David (L) and Kaleb (R) with proud mom, Angela, in the background following today’s trip. The smiles tell it all!!

This morning I had the pleasure of welcoming two very fine young men aboard — David and Kaleb M. Their mom, originally from El Paso, is on active duty serving at Ft. Hood.

The boys’ previous fishing experience was very limited, so, we began with casting lessons before even boarding the boat. David’s hands were a bit larger than Kaleb’s (they’re 2 years apart) so he did best with a closed-face reel, while Kaleb seemed to do best with an underspin reel. So, with our arsenal now customized, we went hunting for the big ones.

We enjoyed success in two general areas today. First, right at sunrise schools of both largemouth and white bass began to lightly surface feed near Area 910. This was nowhere near as aggressive as yesterday’s heavy feed, but still provided a “target rich environment” for my beginners. We used Spook Jr. hardbaits at first; they weren’t a good match for the forage size, but the boys needed the weight to add distance to their casts. We caught 18 fish during the first volley and before the winds went flat and the fish left the surface.

We downrigged for about 25 minutes as we hoped the wind would pick up and bring another round of surface action with it. We boated only 1 white bass and 1 largemouth on the downriggers during this lull.

The wind did pick up again from the NNW at around 4-5mph and the fish responded very quickly, this time in the vicinity of Area 206.

Despite the heavier-than-weekday weekend boat traffic, we slipped off by ourselves and fish undisturbed for all but the last 30 minutes of the trip.

From ~8:40 to 10:45a there was an unbroken stretch of topwater action. The harder the wind blew, the more aggressive the fish became, and vise-versa. While the wind rippled the surface, the Spook Jr. worked adequately, but, once it calmed, only a much smaller swimbait would do the trick. The whole trick was to cast long and reel fast. The longer the cast the more fish that got a look at the boys’ baits, and the faster the retrieve speed, the less detail the fish picked up on the artificials we were using. The shad that most fish were chasing are about 2.25 inches and swim for all they are worth when those bass are after them. We tried our best to imitate that look with good result today.

The boys boated a total of 47 fish today including 41 largemouth bass ranging from 9 1/2 to 16 1/8 inches, as well as 5 white bass, and 1 smallmouth bass.

TALLY = 47 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time: 11:05a

Air Temp: 62F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~80.5F

Wind: Winds were NW3 at trip’s start, going light and variable by 8:00a, then finally taking on a set direction and velocity at NNW4 until going flat at 11:00a.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.