First Fish on the Bow!! — Longnose Gar — Stillhouse — 06 June 2011






This evening I took my nephew, Trent, on his first bowfishing excursion. My brother, Andy, accompanied.

Trent, a high school student at Woodway H.S. in Austin, with his first fish taken on archery equipment — a longnose gar

Trent got the compound bow he used tonight as a Christmas gift and has done well at target shooting since that time.

We’d looked at forecast after forecast since early April trying to get out on the water, but calm nights have been hard to come by.

No sooner did we get on the water this evening than the wind ramped up and stay up for most of our trip, thus greatly increasing the difficulty in spotting fish, making the water turbid, and preventing us from getting on key areas for this time of year.

We took a “lemons to lemonade” approach to things and persisted, however, and it paid off.

About an hour into our fishing efforts following some practice shooting at a submerged jug, we came upon a lone gar cruising parallel to the shore. I got as close as I felt we could without spooking the fish and gave Trent the go-ahead to shoot.

He released the fiberglass arrow and either hit or spooked the fish, resulting in it bolting out of the water and up onto the bank about a foot from the water’s edge. Trent quickly got reloaded as the gar squirmed back to the water. The gar continued swimming along the shore at a faster pace now and we caught back up with it. Trent shot again and this time hit the gar at its mid-point and managed to keep it on and boat it. Our first (and only!!) fish of the night and the first fish Trent had ever taken by bow was now in the livewell.

We pressed on for 2+ more hours hoping against hope that the winds would go slack, but that was not to be. Trent got a few more shots at other gar, drum, and buffalo, but we just didn’t connect on those opportunities.

Trent “paid his dues” tonight. When conditions are right sometime in the future, he’ll appreciate them that much more having toughed it out tonight in less than ideal circumstances.








A Farewell for the Record Books – New Longnose Gar Record, Stillhouse, 05 June 2011






Tonight I got to run one last bowfishing trip for a young lady, Jess D., of Round Rock, who has been out with me on 2 prior bowfishing trips as well as two previous conventional tackle trips focusing on white bass. Jess and her family are pulling up stakes and heading north to be closer to family. Jess is the current holder of all three “Junior Angler” category bowfishing records on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir, including the records for longnose gar, smallmouth buffalo, and the common carp.

Jess with her largest fish of the night, a common carp taken in ~2.5 feet of water

Jess with her pending Stillhouse lake record longnose gar measuring 22 1/8 inches and weighing 1.75 pounds

We’d looked for an opportunity to conduct this trip since early April, but the winds this Spring were unusually high both day and night, thus prohibiting our efforts. Bowfishing at night is typically done with the aid of bright lights used to illuminate the shallows where rough fish come to feed under the cover of darkness. Any conditions outside of flat calm water greatly increase the difficulty of spotting fish.

As we got started this evening we did some practice shots at a submerged plastic jug. This was the first time Jess would use her compound bow for bowfishing (up until now she’d come equipped with a recurve) and so we wanted to work the kinks out before getting on fish.

The fishing this evening was just average as we lost some of our potential to winds at the beginning and ending of the 5 hour trip. We spotted longnose gar, drum, carp, and buffalo over the course of the evening, not to mention one very curious beaver! Jess took about 25 shots in all, hit 4 fish, and brought 3 in over the side including a carp, a gar, and a buffalo. The longnose gar she arrowed turned out to be a 1.75 pound fish measuring 22 1/8 inches, thus beating her former record for that species. I’ve begun the application process for her with Mr. Joedy Gray at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to make that record official.

By 1:30am, the fish were hard to come by, the water was getting more choppy and I had but 2 1/2 hours of sleep to look forward to before heading out in pursuit of bait for a hybrid trip beginning at 6:45am, so, we called it a night then, snapped some final photos and parted ways.


TONIGHT’s CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 8:30p

End Time: 1:30a

Air Temp: 87F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~83F

Wind: Winds were SE ~8-9 at trip’s start as nearby thunderstorms fell apart. Winds were slack from 10-12, then picked up again after midnight .

Skies: Dark with partly cloudy skies showing a waxing cresent moon.








Lake Belton Hybrid Fishing Report – 28 Fish – 02 June 2011






This afternoon I welcomed aboard mother and daughter Gladys and Deb N. Gladys is a long-time local resident, and Deb was in town from Ennis, TX, visiting her folks. Dad (Charles) decided to treat the ladies to a fishing trip.

Deb holds the first of several fish she caught exceeding the 5 pound mark this afternoon.


Not to be outdone, Gladys came up with her own lunker — a 6 1/8 pound largemouth. This fish looked like it had been around a long time judging from the appearance of its eyes and wear and tear on its fins and lower jaw.


Today’s trip started and ended with a bang, but we had a bit of a lull in the middle. While I was waiting for my guests to arrive, I checked over a few areas with sonar and was fortunate to pin down what would turn out to be a school of hybrid near Area 817 on a breakline going from 25 to 31 feet. The fish were at the deeper end of the breakline (which often means relative inactivity). I marked these fish, picked the ladies up, and returned to fish for what I’d seen earlier on sonar.

