Fishing in Winter 2005 was the best winter to date that I found at Dale Hollow since 2004. Water level was normal and had good water temps pretty much all thru December and January. When the incident happened that I posted on this post as I did back then when it happened, was pretty much prime time Big Smallmouth catching. In looking at my notes that I keep the actual date that I caught these fish and the same date the guys were busted was Dec 9th 2005 for I caught my first one over 6 that day and had another one over 6 on the same spot on Dec 30th, exactly 3 weeks later. We caught a lot of good fish during that month as well as January. My boat was averaging 12 fish per day with 2 days of 22 fish and a bunch of days in the 9-15 range with a 3lb average. One boat catching 35-50lb of Smallies a day and you have 3 boats on the water could easily fill up a cooler over a few days of fishing.