This morning I fished with Grandpa O., his son, Joe, and Joe’s two sons, Tom and Cory, as well as his son-in-law, Izzy. Joe was just a casual observer while everyone else did the fishing.
(L to R) Izzy, Tom, Cory, and Grandpa boated 72 fish using a combination of downrigging, vertical jigging, and casting bladebaits.
Joe and his wife, Dicque, decided to do a stay-cation this summer and invite the family in for a mini-reunion — parents, kids, grandkids, in-laws … the whole shootin’ match! Today, the boys got to go fishing while the girls got manicures in Salado, and Dicque provided childcare for all who needed it (except Izzy, who was allowed on the boat).
We got on the water just as the sun was brightening the eastern sky. Given the past 6 weeks’ worth of results, I expected the downriggers were going to produce for us the best. Regardless, I also came prepared to vertically jig with slabs, to cast horizontally with bladebaits, and to fish topwater, just in case. While still in the boat ramp area, I gave an overview about all of these tactics and then we set out to hunt fish.
We gave Izzy first-fish honors as he was the least experienced. He’s one of those guys for whom a lack of past success had kind of bred an aversion to fishing, but, I promised him in the parking lot that he would catch fish today and we were about to make good on that.
As we idled into Area 1239, I started picking up sonar returns of schooled white bass around 24-28 feet deep. We set out the first downrigger rod with twin Pet Spoons attached and headed with the wind to the north. Before we could get the second rod set, Izzy had his first fish on. Once that first fish came over the side, we kept right on catching through around 9:30. As we worked over top of these fish, I spotted a heavy school right on a breakline. We e-anchored on top of these fish and proceeded to work them more thoroughly with cast bladebaits. We caught white bass and drum, and Izzy even picked up a 3 pound channel cat, our largest fish of the trip.
As the morning progressed, the fishing transitioned over to between Areas 484/1221. We kept with the downrigging program, but, it was frequently interrupted by stops we made to first work vertically with slabs, then work horizontally with bladebaits, steadily combing out fish as we worked. We experienced a short 15 minute burst of topwater action around 8:30 during which time we landed both white bass and largemouth on topwater gear.
By 9:30, things started to shutdown quickly after a very aggressive 2 1/2 hour feed. Joe thought they’d better head back to the ranch to see if Dicque needed relief from the grandkids, so, we ended our trip a bit early with exactly 72 fish caught in just over 3 hours.
Izzy, the designated “newbie”, definitely came a long way as a fisherman today. By trip’s end he had learned to brag, exaggerate, annoy his peers concerning catching the largest fish, and boast about his preparedness to run his own guide service. Well done, Izzy! Now, if only he’d actually touch his own fish for the end-of-trip photos. Hey, there’s always room for improvement!!
A great trip with a great, godly family!!
TALLY = 72 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 9:45a
Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 85.1F
Wind: Winds were SSW10 at sunrise and slowly crept up to SSW13
Skies: Fair with < 65% cloud cover.
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas