Monthly Archives: August 2020

I Love Water – and Clarks Hill Is My Heaven

I have always loved water. From Dearing Branch, where I could jump across most sections, to 72,000-acre Clarks Hill, everything from branches, ponds, rivers and lakes have drawn me. 

    Clarks Hill was my “heaven on earth,” from the earliest camping trip there with the RA church group to my many fishing trips there as an adult. I fished my first tournament there in April, 1974 and the Sportsman Club has been back every year since then, including this year.  When I found out the dam was started in 1950, my birthyear, I just knew it was built just for me!

    The RAs camped a couple of times a year at “The Cliffs,” a ditch that ran back a couple hundred feet from the lake.  The edges were ten feet above the water, and we could never touch bottom when swimming in it. After I got a depthfinder I found out it was about 18 feet deep.

    We would pitch our tents on the bank along the ditch, build fires and cook our meals. After dark we would put out our lines for catfish.  I will never forget the time I took a quart jar of chicken livers and gizzards and left it out in the sun.  I was sure the smell that almost made me sick would attract catfish, but apparently, they though it was as awful as I did.

    We boys would stay up as late as we could, but invariably we would go to sleep, only to awake to the adults still talking quietly by the fire, watching their rods.  And after waking it was time to fry bacon, scramble eggs and toast bread on the open fire.

    Daddy joined Raysville Boat Club when I was 16.  Five years earlier, Mr. Hugh took me water skiing for the first time and I fell in love with it.  About three years later Harold’s family bought a ski boat and I got to drive it. I will never forget the feeling freedom that went over me that day.

    When daddy joined the boat club, he also bought a 17-foot Larson with a 120 HP Mercruiser outdrive motor.  It was a great ski boat and I spend untold hours both driving it pulling skiers and behind it skiing. I got pretty good slaloming and even skiing on trick skis and foot skis. But as hard as I tried, I never could ski barefoot.

    We also fished from that boat for bass, crappie, catfish and bream.  Daddy and I ran baskets for a few years and kept our freezer full of fish. Then we discovered spring crappie fishing and I spent hundreds of hours in that boat with mama and daddy, pulling in fish after fish and filling out limits.

    Linda and I met on a blind date at a fraternity party and, although we didn’t really hit it off, I invited her to go to the lake with me and go skiing. She turned me down. But a few weeks later we happened to have dinner together and really clicked. I again asked her to go skiing and she accepted.

    We did ski that weekend, but we also fished some.  I think that is what convinced me she was the right one. It has worked out pretty good, our 49 anniversary is this month!

    At the end of our first year of marriage we spent the month of August at the trailer at the boat club.  I would get up early and go out in the Larson, trying to cast for bass but mostly trolling. I would come in for lunch, stay in the cool trailer until late afternoon then Linda would go out with me in the more comfortable afternoon.

    One day at lunch when my parents joined us, I said I wanted to catch a 12-pound bass to have mounted. Daddy kinda laughed and said if I did he would have it mounted for me.  Linda said how about her, and daddy said if you catch an eight pounder I will have it mounted.

I found a long, shallow point where I caught a three-pound bass on a Hellbender one morning, one of the only deep diving “plugs” back then.  We had no depthfinder but I could tell how the point came up shallow and then dropped off by the action of the plug bumping bottom.

That afternoon Linda went out with me. I was trolling a chrome Hellbender and Linda a blue one.  We went over the point and Linda’s rod bowed up. At first I thought she was hung, then a huge bass jumped.  It jumped three more times before she landed it.

On my hand-held scales it weighed eight pounds, ten ounces and we confirmed that at the marina!  When daddy saw it I am not sure who beamed more, Linda, him or me.  And daddy had it mounted, I am looking at it right now, hanging on the wall with that blue Hellbender in its mouth.

I still have not caught that 12 pounder!

I have so many more memories from Clarks Hill they almost overwhelm me when reminiscing.   

Great American Outdoors Act Going to the President

President Trump signed it after this was posted.
Jim Shepherd
from The Fishing Wire

“We’re pretty confident we easily have the votes,” one outdoor organization’s CEO told me, adding, “it’s curious that it’s mostly western Republicans who don’t like the LWCF. Gulf States members – again primarily R’s- don’t think they get enough of a local deal since the money comes from offshore oil and gas, the fiscal conservatives will all vote no.”

To me that conversation didn’t sound negative, but it was a realistic view of what should and did happen. Shortly after our conversation, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly (310 to 107) to finally approve the Great American Outdoors Act.

