Hey hoser, nice fish, eh?? Stillhouse, 29 December 2010, 87 Fish






This afternoon I welcomed aboard Mark L. and his son, Garrison, of Round Rock, accompanied by Chet “Gramps” G. of Ontario, Canada.

Garrison hoists our trip lunker, a 4.75 pound, 20.75 inch largemouth that went for his 3/4 oz. TNT 180 slab from out of 26 feet of water.

Mark, Garrison, and Chet — 3 generations finding something in common today!

Mark and I spent a bit of time staring at the Wunderground weather website wondering if were were going to be able to get this trip in with the regularly changing forecast that was the norm since last Thursday, but, when all was said and done, we were blessed to have a stiff southerly breeze, and overcast skies pushing out a bit of windless drizzle and murk from the morning hours.

We met at 1:15pm and were on top of a large school of white bass by 1:30, thanks to a trio of herring gulls that gave away the location of these fish. Fishing was pretty straightforward today — when we first arrived here at Area 329 the fish got excited as our slabs (TNT 180’s in 3/4 oz.) first appeared thus allowing us to use a smoking technique to catch a few. That enthusiasm waned pretty quickly, so a jigging technique was then more appropriate and accounted for the lion’s share of the 87 fish we boated on this trip.

Living by the maxim, “Don’t leave fish to find fish” at least when I have guests aboard, we moved a few yards left, right, forward or backwards to stay in touch with active fish over nearly a 3 hour span. In all, we boated 79 fish from this area including 77 white bass of all sizes, up to 12.5 inches, and 2 largemouth bass, the largest of which tipped the scale at 4.75 pounds and 20.75 inches. By around 4:10 the action waned here so we moved on.

We gave flatline trolling a try in 3 different areas and struck out at the first two, finally reconnecting with some white bass off to the E. side of Area 999. Here we put twin Wiggle Warts to work back far enough to get them to scuff bottom in 10-12 feet of water and ride just above bottom in 14 feet. This combination worked well and netted us our last 8 fish of the day — all white bass — in the 20 minutes before and 10 minutes following sunset.

We finished up the day with 87 fish (85 white bass and 2 largemouth).

Just for the record, at no point during the trip did Gramps say either “hoser” or “eh?”!!


TALLY = 87 Fish, all caught and released


TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 1:15p

End Time: 5:35p

Air Temp: 63F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~53.4F

Wind: Winds were S14 with occasional higher gusts.

Skies: Mostly grey and cloudy, clearing to partly cloudy








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