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FARM 13 / STICK MARSH FISHING REPORTS
NOVEMBER 2005
November 19, 2005
 Boy, when Ray Tuholski and Mark Higgins came to town, they came to do some serious fishing! Seems like the bass in Massachusetts are just too small and they wanted some that could ‘pull their string and bend a pole’. I certainly think they got their wish, too. The good old Stick Marsh lived up to its name yet again!
The guys only had a half day in their busy holiday schedules, what with trying to get to Mouse Land, Sea World, etc., plus making it to the relatives in time for Thanksgiving. So, we started off around noon amid 20-MPH winds and intermittent rain. We were really lucky, in that the rain never materialized more than a couple of sprinkles on us. It sure rained big time around us and I know someone got really wet.
Once we turned the corner into the Farm 13 side of the impoundment, we got a bit of windbreak and the whitecaps subsided a good bit. We checked the east wall pump, only to find it not running. Down in the SE corner, we dodged that 6 X 6 timber that was once a corner fence post and smoothly did an S-turn into the spillway basin. The spillway was running lightly. But, our experienc3 for the past six weeks told us the bass were not using the close-in moving water in great numbers. We decided to set up just off a drop-off from six into 14 feet of water adjacent to a shellbed in the six-foot depth.
Rigging up shiners with no weight, but with a small strike indicator float, we proceeded to set them out. The bass were ready and will yet again. Mark's first bass came almost immediately and was a solid 4-5 pound fish. Instead of blowing up on the shiner, the bass just grabbed it on the run and headed for Fellsmere at full speed. Good way to start off, we agreed. For awhile, the action was steady and constant, with nearly all the strikes coming as multiple blow-ups and/or boils on the shiners. That kind of action really makes the old hair stand on end.
Then, along came Mother Nature. Big old Wally Gator came to see what all the splashing was about, thinking he might find a meal. He’ll get your bobbers to just see if they are food, so we had to remove them for awhile. Once Wally had departed we put the bobbers back on, only to have the Terns and Ospreys start dive-bombing the hapless shiners. The bobbers just made them stay too shallow. So, we removed the bobbers once more and went back to pure free-lining. We started to note that the free-lining was actually drawing larger bass, as the shiners roamed down deeper.
A FISHIN' TIP: This is something to remember, because it happens nearly every trip up in the middle part of the day. Early and late, the surface strikes come readily. But, from around noon until 3:00 O’clock, letting the shiners run deeper sure appears to do better. Remember to hook them up through the bottom lip and out one of the existing nostril holes to make them swim down, plus live longer.
 Mark finally set the hook on the big girl of the day, a giant bass that went close to eight pounds and was about 26 inches long. Very healthy and with great coloration, the huge bass had no other hook marks that we could find. Ray got his share of the bass, too, with a couple coming in the five pounds (+) range. All in all, I think the team caught 40 fish in our abbreviated trip.
Every trip, that ‘event to remember’ occurs. On Ray and Mark’s trip, there were actually three events. The first one happened as I baited a rod with a shiner and then laid it down to net Ray’s bass. Since we were looking close to the side of the boat as I netted the fish, we all got a see a six pound beauty actually come out from under the boat and blast the shiner I had just set down. I managed to grab the rod before it went sailing over the side. Who says a guide can catch ‘em!!
The next thing to happen was Ray vs. the Ospreys. On two occasions, we were not watching closely enough and an Osprey swooped down and got Ray's shiner. That is one fast bird, as it would strip 50-70 yards of line off before Ray could even react. Ray got the rigs back, but the shiners became an afternoon snack for the birds.