Passage means that after ten years of work, President Trump’s signature is all that lies between the continued decline of our national public lands and the allocation of sufficient federal funds to repair most of the critically shaky infrastructure that supports those precious public lands.

Technically, H.R. 7092 “establishes the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund to support deferred maintenance projects on federal lands.”It also makes funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) permanent. The net/net is that the National Park Service, the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Education will get the funding for projects that have been deferred due to a shortage of funds.

As I’ve written before, it required ten years of legislative work by conservation groups, and represents a huge step toward taking care of our public lands going forward.In fact, I’ve learned that before some pretty strong lobbying President Trump was set to strip virtually all funding from the LWCF. That was before he met with conservation leaders and Congressional proponents.

They were successful in showing him the measure wasn’t just important, it was crucial.

In response, the President tweeted this on March 3: “I am calling on Congress to send me a Bill that fully and permanently funds the LWCF and restores our National Parks. When I sign it into law it will be HISTORIC for all our beautiful public lands.”He’s not the slightest bit disinclined to sign the bill. And that is one tweet that’s not any overstatement. Permanent funding means managers can finally create workable budgets, based on the assumption that the monies will be there.

In praising the passage, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said “In March, President Trump called on Congress to stop kicking the can down the road, fix the aging infrastructure at our national parks and permanently fund conservation projects through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. He accomplished what previous Presidents have failed to do for decades, despite their lip service commitment to funding public land improvements.”

It is truly one of the most non-partisan measures to pass Congress in some time.

Last year, the National Park Service had 327 million visitors. They generated an economic impact estimated at $41 billion dollars. That supported 340,000 jobs. Granted, COVID-19 severely reduced visitation for the past few months, but as we all realize, the outdoors remains one of the safest options for everything from recreation to solitude.

Soon, the more than 5,500 miles of paved roads, 17,000 miles of trails and 24,000 buildings that comprise our National Parks can get some much-needed repair, making them even more alluring -and safe- for visitors.

And as the National Park traffic increases, businesses nearby see increases in traffic as well. It’s an economic engine that benefits everyone.

But we all know being outside cures a lot of the problems with our insides, don’t we?

We’ll keep you posted.

Growing Up Wild On Dearing Branch

    Dearing Branch was one of the great joys of my youth.  From the fence on the north side of our farm where it entered to the pipe under Iron Hill Road where it left our property, it ran about three quarters of mile.

    I explored, played, hunted and fished the branch on our neighbor’s property on either side, too, but the section on our farm was my special heaven.  I knew every foot of it, from the shallow sandy area where we built a swimming hole to the deep cut bank with an overhanging stump where I caught bream.

    Near the north fence line, the ground was sandy and the branch wide and shallow. It narrowed to go between two trees, a perfect place for a dam. And we dammed it every summer, filling croker sacks with sand dug from the bottom and placed between the two trees and on either side of them. 

    By digging out a lot of sand and making a good dam, we created a swimming hole about chest deep on a ten-year-old.  We skinny dipped there on hot summer days, then stood around on the bank in the sun until we dried enough to put on our clothes. Shoes were not problem; we never wore them in the summer.

    The swimming hole lasted until the first good thunderstorm, when rushing water washed away our best efforts. One summer we got the bright idea that an old crosstie placed in front of the trees, then filled in with sandbags, would stop it from washing away.

    Three boys never labored as hard to do anything as we did dragging that crosstie a few hundred yards. Those things are heavy.  And it worked great, for a short time. Even though they are very heavy, we found out rushing water can turn a crosstie sideways and wash away the sandbags.

    I fished for many hours on the branch. I read outdoor magazines, and thought I could tie flies to catch branch fish like the folks I read about tied them to catch stream trout.

    My flies were tied on small bream hooks with mama’s sewing thread. I used chicken feathers, we had plenty.  But my creations looked nothing like what was in the magazine. They were way too big, bulky and a wadded mess.

    But when tied to a short length of fishing line on a stick from the branch bank, and dabbled on top of the water just right, a bream or what I called horny heads would hit them.  The horny heads were long and skinny, and had knots on their heads.

    When I say long, I mean three inches long. And bream were about the same size.  We knew there were small mud cats in the branch, we caught them by hand during dry summers when the branch dried up except for a few deep holes. Every fish in the area went to those holes, where they quickly used up so much oxygen the fish would swim on top and we could scoop them up.

