This morning I took returning guest Mike B. of the Dallas area out along with his friend’s 16 year old son, Zan, and Zan’s buddy, John, who is also 16.
L to R — Zan, Mike, and John wore ’em out this morning on bladebaits used both vertically and horizontally.
Zan and John first became friends several years ago through a Christian organization called Young Life, which, to their credit, they continue to participate in today. Someday they’ll realize that time spent was actually not an expenditure but an investment.
This morning we were very fortunate. We got on fish and stayed on fish on a Spring Break Saturday with reasonably nice weather and all the heavy boat traffic which that combination brought with it.
I put us on the water a bit earlier than during my past 9 weekday trips this week so we were sure to get to where the fish were and avoid having them run over by boat after boat thus scattering them or making them turn off.
We found two significant congregations of fish. The first was located at Area 103. We found these fish by flatline trolling, seeing them on sonar, checking their willingness to bite by seeing if the flatlined crankbaits got bit, and then returning to and hovering near those fish which turn out to be cooperative and working them over with bladebaits. At our first such scenario we managed to boat 39 fish after picking up 2 on the troll. We found a few fish where we’d picked them up and then found as we caught fish, we drew the fish in closer and closer to the boat as curious schoolmates followed hooked schoolmates in towards us until finally we were essentially vertical jigging with the bladebaits due to the great number of fish right beneath the boat.
When Area 103 fizzled, we got back on the flatline routine and again located a solid school of fish, this time between Areas 1056 and 746. These fish were a bit deeper so I hovered us more directly over top of them to start with. We slowly “smoked” bladebaits to catch these fish, as well as used 3/8 oz. white or chartreuse TNT180 slabs to pluck them off bottom. We boated another 29 fish here until the bite died to near nothing.
By now it was 11:15. We’d just seen nearly 4 hours of non-stop action but I thought I’d at least look over a few more areas in deeper water just to see if the fishing had shifted or stopped altogether. At Area 1057 we slabbed heavier 3/4 oz. slabs for just 3 more white bass after finding nothing as several other areas. With skies clearing, winds getting stiff and the bite now all but dead, we called it a day and headed to the dock.
I would be remiss if I did not mention “just the facts” connected to a particular fishing incident which occurred during this otherwise fantastic trip. As we moved from Area 103 to Area 1056, I took my eyes off of sonar just momentarily and observed John poking at a silver/grey “squiggle” of something adhering to the port side of the boat. I smiled and asked, “Do you know what that is?”. He looked back at me and said, “No.” I said, “That’s fish poop.” He jerked his hand away from the squiggle very quickly, but not before his best pals Mike and Zan were all over him threatening blackmail, embarrassing photos, and the like for several years to come. They were just merciless. John, I’m sorry this all had to be revealed in such a manner – I really don’t think they’ll tell your future wife about this like they said they would!
This was a great trip with a great bunch of fellows.
TALLY = 73 fish, all caught and released.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 7:20a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp: 66F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 63.4F
Wind: Winds were S7-8 increasing to S12-13 by trip’s end.
Skies: Skies were 100% overcast.