 Finally, we have this cute half-grown raccoon that has found that boats mean shiners, and that shiners mean free groceries. He likes to come to edge of the bank, if you are near it, and he will sit up on his hind legs and (I swear it looks like it!!) wave his front paws at you begging for a shiner. He is cute as a bug, as all baby and partially grown creatures are. But, Florida coons sometimes carry rabies, so it is prudent to keep your distance. In this case, Ray, Mark and I were anchored right against the grassy shoreline when 'Racky the Coon' stuck his head out of the standing maiden cane patch right behind Mark. I thought the little critter was coming in to help himself, so I spent 30 minutes watching and shooing him off when he came close. It would be wise to watch out for this little guy, if you anchor along the bank. So many people may have been feeding him, that he is half-tame and shows no fear of humans.
Hey, another great day on the water. What a job!!
November 14, 2005
Lillian Carter called and asked if I would baby-sit her 11 year-old son. And, that is just exactly what she said when I answered the phone, too!! I was a bit at a loss for words, to say the least, and she could obviously tell by my initial silence. So, Ms. Carter immediately started to explain. Apparently Ronnie Carter, Jr. was a big fan of our web site and the fishing reports.
Ronnie's Grandparents had asked him what he wanted for Xmas and he had said he wanted to go fishing on the Stick Marsh. So, they gave him a fishing trip (and, it was at a very special holiday rate, too).
Unfortunately, Ronnie and I only had a short time to fish. I picked up two dozen shiners, but later found out that this young man wanted to ‘fish right’. He wanted to use crank plugs, just like he had read about in magazines and on the Web. I said OK, but told him we should at least use a few of the shiners up so he could see how they worked. Ronnie certainly got to see what shiners could do, as the bass went completely bonkers over them. But, after about a dozen bass from 3-5 lbs., Ronnie started bugging me about the crank plugs.
Now, as you have read in our past reports, the Stick Marsh impoundment water is still somewhat dirty and artificial fishing has not been very good. Concentrations of bass are hard to come by. So, I decided to play the best odds and fish a deep crank plug in two places. One was the pump station on the east wall of Farm 13. The deep hole in front of the pump and the drop-off from the shallow bars that surround it are made for crank plugging. The water has pretty poor color there, but it was an option. The next place would be the spillway basin in the SE corner of Farm 13. That basin of water is very clear and clean. With a light flow of water still coming from the spillway, a crank plug still has a good chance at a few bass.
Well, the pump station was a bust. Ronnie snagged a big Gizzard Shad and that was it. Down in the spillway area, it different. Using a 6-inch wire leader and a shallow running Swimmin' Image crank plug, I eased around the shoreline grasses in the basin. Ronnie did catch one bass, a poor dink of maybe a pound. But, he got eaten up by the big chain pickerel. Holy Mackerel, Andy!! The faster he cranked the shallow lure, the more he caught. I figured this would satisfy the youngster, but he was a bit smarter than that. He wanted to catch bass!!
So, I tied a deep diving Fat Free Shad on Ronnie's line and moved right up to the deep hole in front of the spillway. Right off the bat, the kid snagged another of those big Gizzard Shad. I thought he had that big old bass and I think I was more disappointed than Ronnie was when I saw what was on the lure. He was a VERY determined young man, to say the least. He chunked and cranked that plug, one cast after another. Chunk, crank; chunk, crank.
Then, he got a strike and played it like a pro. It was only a couple of pounds, but it was a million dollar fish to an eleven year-old. I didn't get the hooks out of the bass, until Ronnie was back at it. I had positioned the boat off to the side of the slow current flow and letting the youngster cast across and upstream to the moving water. That let his lure comes across the entire basin and the plug was getting down close to the bottom. Then, Ronnie got another strike. I prayed for it to be a bass of respectable size this time, but I could just see another big shad snagged on a treble. Almost immediate after striking the lure, the bass came to the surface. It was absolutely HUGE! I didn't have to ‘wish’ for a decent fish anymore. The problem now was would it stay on or thrown the hooks. I immediately told Ronnie to keep a tight line at all costs and reached in between his arms to loosen the drag on the cardinal 502 spinning reel a bit. Then, I trimmed up the big motor until it was out of water and started to use the trolling motor to keep the fish off to one side of the boat. The big bass headed for the single pole folks like to tie up to and we followed out into the open water, hoping it did not doubleback around that pole. Luck was with us and now she was it 12-14 feet of just open water.
