I fished today with returning guest Pitt G. of the Austin area. We’ve fished together several times now, but never in the cold months when vertical jigging is at its finest. Pitt had a real desire to learn to vertical jig well. I explained that this is done with a system consisting of trolling motor, sonar, slab, and rod and reel, all used in combination with one another.

We put that system to use today and coached Pitt not only to the point of success, but to the point where he can replicate success on his own boat on his home waters.

Pitt cracked the code today!

We had a rough start today … Pitt got to the dock late due to a traffic hold up near Belton High School. Between sun up and his arrival, I watched a strong feed take place complete with hybrid slashing bait on the top, birds diving down, and no guest to shuttle out to the frenzy!!

By the time we got underway, the birds were done and resting fat, dumb and happy back on the shoreline. That was simply a missed opportunity.

We looked far and wide for active fish and, long story short, came upon a single semi-active school of bottom-oriented white bass on a slow tapering area (Area 691) in 24-25 feet of water.

In our last 70 minutes on the water (11:15 to 12:25)we boated 21 of the 23 fish we caught on this trip. These fish were taken by jigging and smoking, as the fishes’ posture dictated.

Step-by-step I walked Pitt through the method I use to consistently boat fish like the fish we’d found. The first element was boat control — knowing where the fish are, where we were in relation to them, and then staying on top of them or relocating them once contact was broken. The next element was presentation — exactly controlling the distance the lure was kept above bottom, as well as using the correct presentation given the fishes’ behavior. The next element was sonar interpretation — I showed Pitt exactly what to look for with sonar in various modes. The final element was bite detection and hookset — we watched fish hit, watched the rod tip react, made sure no slack was introduced to the system once a fish was on, and more. It was neat to be next to Pitt when all of this came together for the first time and resulted in catch, and to then see him develop confidence and consistency as he continued to boat fish all the while burning lessons into brain and muscle memory. He kept saying, “This is so cool!”.

We never experienced a significant post-sunrise feed today, nor did I expect we’d have much more than average fishing on this day that was not impacted by frontal activity, but, as I always try to be, I was up front with Pitt about that over this past weekend as we chose this day to do this trip on.

And that’s the way it went today…

TALLY = 23 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 8:30am

End Time: 12:37pm

Air Temp: 30F at trip’s start..

Water Surface Temp: ~60.9F

Wind: Winds were SW5-12.

Skies: Skies were clear and blue.