This evening’s trip was the seventh S.K.I.F.F. trip of 2011.
S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families. Below is my report to the membership of the Austin Fly Fishers and other SKIFF supporters …
21 April 2011
Dear AFF and Friends of SKIFF,
This evening the wife and children of Chief Warrant Officer (CW3) Harley Sanford came aboard for an after-school treat. CW3 Sanford is an Apache helicopter pilot serving in Iraq with the 1/229 Aviation.
Little brother, Trey, got first fish honors by virtue of his age. He tagged this white bass just minutes into our trip as we flatline trolled off of a shallow point.
Vinessa smiles sheepishly about her crappie also taken in the first minutes of the trip, and right where Trey’s white bass came from.
Big brother Taylor then kicked in with a largemouth that fell for his crankbait, still within the first 15 minutes of our outing, and from the same spot (literally within feet) of where Trey’s white bass and Vinessa’s crappie came from.
Mrs. Gina Sanford, her eldest son, Taylor, her middle daughter, Vinessa, and her youngest child, Trey, had all been fishing before and mentioned that fishing and camping was actually one of the things they missed most while dad is away. All of the Sanford kids’ fishing experiences up to today had been shore-bound, so, not only was the fishing very fun, but just the experience of “going fast” in a boat brought shrieks of excitement (even though my “baby” only goes about 30 knots wide-open).
We launched around 4:45 and, literally, each child had boated their first fish within the first 15 minutes on the water!! What a great start! We found a mixed bag of fish up on a shallow point actively feeding on shad. The fish were shallow due to the turbid water, grey cloud cover, and strong wind, all working to cut the direct sunlight beating down into the normally clear waters of Stillhouse Lake. We went with a flatline trolling approach at first to keep it simple, and went in age order, youngest to oldest, taking turns on the two rods I had set out so everyone caught the same number of fish.
We wound up catching a total of 8 fish here at Area 764 by way of flatline trolling with Rip Shad 200’s, and then moved out to deeper, more open water when the wind backed off a bit to 13-14 mph.
We looked over several areas, finding the most active fish at Area 765, a mid-lake shoal topping out at around 24-25 feet. As they often are, the most active fish were found at the shallowest point on this structure, so, we hovered over top of these fish and worked our slabs (TNT180’s in 3/8 oz. white) in a “smoking” technique over top of these fish we initially found on sonar. In about 70 minutes’ time the kids boated 27 fish here, including one largemouth bass and 26 white bass, all falling right at 11.75 to 12.75 inches in length.
As the setting sun fell behind a thick grey cloud bank in the west, the fishing went soft a little earlier than usual, at around 7:30pm.
We went looking elsewhere in deepwater, and then tried flatline trolling in two other areas, but to no avail.
We ended the trip around 8:20 as day turned to night with a total of 35 fish landed for our efforts this afternoon.
With the water now in the low 70’s, the weather consistently warm, and the sunfish beginning to permanently inhabit the shallows, I’ll be able to conduct more trips for the younger (2nd grade and below) children waiting for a SKIFF trip … so stay tuned for more frequent reports.
Thank you for what you’ve done to make trips like this, and memories like this, come to be for the kids of our soldiers!
–Bob Maindelle
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 4:45p
End Time: 8:20p
Air Temp: 84F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: ~73.0F
Wind: Winds were SSE16 at trip’s start, backing off by 3-4 mph until around 7:30, then cranking back up to SE16-17
Skies: We were heavily overcast to the point of drizzle this morning until ~10a, then the cover slowly tapered to 20% on fair skies the balance of the day.