I ran my mouth all the time, advising Ronnie to take his time and not be in a hurry. I wanted her to go into the net and not spook at the side of the boat. Big bass tire quickly and this one proved to be no exception. She went out from the boat one more time, went left and right in a figure eight pattern and then allowed herself to be led to the side of the boat. I had the net in the water and told Ronnie to just guide and pull her right into it. She was almost too big for the net!
I don't know who was more excited, that kid or me. Talk about having a rabbit's foot in your pocket at the right time ---. Now, you know why I love doing this job!!
November 11, 2005
Every fishing trip we do (and there are a LOT of them!!) seems to have a ‘story’ of its own. No two are alike. So it was when Jeffery Hubbard and son, Ryan, climbed into the big Blazer boat with us.
The previous day, we had a repeat performance by Jay Koeller and company, in which they caught an estimated 60 bass, with a six or eight of them being 6-9 lbs. But, this day with the Hubbards started out like it was a doomed fishing trip. Koeller and crew had been blasting the giant bass like there was no tomorrow. Now, less than 15 hours later, the bass, and even the worrisome pickerel, had simply disappeared. I was at a loss to explain it.
We did initially catch 5-6 bass. And, we watched another guide and his party get 10-12 and a bunch of pickerel off another location. But, with as many as 12 boats in the area, we saw very few fishing being caught. When you can’t catch a bass on a shiner, things are really tough.
So, after a while and a number of ‘don’t ever give up’ reminders to my anglers, I recommended we try something else. Out into Farm 13 we went, right to a submerged canal lined with stumps and logs. Trailing two big shiners behind the boat, we started tossing RIPPIN’ Stick jerk baits to see what we could raise. After an hour, we had NO strikes on the shiners, one bass to show for the RIPPIN’ Sticks, and one missed hookset on the artificials. This was not good at all!!
We discussed our plight from an educated perspective and made the assumptions that: the bass had to still be in the original area; that maybe 12 boats continually moving around in the place put the fish down; and that we always ‘make our own luck’ by not giving up and staying with it. So, it was back to the first fishing location we went.
Many of the early-riser crowd had now gotten discouraged and left the location. Only three boats remained. The previously mentioned guide indicated that he had caught a few more fish and was now leaving. We set our boat back in its original location in 14 feet of water and just off the edge of a shallow, submerged shell bed location. Water currents track along this drop line location and baitfish use it; hence, the bass, too.
Things immediately started to improve and bass began blasting the hapless free-lined shiners on the surface. Pickerel, numerous a fleas on a dog’s back the day before, were nearly non-existent. BANG, BAM, CRASH – the shiners were knocked up in the air and caught coming down. The wind shifted slightly, causing our shiners to be pushed away from the edge of the shellbed. So, we re-positioned the boat upwind of the new wind direction and got the shiners back out over the drop-off. What had started out looking like a nine-hour fishing day of boredom and failure turned into a four hours spree of catching and catching and catching. We went through the entire eight dozen shiners, with the final fish caught being a simultaneous double hookup by Jeff and Ryan that had to be netted at the same time. Two good bass in the net at once sure can tangle some lines! But, it was worth it.
 
And, it all proved again that the Stick Marsh is the greatest fishin’ hole ever and you should NEVER, EVER give up! Just ask Jeff and Ryan.
November 10, 2005
10 days earlier, Jay Koeller and his brother-in-law, Chuck, got completely blown away by the big bass in the Stick Marsh (see October 05 in the Past Fishing Reports, below.) It was awesome.
Well, they obviously talked about it and showed the great pictures around because, on this day, Jay returned with his friend, Wayne Tronsen, for a second round. Wayne’s first words when we were introduced were, “Did Jay and Chuck really do as well as they say?” I told him he was about to fish the best bass hole in the World and he had the luckiest fishing guide there ever was.
