Of Coldfronts, Supraspinati, Witchcraft VooDoo, and Such Like That — 42 Fish, Stillhouse, 20 Aug.






This morning I welcomed back two long time clients — father and daughter Jim and Shena S. of Cedar Park, TX.


Persistence paid off. We worked for every one of the 42 fish we boated on this post-frontal fishing trip.




Today we launched in the wake of an unusual August cold front which came in wet on Saturday and left clear, cooled skies and a NE breeze in its rearview mirror today. You may know the old fishing truism:

Winds from the West, fish bite best.

Winds from the East, fish bite least.

Winds from the South, blows the hook in the fish’s mouth.

Winds from the North, the fisherman goes not forth.

Without fail, when I recite this verse, people then ask “Why is that?” This is where some speculation is called for. Jim, a learned fellow, threw his hat in the ring voting for “witchcraft voodoo” being the driving force behind this. I’m an analytical type, so, I voted for barometric pressure being the culprit. Shena, a pragmatist, just said, “It is what it is!” and kept right on catching fish.

As long has men have correlated fishing success and weather, a negative correlation has been made to the north wind, and with good reason. But, not all north winds are created equal — dry north winds still allow for fish to be caught, whereas wet north winds make for great days to stay home, tie flies, and do boat maintenance!

Today we had a dry north wind, and, given Jim and Shena’s tight schedules and fairly rare opportunities to fish together given their responsibilities, we decided to make a go of it.

I was very pleased — surprised, really — when, not 2 minutes after our downriggers were set (literally) we’d boated 3 fish. I thought my concerns about the north wind were for naught, but, as we were to discover, the fishing got tougher as the morning went on.

We focused our efforts on Area 1127/1128. We started the day catching here, and, despite looking elsewhere (actually, many elsewheres!) we kept returning to this area as it had fish, bait, and was consistently producing, albeit reluctantly.

I half jokingly told Jim and Shena that finding fish and having them not bite is in many ways worse than not finding fish at all. When you don’t find fish, there is always the possibility that you can press on, check more areas with sonar, and find fish. But, when you find fish and they don’t bite, all you can do is hope; and hope doesn’t impress the fish much in my experience.

Right around 11am the wind, which had almost died to calm, picked up suddenly to NE8-9 again. Almost instantly we saw 3-4 wolfpacks of largemouth begin to blitz bait on the surface, but this was very short-lived. We redoubled our efforts on the downriggers and did experience an uptick in our catch, but it was far from gangbusters.

Well, all this said, we downrigged for 27 white bass and 2 drum using tandem rigged and doctored Pet Spoons. On several occasions we encountered loosely schooled fish holding on or near bottom and worked these fish over with TNT slabs. Shena was the slab-master on this day, landing 2 more white bass in this manner (which is a depressed result in and of itself), for a total take of 31 fish.

By 12:15 I let Jim and Shena know that we’d likely see a plateau in the action, as they had mentioned doing a “refresher” on sunfishing so that son/grandson James could be coached a bit better on this technique when the two returned home. So, for our last 45 minutes or so we headed to Area 200 and baited up with maggots and managed to put a variety of sunfish (greens, bluegills, and longears) in the boat, adding 11 more fish to our count, and finishing up the day with a tally of 42 fish boated.

Along the way, we enjoyed one another’s company and good conversation ranging from surgical procedures for the supraspinatus, to great recipes on the Six Sisters Stuff website, and from Miss Norma’s stalwart watch over Jim’s Christian character to young James’ upcoming school year and everything in between. Good stuff (except that darned witchcraft voodoo)!!


TALLY = 42 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 12:45a

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 83.7F

Wind: NE7.

Skies: Skies were bluebird and clear.








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