    I hunted squirrels and rabbits up and down the branch, and one time jumped a duck.  I spent many hours the next few years trying to find another one without any success. I also hunted snipe and killed a couple. Yes, there really are such a bird and they are related to their northern cousins the woodcock.

    One winter the pool right at the Iron Hill Road pipe froze over, and I “ice skated” on its ten foot by ten-foot surface until I broke though.  Luckily, the water was only two feet deep, but my feet in my boots were freezing by the time I ran back to the house!

    Branches create great memories.

Old Lures Copied To Catch Bass

By Frank Sargeant, Editor

What’s old is new again with a couple of true classic lures reincarnated by PRADCO and released as part of the July virtual ICAST.

The Jitterbug from Arbogast, with the identifying metal cup on the nose, has been around since the early 1940’s, while the company says the equally odd-looking Heddon Slopenose originated in about 1902—it was the first commercially-produced lure developed by legendary lure designer James Heddon, according to the company.Of course the modern versions of the lures have some significant upgrades, including durable synthetic bodies, complex multi-coat paint-jobs and upgraded ultra-sharp treble hooks. But the original action and shape are still there in each.

The Slopenose is designed to perform as something between a popper and a stickbait. The weird-looking collar acts to catch water and make a satisfying splash when jerked, a plus for aggressive schooling bass, and it can be bobbed up and down in place to fool more cautious bass in flat water situations.

This is not a lure that pops easily like a Rebel Pop-R, however. It takes a bit of a touch, but with just a little practice it’s possible to make it dance in place while fluttering and splashing—the bass in my Alabama home lake loved it. Best action came from three short hard twitches, followed by a 10 second rest, then three more, etc.

This lure also looks like it has some serious saltwater possibilities for lunker trout and snook in the surf, and big redfish around the jetties–I’ll be trying that this fall if all goes well.

The new Jointed Jitterbug 2.0 not only has a wobbling jointed tail section, but also a large feathered treble as the tail hook. The thing comes across the surface much like a buzzbait, with a classic “bobbling” sound that identifies this iconic lure. However, the Jitterbug has the advantage of being a floater—you can stop and pop it in place now and then, adding to the attraction. The long feathered tail makes a sinuous aft wake behind—the thing looks a bit like a small water snake on the move.

The lure is offered in cool-looking crackle-paint patterns, and has an anodized aluminum headplate—the lure won’t corrode when used in brackish water.I note that keeping the lure bobbling requires positioning the rod tip just above water level—raise it up and the lure loses traction—and fish appeal. Otherwise, it’s a very easy lure to fish, good for the kids to learn topwater fishing. It doesn’t take the line control or the timing of a topwater twitchbait.

You can see more on both these PRADCO brands at www.lurenet.com.While we’re on a topwater roll, check out the new Choppo from Berkley.

This one also qualifies as a weird-looking lure, but it’s a modern invention.

The separate tail has an off-center fin or blade that rotates as the lure is cranked. This causes the whole tail section to rotate, creating a “plop-plop-plop” sound not unlike that produced by the Jitterbug, above, and with similar fish-attracting possibilities.The Choppo shape is more shad-like, so it works well around bass busting bait schools on top as well as over shallow grass and around shoreline cover. It comes in three sizes, with the 90 mm ½ ounce version a favorite for spotted bass and smallmouths, the larger 105 and 120 mm versions usually best for largemouths. The 120 is also a good wake bait for striped bass in cooler weather when the fish go shallow chasing shad.

All three sizes also can function as topwater jerkbaits, with plenty of splash when twitched along steadily. As with all topwaters, the action is brought out best with no-stretch braided line and a fast-action rod.

All of these lures have the new Berkley Fusion 19 trebles, some of the sharpest, “stickiest” hooks on the market. See more at www.berkley-fishing.com.

Club tournament at Guntersville in July

July 25 and 26, seven members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club braved the heat and high school fishermen at Guntersville for our July tournament. We landed 23 15-inch keeper largemouth weighing about 57 pounds in 16 hours of casting.  One person had a five-fish limit – both days – and there were two fishermen without a keeper.

    Raymond English caught ten keepers weighing 26.71 pounds – almost as much as the rest of the club put together, for first place. Kwong Yu had four keepers weighing 12.52 pounds for second and big fish with a 5.74 pounder.

Zane Fleck placed third with three at 7.10 pounds.  Although my gas motor locked up before daylight Saturday and it took me five hours on the trolling motor to get back to the ramp, my three weighing 6.28 pounds was fourth.  Jay Gerson had three at 6.19 pounds for fifth.

