I fished a Spring Break “Kids Fish, Too!” trip today with Thom G. and 3 youngsters — Carson, Kyle, and Garrett all from the Austin area. This was the boys’ second trip with me. Last time we went a good bit later in the Spring when sunfish were an option. Today, white bass were about the only game in town, and we hit a home run!
Thom and the Boys — Spring Break 2010
Start Time: 8:00a (DST in effect now)
End Time: 2:05p
Air Temp: 54F at trip’s start
Water Surface Temp: 58.4F
Wind: Winds started light from the WNW and then increased to around 10 from the NNW, then slowly tapered off to calm by 5pm, beginning around 11am.
Skies: Skies were clear and bright all day.
After getting the boys clothed, vested, and wind-proofed, we headed out in search of fish. As we came upon one particular expanse of water I literally said, “Thank you, God.” What I saw ahead was a flock of about 2 dozen gulls feeding pedal to the metal on shad being driven to the water’s surface by white bass (Area 602 and north by 70 yards). I haven’t seen such action in over 2 months (and over these past two month is typically the time of year when this action is most prevalent, but our tough water conditions have prohibited that). As we quickly headed to the birds, I hurriedly gave Thom directions on what to do once we got on top of fish. He worked with the youngest boy, and I kept the older two to my left and right on the front deck. We used slabs in a variety of ways (and the boys invented even other ways to use a slab I’d never conceived of before!) and had success just about whatever we did given the high activity level of these fish.
By 9:35, we’d boated 46 fish of which 45 were white bass (and 1 short largemouth). It was at this time that the last of the few lingering birds left indicating the feed was all but over. We broke for a potty break and then returned to the water.
We tried for some catfish over a baited hole (snag at Area 282), but didn’t draw a nibble there. My “catfish advisor” warned me that Feb. and March are tough cat months, but, it added some variety, plus, the stink bait livened up the conversation for a bit.
Failing at catfishing, we gave flatline trolling a try in the vicinity of Area 116. We picked up one white and missed a nice largemouth here over the span of about 5 passes over the “circuit”, but action was slow here.
We moved our trolling show over to Area 533 and put another short largemouth on the board. As we trolled, I noted some good sonar marks in 20-25 feet of water between Area 599 and Area 600. We got our trolling lines in and went back to work with the slabs to finish out the day on a good note, adding 7 more white bass to our tally in a span of 15-20 minutes. It was now 12:15, the kids’ attention span had reached the end, so we called it a good day. I dropped Thom and the boys off at the dock and provided each with a souvenir crappie minnow in a water bottle to take home (still wriggling!) and with memories of a 55 fish day in the middle of a tough March. Not bad … and again I just had to say, “Thank you, God.”
After getting the kids back to the dock, I looked over 3 areas we didn’t fish today so as to try to pin down some additional fish locations for trips later this week. I found deep, reluctant whites tight to the bottom at Area 601 and boated 5 to confirm the species and that the location had a congregation of fish. I then just left these fish alone to return to them perhaps tomorrow. By 2:05p I was headed home.
TALLY = 60 fish, all caught and released