I fished a half-day trip (that, due to some awfully slow fishing, turned into a full-day trip) with returning guests Jim and Shena S. of the Austin area. This was our 4th trip together. Both are very eager learners and so for the past two trips they set out certain boundaries to enhance their own learning process. On our last trip, we limited ourselves to bass gear only and targeted black bass only, specifically in shallow cover. Today, I left my “home lakes” behind and fished “their” lake — Lake Travis — to give them an overview of approaches that are possible for the various species there.

Shena with a very healthy, plump Lake Travis spotted bass.

Jim with one of several white bass we ferreted out after a school briefly showed itself on the surface in the early afternoon.

We began our morning out in open water with heavy grey cloud cover, occasional drizzle, warm air and water temperatures, and a SE wind at about 9mph. I looked over a number of humps and spurs but found flooded, dead, pithy vegetation from about the 25 foot mark and shallower that served to put the white bass and striped bass I’d hope to find there off of these areas. We vertical jigged below the 25′ mark when sonar indicated fish holding in these areas and boated 1 spotted bass, 2 drum, and one sunfish with another spotted bass missed at boatside in about an hour’s time at Areas 622 and 624.

Following that, we moved to Area 626 and hovered with live baits on tightlines over ~31 feet of water and boated an additional spotted bass here.

Next, we headed to Area 628 and found some fish and bait, both suspended about 3 feet off bottom in 28 feet of water. We downrigged for these fish and boated 3 spotted bass over about an hour’s time.

Next, we headed to the saddle at Area 629 followed by the soft slope at Area 633 and fished jigworms without a single strike at either location.

We then went to Area 625 and fished some live baits and picked up another spotted bass here. After hovering here for about 15 minutes, a fair school of white bass began to surface feed in open water to our west by about 80 yards at Area 621 for all of about 20 seconds. We got there as quickly as we could allowing Shena to pick up a straggler on her TNT180 slab. As I ran the trolling motor on high searching for more fish, I came across a large school, buoyed on them, and then ran downriggers over and around them for the next hour or so. We boated 7 very beefy 13-14 inch white bass, 1 largemouth, and 1 spotted bass before things went quiet.

I should note here that we were all pretty impressed with how plump all of the white bass and especially the spotted bass we caught were. None of the fish we caught today regurgitated anything, so these fish were fat with stored fat from eating well over a period of time, not just from a recent feeding binge.

It was now around 2:30p. Because most of what we’d done today was fairly technical, I wanted to show them a more simplistic approach that they could duplicate in that part of Lake Travis closest to their home, and via the canoe that they currently use on their fishing trips. So, we rigged up slip-bobbers amd bait on ultralight spinning gear, baited up with worms and looked for high-percentage sunfish habitat attempting to show them the kinds of areas these fish prefer. We hit Areas 635, 636, and 637 and boated a total of 18 sunfish in about 90 minutes’ time. I observed that some nest building is beginning, meaning the sunfish bite and presence in the shallows will only be getting stronger from here into the summer. As it was, we bagged 4 different species of sunfish: bluegill, green, longear, and yellow-belly and departed confident that this was something Jim and Shena could do together without requiring any more equipment than they already owned.

Despite some pretty good weather conditions, we never did get into any sizeable concentrations of fish today — we just had to stay at it to put together the day that we did.

TALLY = 36 FISH, all caught and released

Today’s conditions:

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time: 4:00p

Surface Temp: 74.5F

Air Temp: 71F at trip’s start

Skies: Heavily overcast in the AM, slowly burning off to partly cloudy by late afternoon.

Winds: Began at SE9 and tapered to SE7-8 for 10am and later.