When we positioned over these fish, they’d moved upslope a bit (a positive sign). Instead of opting for bait, I had the ladies smoke 3/8 and 3/4 oz. TNT 180 slabs over these fish. Deb drew blood first boating a keeper hybrid on a 3/8 oz. slab. Seeing now that we were dealing with hybrid, I changed the ladies over to 3/4 oz. slabs, and, once again, Deb hooked up. After going for a while without a strike on the artificials, I then decided to go with bait and the sluggish fish reacted well to the presentation. We boated 10 more fish including 2 short hybrid, 1 channel cat, 1 largemouth bass, and 6 keeper hybrid. After about 75 minutes on these fish, they turned off and we went on an unsuccessful search for fish elsewhere, save one white bass taken on a shad at Area 437.

Around 7:30, I decided to have another look at Area 817. As I motored in, there the fish were appearing just as they did when I first found them prior to our 4:30pm start time. This time we went with live bait as our first option and that turned out to be a good choice. Over the next 90 minutes we baited only 4 rods due to the size of the fish we were catching making tangled lines a probability due the hybrids’ propensity to run horizontally through the water column. During this window of time we boated 15 more fish including a 6.125 pound largemouth for Gladys, 2 short hybrid, and 13 keeper hybrid. The fish bit right up to the cover of darkness and then knocked off.

TALLY = 28 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 9:10p

Air Temp: 93F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.8F

Wind: Winds were SSE 9-12 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were clear, bright, and dry.








Belton Lake Fishing Guide Report — Live Shad Fishing – 57 Fish, 02 June 2011






I fished with father and son team Jack and John B. of Belton this morning. Jack is a retired U.S. Army Armor officer now working in the private sector, and John is just starting his Army career as a second lieutenant in the Military Police, stationed at Ft. Polk, Louisiana.

Jack’s best fish of the day came on a downrigged White Willow within minutes of switching over from a slow live bait bite to a more aggressive controlled depth trolling approach


John holds the one keeper hybrid we boated on live bait on this trip.


Jack’s wife gave him a fishing gift certificate for Christmas and today was “cash it in day”.

Jack lives near Belton Lake, fishes regularly from shore and had done well this Spring on white bass and hybrid striper when they were easily caught from shore during the shad spawn as these gamefish pursued the bait within casting distance from the shore. He and I had been in touch a number of times since Christmas and agreed that a trip focusing on post-spawn hybrid using live shad would be a helpful lesson for Jack so as to give him some pointers on deeper water tactics.

We started the day netting shad and began looking for fish by around 7am. We spotted some “nomadic” white bass feeding on the surface in open water on newly hatched shad, threw Cork Rigs for them, and boated two right away before the action waned as the sky brightened.

We then searched with sonar and found fish scattered along the midpoint of the breakline at Area 816. We got baits down and did a bit of chumming. The action we experienced was moderate but steady, but just not for hybrid striper. We boated 15 fish on bait here only 1 of which was a keeper hybrid. Additionally, we caught 1 longnose gar, 5 nice channel cat, 7 white bass, and 1 short hybrid. As we remained stationary with our bait-set out, I noted roving schools of white bass passing beneath us. Before we moved on to try elsewhere for hybrid, I suggested we give downrigging a try, as that was yet another technique Jack had expressed interest in before our trip.

We rigged up with White Willow spoons behind the ‘rigger balls and immediately got into fish between Areas 691 and 437 in 19-26 feet of water. Within 30 minutes’ time we boated 7 more fish including our largest hybrid of the trip, as well as a short hybrid, and 5 white bass of various sizes.

As we downrigged, the little wind we had went slack and the skies brightened intensely. We struggled to find active fish, checking many areas without so much as a school of shad showing on sonar, much less gamefish pursuing them.

Finally, around 11:35, a SSE breeze began and quickly ramped up to a manageable velocity. The fish responded almost immediately to this change. We began to pick up bait and gamefish on sonar at Area 815. We positioned, got bait and chum in the water, and began pulling fish immediately. Over a 2 hour span here we boated 31 fish including 1 smallmouth, 1 largemouth, and a mix of 29 whites and short hybrid. As the waves just began to whitecap the action peaked and it was all we could do to keep 4 of our 6 rods baited and in the water. Some of this was due in part to the fact that the fish (especially the short hybrid) were taking the baits so hard and deep that I had to cut off hooks and retie multiple times. In the last 30 minutes on this area the action began to wane. I used artificials in and around our bait spread to try to draw nearby fish in. It was in this way that I gave Jack and John the briefest of introductions to “blasting” and “smoking”. Both techniques accounted for a few fish, but, by and large, the feed was now over. By 1:30 the fish were done altogether and we headed in after our 8 hour “half day” trip.

TALLY = 57 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 1:45p

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.0F

Wind: Winds were light at 3-4 SSE until 11:35.

Skies: Skies were clear, bright, and dry.