The Lakey Family, big sister Abigail, Mom Heather, and little brother Asher.

Asher hoists a well-fed “schoolie” largemouth he caught all by himself.

The S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Program exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families as a way of showing our support for our troops and providing a respite for their spouses. The following is a note to SKIFF supporters about this most recent outing…

Monday, 05 Sept. 2011

Dear Austin Fly Fishers and Friends of SKIFF,

On the heels of a brisk north wind that began in earnest on Saturday, the teeth of the season’s first cold front passed over Central Texas this morning. As I awoke to prepare for today’s trip, the outdoor temperature was 75F, by the time I left the house it was 73.8 and heading towards 70F by around 9:00am, only to bounce back thereafter with the warming of the sun. The pre-frontal and frontal conditions between now and late December will each bring with them some great fishing, and today kicked it all off.

There wasn’t another soul on the lake this morning (now remember, it’s Labor Day weekend) due to both the stiff 15+ mph wind blowing due north and “bad press” about low lake levels. That didn’t bug me or my fishing buddies today in the least.

I had big sister & little brother Abigail (6th Grade) and Asher (Kindergarten) on board today. Their dad, Sergeant Brian Lakey is currently serving as a forward observer with the 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade out of Forward Operating Base (FOB) Spin Boldak. The Lakey’s all originally hale from Oklahoma where their grandpa has taken the kids out on Lake Texoma in the past.

The wind was our foe today. It made boat handling a bit tough especially when trying to keep a wary eye on a Kindergartener. Also, we’ve been having some great topwater action of late, but, that topwater, although it existed today, was largely masked by the many whitecaps blown by the 15-18mph wind.

We did a bit of downrigging to “work out the kinks” and ensure some immediate success at Area 885. We boated 2 white bass and missed a largemouth here, but then, with the ice now broken, moved on as I wasn’t seeing as much bait or gamefish as there has been of late.

We encountered our next bit of success at Area 909. There were truckloads of bait packed into this area and the mix of white bass and largemouth bass that found the bait were having a feast. Although this area ranged from 26-29 feet deep, most fish we saw on sonar were at 10-12 feet down. We just adjusted our downriggers upwards and scored 3 more fish with another one escaping here. While we were working for fish #6, I saw among the whitecaps some heavy topwater action about 150 yards away, at Area 908. We left the downriggers in, picked up our speed and got to the fish with gear already in the water. As we got to where the action was, both downrigger rods went off and the sonar lit up with fish in the bottom 4 feet of the water column.

I got the kids re-rigged quickly with pre-rigged slab spoons, we e-anchored over top of these fish and then jigged for all we were worth. I had the kids practice this jigging motion before we ever left the boatramp areas for just such a time as this. With the water temperature high and the fishes’ metabolism equally high, these fish don’t stay put very long, so, having the kids already familiar with what to do helps “make hay while the sun shines”. We boated exactly 26 keeper whites in a flurry, and then, just as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone.

We took a little break at this point to eat some snacks, snap some photos, and then discussed our gameplan (as I knew Asher’s attention span had to be nearing it’s end at this point).

We agreed that fishing with “bobbers” for sunfish would be a nice change of pace, so, that’s what we did. We found the sunfish reacted pretty quickly to the falling water temperatures (~4 degrees F over the past 2 days) and weren’t as thick as they normally are, but we managed 7 bluegills before “mom’s taxi” was to pull up signalling the end of our day. Our tally stood at exactly 40 fish, all caught and released.

On this Labor Day, I thank you all for your “labor of love” in giving of your earnings to support SKIFF, our deployed soldiers, their hard-working spouses, and the kids who benefit from these outings.

Sincerely,

Bob Maindelle

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.5F

Wind: Winds were N15 at trip’s start, ramping up to N18 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were “bluebird” and clear.