will come to regret it later.

Also, we did the following:

• Annie and Kate went prom gown shopping;
• Chris and Dan went bowling;
• We got in a few games of pool with Jeff;
• We had dinner with Annie’s brother and sister-in-law;
• Mom & Dad came over for dinner;
• Annie had pizza night with her niece and nephew;
• Annie lined-up a job for a few days during our next trip home.

So our short visit home was indeed worth the trip, and we are looking forward to our next trip home, which will be in just a little over a week.

Link to: March 2002