New World Record Paddlefish

Cody James Watters of Ochelata, with help from son Stetson, 9, holds his rod-and-reel world-record paddlefish that he snagged July 23 at Keystone Lake. (Photo by Eric Brennan/ODWC
A new world-record paddlefish has again been pulled from Keystone Lake near Tulsa, less than a month after the previous world record was snagged in the same lake by a client of the same fishing guide.

Angler Cody James Watters of Ochelata is the newest owner of the rod-and-reel world-record title, after snagging a 151-pound, 14.4-ounce giant Thursday morning. He and his son Stetson, 9, were fishing as clients of guide Jeremiah Mefford of Reel Good Time Guide Service.

Not only did the fish prove to be the new world record for the species, but it also had a very interesting backstory to tell, said Eric Brennan, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation Northeast Region Fisheries technician.

Mefford called Fisheries Division staff about 10:20 a.m., saying he believed his client had just broken the current world and state paddlefish record.

Fisheries staff rushed to meet the angler at Keystone Lake. Once there, they began measuring the monster. “It weighed 151.9 pounds, had a total length of 71.5 inches, and eye-to-fork length of 54.75 inches,” Brennan said. (The standard scientific method of measuring a paddlefish’s length is the distance from the eye to the fork of the tail.)

Watters wasted no time sharing his accomplishment on social media.

“I’m excited and blessed to catch a fish this big. Bonus having the son there to witness this day. Thank you ODWC!” Watters wrote.What’s more, the paddlefish had been caught in the past — as part of a research project. The fish had a band on its jaw. Once the fish was officially weighed, Brennan examined the band and “noticed it wasn’t one of our bands. It had an OSU reward tag in it.

”The band, identified as No. 667, was in poor condition and was collected by ODWC, then the fish was released in good shape.

“We only had the fish out of the water for the shortest time possible, about three minutes total. Other than that, we kept the fish moving in the water. It was a perfect release,” Watters wrote.

Brennan confirmed that upon its release, the fish was followed using Live Scope sonar and it appeared to be healthy and swimming well.

Later, a follow-up call to Oklahoma State University turned up information that the paddlefish was indeed part of research efforts by Craig Paukert, then a graduate student and currently a professor at the University of Missouri. Records indicate the fish was caught and banded in the Salt Creek arm of Keystone Lake on Jan. 4, 1997. When banded, this fish was about 2 years old, weighed 7.7 pounds and was about 2 feet long.

So this world-record fish is about 25 years old!

Wildlife Department Paddlefish Coordinator Brandon Brown participated in Paukert’s paddlefish banding efforts in the mid-1990s at Keystone Lake. When Paukert heard the news, he contacted Brown. Paukert told Brown, “It’s possible you may have tagged this fish while working with me way back when!”

The news was exciting to Paukert. “This made my day! So, I guess this means that I caught the world-record paddlefish, but I didn’t realize it until 23 years later!”

On ODWC’s Facebook page, Paukert shared some details with Watters. “I was the last person to handle that fish about 14 years before your son was born! This was part of my grad research at OSU. The fish most likely came from a net we set between the Jellystone Launch and the Keystone Marina north of the (State Highway) 51 bridge. … It was common to set nets across the river channels.

“What made my day is hearing his son was with him today. Great story all the way around in a time when we need great stories. Wish I could have been there so we could have a pic with the last two people to touch that fish — 23 years apart!”

Watters’ paddlefish will become the officially recognized rod-and-reel world record for the species when it is entered in scientific journals by ODWC biologists. This record fish is just the latest in a string of actual or would-be record-setting paddlefish snagged at Keystone this year:

On June 28, James Lukehart of Edmond snagged a world-record-setting 146.7-pound paddlefish, also while fishing with Mefford.
On May 23, Mefford himself hauled in a 143-pound paddlefish at Keystone, setting a new state record but missing the then-world record by just a pound.

On Feb. 14, Justin Hamlin of Kellyville boated a paddlefish that unofficially weighed 157 pounds, but the fish had to be immediately released because it was caught on a “no harvest” day as set in state regulations. 

The largest American paddlefish on record, taken by a spearfisherman in Iowa in 1916, reportedly weighed 198 pounds.

The paddlefish is a primitive species, with a fossil record dating to the age of the dinosaurs about 75 million years ago. Resembling a shark, it has smooth skin and a skeleton mostly of cartilage.

