The Rock Wall

I knew I liked Doug Rice and was always glad to see him coming at church or any other event but I was surprised at the depth of his training when I read his obituary in the funeral folder Kimball brought home from his family night and we have in this issue.

I guess I should not have been surprised that Brother DeWayne and Sister Janice Burdette traveled from their home in Pleasant Hope to be at the family night. Brother DeWayne carried a photo of Todd Rice to a young lady named Melissa in Jerome, ID, on one of his missionary trips out West and a photo of her back to Todd. They became Mr. and Mrs. Todd Rice. He was called to preach and is the pastor of the Missionary Baptist Church there.

Kimball and I were fishing big ‘ol Toledo Bend regularly, but we weren’t loading the boat with fish. We decided on a plan of attack that might work on Lake Stockton or any of the lakes around here. We studied a topographical map and located spots where roadbeds crossed creeks. A $10,000 Ford Dealers for Bass tournament was scheduled in two weeks.

The first spot we pulled up to in our boat was in about 10 ft. of water. The bass were there. Big bass that couldn’t wait to inhale anything I threw at them. I quit after one or two not wanting to give them sore mouth. There were lots of them looking for the shad colored Deep O.

We headed a few miles away to the next spot on our topo map.

You couldn’t see any sign of a creek or a bridge. All you could see was bass up to about six pounds schooling after shad. First cast I landed about a six pounder with similar sized fish trying to get the Deep O out of her mouth. I named it the Near Nuthin Hole and told the fish we’d be back.

On tournament day nary a strike at either hole. They had started generating power at the Toledo Bend Dam and dropped the lake level three feet.

I finally caught one five pound bass on a plastic worm about 30 ft. deep in a cypress slough. I didn’t even bother to weigh it in.

Allen Crew, a friend of mine from Birmingham, asked if I had ever fished it as a worm hole. I hadn’t. Soon we were reeling in decent fish from the 18 ft. deep water on a six inch purple fire tail held down by a 3/16 oz. worm lead.

After we limited out we went down to Sammy Gil, a big marina on the lake, and learned we were the only ones catching fish.

Kimball and I won every husband and wife tournament we fished out of that hole. The last bass Kimball caught there,