I’ll Have a Fishing Trip with that Meatball Marinara, please! — 40 Fish, Stillhouse, 11 June 2012






This morning I fished a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip with Christian and Lexi, the children of Sergeant Major Tray S. who is currently home on R&R from Afghanistan.

Christian hold two of our four largest white bass boated this morning.

Yes, Lexi is grinning, but I was never sure if it was because she was fishing, or because she got to be with her daddy.

As we headed out this morning our first order of business was to look for topwater action. We idled slowly in the vicinity of some likely locations and even did a few listening stops, but to no avail, so, on we went in search of suspended white bass.

We first caught up with the white bass at the very first location we searched, generally from Area 1085, through Area 453, and on to Area 822. As we worked over a large area to zero in on the best action, we quickly discovered the fish had a definite preference for the larger #12 Pet Spoon (doctored) versus the smaller one we had on one rod. Once we changed both downrigging rods over to the larger lure we had consistent action on both rods for about 90 minutes. During this time we put 13 white bass and 2 largemouth in the boat, and missed 2 others that were hooked, played, but escaped near boatside.

After the white bass action died down (as the skies brightened around 9:15am), we headed to Area 1098 and focused on sunfish, both for the fun of catching sunfish, and to retain some of these as bait for largemouth for the final hour of the trip. We boated exactly 25 sunfish here over a mix of wood and rock with a bit of aquatic vegetation mixed in.

Our last hour or so was spent looking for largemouth. We tried weedbeds, standing timber, and rocky areas and didn’t get a single strike. Conditions were getting tough with an increasing wind velocity at this time, but, I still thought the conditions were suitable to bag a few fish. Obviously, the fish disagreed.

So, we called it a good day around 11:30 and headed on in … but, the day was just beginning for this bunch! Next, a planned stop at Subway for at least one meatball marinara sub was in order, as was a nap, followed by a visit to the movies to check out “Avengers”.

Thank you, Tray, for investing some of your valuable leave time on the water with me. From the kids’ reaction to our fishing success, you hit a home run!

TALLY = 40 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:35a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 82.1F

Wind: Winds SSW10 at sunrise, then picked up to around SSW13 by 10:30am

Skies: Skies were overcast and bright grey.