A long paddle-like blade, called a rostrum, extends forward from the fish’s head. The rostrum is covered with tens of thousands of sensory receptors that enable the fish to detect weak electrical fields produced by zooplankton, its primary food. The American paddlefish roams lakes and rivers of the Mississippi and Missouri basins. Paddlefish were once very abundant across their range but have declined in many areas. These fish can live up to 30 years, and they can grow to huge sizes

.Oklahoma’s paddlefish population is seen as among the healthiest in the nation, and the sport of snagging paddlefish draws anglers from many states. The Wildlife Department’s paddlefish management program involves an extensive process of netting, weighing, measuring and marking paddlefish with metal bands on the lower jaw. For several months every year, the Department operates a Paddlefish Research Center near Miami, Okla.

Anglers wanting to experience battling these large fish are required to have a state fishing license (unless exempt) and a free paddlefish permit. Regulations for paddlefish snagging can be found here in the Oklahoma Fishing Regulations Guide.

And anyone wanting to arrange a guided paddlefish trip can find a list of state-licensed fishing guides here on the Wildlife Department’s website.

Shooting Birds and Picking Cotton To Earn Money

    A question popular on “Fazebook” got me thinking about earning money growing up. A couple of weeks ago I started seeing the question “Have you ever picked cotton?” often.

    Yes, I have – one time when I was about 12 years old.  A friend’s family had a big farm and grew cotton.  One weekend while visiting we decided to earn some money by helping pick cotton.  We got our long bags and went out into the hot field early in the morning.

    I admit we played as much as we picked.  And we quit at noon, going in for lunch and deciding that was not a fun way to earn money. I don’t remember how much was paid for picking cotton, I think it was about 25 cents per hundred pounds. If I remember right, I earned a whole dime that half day I “worked.”

    A money earning “job” I had that I really enjoyed for years would probably make bird watchers and animal rights fanatics go crazy now. It was protecting our pecan trees. 

We had five big pecan trees and not only sold the nuts for a little extra farm income; we shelled and ate fresh nuts every way from raw to parched to pies and on cakes. And we froze many pounds for use until the next crop.

    Blue jays and crows liked pecans as much as we did and could eat enough each day to hurt our harvest.  From the time I got my first BB gun at six years old until I went off to college, daddy paid me a dime for every blue jay and a quarter for every crow I could kill.

    Blue jays were fairly easy to kill and on a good Saturday I often earned a dollar.  Crows were not easy.  I would get up at dawn and sit in a bush near one of the pecan trees with my .410, only to miss the crow as it flew off.  They always saw me raise my gun no matter how careful and slowly I tried to sight in on them sitting on a limb. I can remember killing only three in all the years I tried!

    I could get my bounty year-round, and my standard fee for blowing up a nest with eggs was 50 cents since five eggs were average. After killing the adult near the nest, there was no way to count the eggs after shooting up the nest. If there were baby birds in it, I could usually find and count them. I realized later in life daddy trusted me completely to tell him the truth about how many I killed, a small thing but I am sure it helped me realized the importance of being honest.

    While leaves were on the trees blue jays were harder to see and shoot, but I got pretty good at it.  With bare limbs, it was easy to spot the patch of blue but much harder to get close enough for a shot.  They could see me as well as I could see them.

    I wonder if kids have fun ways to earn money now?

Submerged Aquatic Vegetation

Vegetation in the water makes fish heaven. Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program
NOAA Fisheries reminds us that submerged aquatic vegetation is one of the most productive fish habitats on earth.

Imagine this: you’re swimming at your favorite beach and you feel something slide across your foot. You panic, but only for a moment, because you realize that what you were touching was just a long, spindly water plant. Sure, you may have seen such plants washed up on beaches, or maybe you have removed it from a boat as you left the water for the day.

But have you ever stopped to think about what these plants actually do? It turns out, they actually support an entire ecosystem under the water! The term used for a rooted aquatic plant that grows completely under water is submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). These plants occur in both freshwater and saltwater but in estuaries, where fresh and saltwater mix together, they can be an especially important habitat for fish, crabs, and other aquatic organisms.

SAV is a great habitat for fish, including commercially important species, because it provides them with a place to hide from predators and it hosts a buffet of small invertebrates and other prey. They essentially form a canopy, much like that of a forest but underwater. Burrowing organisms, like clams and worms, live in the sediments among the roots, while fish and crabs hide among the shoots and leaves, and ducks graze from above. It has been estimated that a single acre of SAV can be home to as many as 40,000 fish and 50 million small invertebrates! SAV in the Chesapeake Bay. Credit: Maryland Department of Natural Resources

SAV in the Chesapeake BayOne of the places we work to protect these aquatic plants—and other habitats important for fish)—is in the Chesapeake Bay (Maryland and Virginia). The Bay is home to several different species of SAV. They live in the relatively freshwaters near the head of the Bay and down to its mouth, which is as salty as the ocean. Approximately 90 percent of the historical extent of SAV disappeared around the mid-20th century due to poor water quality, coastal development activities, and disease.

