Greetings all you fish guy followers!
November has been an interesting month, too. November 3rd I drove to Larry Hensley's lake to evaluate it. You remember Larry as the guy with the bass full of soft plastic baits. (I wrote about it on the forum and in Nov/Dec issue of Pond Boss.)
Read about Larry's lake in the Jan/Feb issue of the magazine.
Larry & Jan Hensley on the bow of the electrofishing boat. This habitat is typical of their lake.
This is an example of the bass collected in Hensley's lake
The majority of bass were slightly underweight.
Nice bass...just over 7 pounds.
Giant bluegill...about 1.5 pounds
Bottom line, Hensley's lake is bass crowded with giant bluegill. No young of the year, to speak of, of any fish. Bass relative weights are about 85-90%. Bluegill are congregated around feeders and in vegetated areas. Their Wr is 100-125.
Then, on November 4, long time friend Paul Willett and I headed toward Eagle Pass, Texas, to meet a fish truck to transport fish to Rusty Baker's lake in Mexico. That was an experience. It ain't easy to get fish into Mexico and it's even harder to deal with U.S. Customs to get the equipment back across. Interesting stuff. We spent three days working to get the project done. Rusty's lake covers about 350 acres. The fascinating thing about his lake is that it is built in the desert, and area that typically receives less than 15 inches of rain yearly. We estimated it would take as long as two years to fill. We could find no topo maps and used GoogleEarth to figure out the watershed best we could. Then, it rained about 4 inches in August and put several feet of water into the basin. Then, it rained 10 inches in a 24 hour period in September and overflowed the spillway. The water is beautiful, a rich green with a slight tannin tint because of the large submerged area of brush.
This view covers about 10% of the lake.
Sample of the sunfish we stocked.
Threadfin shad.....
As soon as I returned from the Mexico adventure, I headed to meet Bill McArdle, near Tyler, Texas. He is building a 25 acre lake there and I have the privilege of designing it. Bill is hitting all the right buttons and will have a fabulous lake for a reasonable expense...because he has done his due diligence.
Bill McArdle is building a great lake.
Bill looks over his domain.
McArdle talks with earthmoving contractor David Enze.
Then, last Saturday the princess Debbie and I hosted a Lusk family reunion at Lusk Lodge, Two. We met people we didn't even know existed. I received an email late Thursday from the granddaughter of an uncle, Virgil. Virgil was the uncle we never knew much about. We learned... I have two cousins whom I had never met, plus their offspring. One of the cousins came and the other four of the other one's children were there. We had 60+ people all day Saturday. We had a blast. I had everyone bring their chairs into a circle in the courtyard and tell their stories...who their parents are, tell stories about their children, and background. We all learned a lot. It was huge fun.
Then, Monday, I headed to Laurel Hill, NC, to the Morgan Company and Richmond Mill Lake. Here until late Saturday, then home. We are harvesting baitfish from two hatchery ponds and evaluating the feeding program for the year.
Fall colors at Richmond Mill Lake.
Today, we seined and stocked more than 40,000 coppernose bluegill 25,000 golden shiners into the lake from hatchery ponds. It was a good day.
Home for Thanksgiving week, but head to Phoenix, AZ Saturday after Thanksgiving, to meet up with son Ty, and then spend a week in Mexico fishing with Ray Scott, Bruce Condello and three others at Lake Novillo. I'm excited about that opportunity.
Fish on!