Did Jay and Wayne do well? Did Wayne get his answer? Here is the next day’s email from Jay -- “Thanks for the great day. We both will be talking about it for the rest of our lives.” Read on and just see what happened.
This fishing day was a Thursday and one day before the Veteran’s Day holiday. Most everyone was at home planning to inundate the Stick Marsh on Friday, so Jay, Wayne and I were pretty much alone on the impoundment. Armed with eight dozen of Jeanne Middleton’s best shiners, we headed south to Farm 13 and great expectations. We positioned the Blazer right in on a grass line with our backs to the slight breeze. Then, we set the shiners out in a free-line mode, but with small crappie bobbers 6 feet up the line for a strike indicator.
FISHIN’ TIPSTER’S ‘YOU OUGHT TO KNOW THIS’ Tip of the Day: Free-lined shiners, and even those weighted under bobbers, are very often run to the surface and blown up on by hungry bass. Depending on the size of the shiner, the bass may try to stun it before actually taking it headfirst into its mouth. So, you really cannot know if the bass has actually taken the shiner UNLESS that bobber is gone. In a free-line mode, bobbers are usually not used and you have to rely on feel or see the line moving off to know the bass actually has the poor old shiners. But, that little trick of adding a small crappie bobber to the free-lined rig gives us a positive way to know if the shiners is really taken or not. Note that this is only applicable when free-lined shiners are desired to be near the surface. If you want them to go deep and stay there, leave the small bobber off and add a small split shot. Hook them up through the bottom jaw and out one of the nostril bone holes on the top lip to lessen injury and keep the shiner alive longer. It gives them an Excedrin #10 headache, but a hungry bass quickly brings a cure!!
The first thing that happened on this trip made it unique. There is ALWAYS something that does that. Wayne is holding one rod while his shiners is seeking a bass. I bait up another rod. Jay catches a fish, so I put the rod down, with the shiner six inches in the water next to the boat hull. As I net Jay’s bass, a 6-lbs. bruiser comes out from under the boat and blasts the shiner on the rod I had just laid down, dousing us all with spray and literally scaring us out of our Keds. But, Wayne reacted well and grabbed the rod before it went over the side of the Blazer. He now has a rod in his left hand and a 6-lb., unhappy bass on four feet of line in his right, AND no way to grab the reel or control the fish. Jay and I are too stunned to react quickly, so Wayne just hangs on. Talk about a monkey football game, that sure was fun to watch for awhile. Finally, I came to my senses and just netted the fish as it jumped at boatside. One of those ‘flying grabs’, if you will.
The guys caught a lot of bass and then the wind shifted, driving the shiners off their target along a drop-off. We re-positioned the boat upwind and set the bait out again, with continued great success. Jay, now sitting nearest a shoreline, starting tossing is shiner behind the boat and along the grass. Wouldn’t you know he found a ‘sweet spot’?!! I think the count was five, maybe six, bass between 6 and 9-lbs. off the same area for him. Meanwhile, though, Wayne is also racking them in. His were more numerous, just not as large.
Running out of shiners and with arms aching from so many hard hooksets, Jay and Wayne had an hour left on our fishing schedule. We had talked about possibly getting them some crappie for a fish fry and jay had brought a cooler. So, off we went to old Jim’s ‘perch-jerk’ hole. The water was still pretty dirty at the crappie hole, and we made a number of casts with the PERFECT jig without success. I worked around, presenting lures from different angles. Usually, if you can just get a couple of papermouths to respond to the jig, the rest of the school will get excited and competitive and start hitting, too. We got to fish about 30 minutes and caught an estimated 30-35 of the panfish. Many were small, but we did get around 20 that would eventually make it to the frying pan. Now, the guys know why that little jig is named ‘PERFECT’. It always works, even when things are tough.
So, you now see what Jay’s Email meant. It was a heck of a day on the water.