Since then, there have been major efforts to reduce pollution to the bay and help SAV reestablishin areas where it was historically found. We regularly work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that coastal projects avoid damaging this important habitat. For example, the Corps might propose to issue a permit to a private landowner to build a structure such as a pier or breakwater in SAV. We would then make recommendations to avoid these areas.

If the areas are unavoidable, we advocate for different construction approaches to minimize impacts such as shading or filling.Dead Zones Giving You Heartburn? Have an Antacid!One amazing recent finding is that SAV actually changes the acidity of near-shore waters. A recent study in the journal Naturedescribes this phenomenon in the Chesapeake Bay. SAV located at the head of the bay reduces the acidity of water in areas downstream. Areas of low oxygen form when carbon dioxide gas is released by fish, bacteria, and other aquatic organisms. As they respire, or breathe, they take up oxygen and release carbon dioxide as part of normal biological operation.

These “dead zones” are areas with oxygen levels below what is necessary to support fish, shellfish, and other aquatic life.During the warm summer months in the Chesapeake Bay, there are many aquatic organisms respiring. This results in much of the available oxygen being consumed and leaving an excess of dissolved carbon dioxide. Another effect of all this carbon dioxide is that parts of the Bay become more acidic. This is stressful for many organisms especially those with shells like oysters and mussels. That’s where SAV comes in.

During the growing season, SAV absorbs dissolved carbon dioxide. With help from the sun’s rays, they turn that carbon into leaves, shoots, and roots much like other plants. In the process, oxygen is released into the water, as well as small crystals of calcium carbonate. They essentially behave as antacids as they flow into acidic waters downstream. This is a great example of how conservation of one resource can have cascading effects. SAV carbon filtration benefits commercial fisheries such as oyster aquaculture and, ultimately, the entire Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. SAV growing in shallow water near Havre de Grace, MD. Credit: Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program

SAV as a Carbon SpongeIncreasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is also a major contributing factor in global climate change. There is a lot of interest in harnessing the power of our natural biological environment to soak up this excess carbon. SAV is an important piece in this puzzle. Aquatic plants are highly productive, which means they absorb a lot of carbon dioxide. The carbon captured by these plants has been termed “blue carbon” since it primarily occurs in the water. 

Blue carbon has been receiving a lot of attention lately as scientists have discovered that aquatic plants are very efficient at storing carbon in sediments. They also keep it there over long periods of time. Studies have estimated that underwater grasses globally can store approximately 10 percent of the carbon in the entire ocean in the form of rich aquatic soils. Ultimately, this means that efforts to protect and restore SAV can also help to reduce the effects of climate change.

Take a Second Look at SAVMaybe next time you feel a spindly plant brush your foot in the water, you won’t run away. Instead, dive down and see what critters may be hiding among the underwater grasses! You might be surprised to find a crab lumbering through the stems or school of young fish cruising through the green leaves. 

Hot July Fishing At Eufaula

The weekend of July 18 and 19, 14 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our July tournament at Lake Eufaula.  To say it was hot is somewhat misleading. It was miserably hot. My shirt was soaked with sweat before 7:00 each morning. It was so hot and the fishing so bad that only six of the 14 members were still around for weigh-in at 1:00 Sunday.

In 15 hours of casting we brought in 37 keeper bass longer than the 14-inch limit that weighed about 73 pounds.  There were three five-bass limits and two people did not have a keeper.

Raymond English had a great catch Saturday, five weighing 16.68 pounds, and added five more Sunday for a total first place weight of ten weighing 24.71 pounds and had a 5.78 pound largemouth for big fish.  My five at 15.11 pounds, including a 5.36 pounder, was second. Kwong Yu placed third with seven weighing 12.56 pounds and had the third limit on Sunday.  Mike Scoggins had three at 6.71 pounds for fourth.

Raymond said he caught his fish on a Trick worm, as did Kwong.  Mine hit a buzzbait early.  We started at 5:30 each morning in the dark and I never had a bite after 7:00 either day.

It was tough but our catch included a high percentage of three to six-pound bass, caught in shallow water. Eufaula is full of them!