This afternoon I was joined by Scott C. of Taylor, Texas. Scott has a neat “American dream” story — he came to America as a 5 year old, along with his family, from a Laotian refugee camp with the help of a local church in Oklahoma. Fast forward to 2011 … he’s now married, has a son, works at Dell, attends church in Taylor, and loves to fish!!
Scott with his two largest white bass of the evening. The largest went 14 1/8 inches and 1.50 pounds.
Scott contacted me about a week and a half ago after his wife suggested he hire a guide to try to “put all the pieces together” when it came to fishing. He’s got a boat with sonar, his own equipment, etc. but is a hands-on learner and wanted a hands-on trip to try to get over a few obstacles he’s encountered on his way to fishing success.
I was VERY concerned about our weather today and, in fact, pushed our trip back from the original morning start time into the afternoon based on the wind forecast. This morning was supposed to have calm to light northerly winds (and we did), whereas this afternoon’s forecast was for stronger ESE winds. We did wind up with ESE winds at 5-8 and that was a sufficient improvement over the extended period (nearly 36 hours) of winds from the due north to turn the fish on. Scott’s willingness to flex on the trip time made all the difference in the world.
My experience this past Thursday told me the fish were turning on around 5pm-ish, so, we spent a bit of time throwing soft plastics for largemouth bass until the time was right (and never got a touch on either of our lines).
By 5:10, we left that alone and headed out in search of white bass. We were blessed to encounter heavily congregated fish near bottom at the very first place I chose to look … Area 702.
It was very straightforward fishing here … we buoyed, stayed on top of these fish, jigged a while to get the fish turned on, then smoked them for all they were worth while they were close in to the boat, then followed that up with a blasting technique afterwards. We spent the remainder of our trip right here on this one area, boating a total of 103 fish without moving more than 20 feet in any direction.
During this 3 hour time we had an ongoing fishing conversation about the seasons, the weather, equipment, lure selection, sonar interpretation, transducer function, and the list goes on. I offered Scott some practical fish catching and fish fighting tips that he immediately put into practice and benefited from. All of these things were aimed at making Scott more confident and successful the next time he heads out on his own.
The two pieces of advice that I really stressed to him, as I do all my clients who express a sincere desire to improve their abilities, were: 1) fish the same body of water as frequently as you can in all seasons and conditions, and 2) keep a log, diary, journal, etc. of your experiences doing #1. This will allow you to reflect back and begin drawing correlations and seeing patterns of success emerge.
Our tally was 102 white bass and 1 largemouth caught today.
TALLY = 103 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 4:00p
End Time: 8:10p
Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: ~70.2F
Wind: Winds were ESE at 5-8.
Skies: Skies were fair.