 
November 8, 2005
Terry Miller and Steve Bealefeld are old friends from Baltimore. Steve lives and works in Florida now and Terry was here on business. So, the two made a day to fish in their busy schedules and called about the Stick Marsh. It was destined to be another great day on the best bass fishery there ever was!
This day, we did not see anyone else catching very much. There were a lot of pickerel devouring a lot of expensive shiners that we saw. But, our boat appeared to have the ‘World’s luckiest guide’ in it. Somehow, amongst all the pickerel gathered around us, Terry and Steve made a heck of a catch of bass. It appeared that the bass and the pickerel were both in schools (or, packs, if you like) and would come by us every so often. When the pickerel were there, there were NO bass. But, when we started to catch bass, we caught a good number before the pickerel showed up again. With the small amount of current we had running out from us, I suspect they were herding the schools of baitfish around.
After running out of shiners early due to the hot bite, we decided to try up in the spillway area. As far as we had been able to see, none of the five or six boats that fished it had done any good at all. But, we had nothing to lose, so out came the Carolina rigs and on went the 4-inch JuneBug RIPPIN’ Sticks. After 5 or 6 small bass came over the side, Terry latched onto a good one. He had been presenting his lure in the deep water right in front of the spillway entrance, which Steve and I were exploring the down-current side. Not being total dummies, we turned to join him. Sure enough, that’s where the fish were. It was not an ‘every cast’ pattern, like sometimes get going at that spillway. But, it gave us a good hour of fine action.
There were two interesting things that happened on this trip. First, besides catching a bunch of good-sized bass, Steve caught one that was nearly 30 inches long. The fish was obviously very old and in bad health. A 30 inch bass in the Stick Marsh will, from our past actual catches and measurements, weight 11-14 pounds. The variation depends on the bulk of the body (girth). In the case of Steve’s old gal, we know she must have been some specimen at one time. But, now, she was only 6 or 7 pounds.
Steve also had a pickerel demonstrate just how hard a fish tries to throw a hook when it jumps. In the photo, you will see that the poor pickerel actually got his tail caught in his teeth when he flexed so for in his jump. (In case you have never seen a chain pickerel’s teeth/mouth, they have a lot of teeth on the bottom jaw. The top jaw has some short teeth in the normal places, but the upper pallet of the mouth looks like a piece of VELCRO made of tiny, sharp spikes. These hold like VELCRO, too, and that is what was basically holding the pickerel’s tail. I have only seen one other fish do this and that was a smallmouth bass on Watts Bar Lake in Tennessee. It actually caught its tail on the hooks of the lure in the fish’s mouth.
Lots of good fishing, good fish, and good times with two great guys. I am sure that lucky guide.
 
November 7, 2005
Rich Wisby and Mike Hudspeth wanted to find out if the Stick Marsh fishing was for real. Living in the Orlando area, they had long heard the stories of the fantastic fishing we have just to their east. When they called, I let them know that the water was a little dirty from the last hurricane, but that I had been really doing well on the bass. I also responded to their request to get a few crappie in a positive manner, knowing that at least one of my crappie spots should produce. Finally, I checked the weather on both the TV and on the Internet and told the pair the weather should be excellent.
It rained, off and on, all day.
But, the bass cooperated like the champs there are. We started out setting the shiners under bobbers with weights to hold them down. That worked fine, but the bass were still running the poor baitfish to the surface. Once on the surface, the shiners would look diligently for a tree or ladder to climb to get away from the bigmouth lunkers. But, alas, there was no escape route and the bass blew them out of the water and caught them coming down. Noting that we might be missing some really great visual thrills from these bass being in such a stalking and blasting mode, we removed the weights and bobbers and simply set the shiners out on free-lines. Boy, oh boy, was that ever a great idea. It often looked like topwater plugs and buzz bait action out there on the water.
