I got to fish a family trip today with my brother, Andy Maindelle, and my nephew and niece, Trent and Molly, all of N. Austin. We had solid action from 7:15a to 11:15a, albeit with a lot of small fish today.

Andy with our two best fish, both going between 14-15 inches.

Here is a graph showing the size distribution of our catch today.

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 11:20am

Air Temp: 53F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~61.5F

Wind: Winds were light from the SSE at trip’s start, then picked up gradually to about 10mph from due S.

Skies: Skies were fair during the trip, clouding to grey later in the day.

We got out on the water just minutes before sunrise and found our first action between Areas 550 and 531 (BA: 9HG, 2C, 1H). These fish were well scattered both vertically and horizontally, so we worked our slabs (TNT 180’s in 3/8 oz.) lift-drop style and stayed consistently hooked up for about 75 minutes, boating 43 fish before the action here went flat.

We made a move to Area 537/538 but found that pretty quiet and didn’t stay more than 10 minutes.

We then made a move to Area 549. As we motored in from deep to shallow, we picked up solid sonar returns of fish on bottom beginning in 31 feet and found them solid through to the top of the feature at 27 feet. We dropped 4 slabs down and had 4 hookups immediately. I buoyed and we stayed on these fish right up until they completely quit at around 11:15. for the first half of 2 plus hours we spent here, we smoked the fish as they were very active and aggressive. After that, jigging, easing and occasional smoking was the ticket. Not once today did we see groups of suspended fish in this area. Every fish we caught originated on bottom.

Because I had family along and already knew their ability level, and because the fishing has been so consistent of late, I knew we’d be catching a lot of fish today and so therefore I came prepared to do an informal size distribution analysis. Basically, we measured every single one of the 153 white bass we caught and classified them in 1 inch increments to see how our catch measured up. The chart I’ve pasted in shows the results of our efforts. In addition to our white bass, we also landed 1 drum, 1 largemouth, and 1 crappie. The final analysis showed that 22 fish (14.3 percent of our white bass catch) was of legal size. I plan to continue doing these studies on occasion for comparison’s sake.

TALLY = 154 FISH, all caught and released