Mike would up with the real giant of the day, but Rich was right on his tail. Between the two of them, they had a lot of big, solid Stick Marsh bass. Mike’s giant bass had a real oddity in her tail. It appeared that she had been almost caught by old Wally Alligator a bit earlier, resulting in a badly broken lower half of her tail and a few holes and tears in it from Wally’s blunt teeth. The broken portion had been held in a odd ‘folded-over’ position by a bone at the start of the tail and at the actual break site. The bone tip was protruding and had the tail portion simply locked in place. By now, it had started to heal sufficiently that we could not do anything to try and straighten it. So, if you happen to catch the bass with the odd tail you see in the picture, know that catch-and-release surely does work well!
After burning up all our shiners, we headed up towards the north end of Farm 13 in search of our great ‘Crappie Factory’ location. No matter how many crappie I catch in this spot and no matter how often, it always seems to replenish itself with the fish within a few hours. I sometimes wonder where they all keep coming from. Today was no exception and the crappie were ready and willing.
 
Another great fishing adventure on the Stick Marsh. Will it ever end??!
November 3-4, 2005
When James (Puddin’) Stallings called about booking a trip, he advised that what he really wanted was a memorable experience for his elderly Father. Sammie Stalling was getting along in years (like a lot of us!) and was having some serious health problems. So, James and his friend, Mike Taylor, wanted to get Sammie out at least one last time for a great fishing day. Sometimes, the good Lord looks after some of us sinners, and this fishing trip was one of those where He kept a really close eye on things. It was exceptional, to say the least.
The Blazer was full when we left the ramp. Sammie, James and Mike are all from that red clay country of north Georgia and the town of Ringgold. They feed those folks real well in Ringgold, let me tell you!!
This was a two-day trip, so we went directly to our prime shiner spot the first morning. It started a little slow. But, then, the word got out that some fools were giving away free shiners over by that Blazer bass boat and the bass came flocking to us. There was no doubt, after the first fishing day, that the Stick Marsh was the finest bass fishing hole in the country and that Sammie was experiencing exactly what James and Mike had intended. In fact, it was so good, we were probably a little tired of yanking those big bass. So, we decided to try elsewhere on the morning of the second day. Setting two shiners out behind the boat, we started to drift an area of submerged timber and an old submerged canal trace. Sammie watched the shiners, while Mike and James tried their hand with the unweighted RIPPIN’ Stick. The shiners seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, as they basked in the sunlight and swam lazily after the boat. In an hour, not a one of them even got scared, much less bitten. James, however, got his line stretched well and his drag checked thoroughly, as a big 7-lb. gal took him for a Stick Marsh ride. The strike, as James told us, was just a small tap on the JuneBug RIPPIN’ Stick. And, when he set the hook, the bass pulled him right out off his seat and to standing position. There must have been 50-75 feet of line ripped off the reel and the drag screeched like a tomcat with his tail caught in the car door. With all that wood underwater, we sure worried that the bass might get hung before James could get her to the net. In fact, she did snag for a moment. But, James gave her just a bit of slack and she came free. That was one beautiful, healthy fish.
And, it was the only fish, save for one other small one. So, we headed back to the prime shiner hole. This was our ticket to great fishing all the rest of that second day. And, is was to be Mike’s day to be the ‘giant fish catcher’. He took four bass between 6 and 9 pounds, all in a row. In addition, he lost a fifth bass that was the largest of all of them (maybe 10 lbs.; the ones that get away are ALWAYS the largest), as she went under the boat and got into some grass. That one was a story-maker, for sure. I got a good look at the giant just before she got under the boat. ‘Big’ may not be the right word!
As usual, we sent the Stallings fishing party back home with a lot of great memories and a lot of great digital, high-quality pictures. Poppa Sammie caught a lot of bass and many big ones, as did James and old lucky Mike, of course. I think everyone in Ringgold must have seen those pictures by now, as half the town has called wanting to book a Stick Marsh trip!!
 
Today's Weather for
the Stick Marsh Area
Past Stick Marsh Fishing Reports
Farm 13 / Stick Marsh Information Guide
Email questions to jporter@jimporter.org.
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