MJ is a “mobile physical therapist”, providing PT support to patients in their homes.  Gene is retired from the computer software business and from the administration at Abilene Christian University.  Elliot just graduated high school and is headed to Abilene Christian, and Audrey just wrapped up her sophomore year of high school.    The occasion for the trip was Gene’s visit from Abilene for Elliot’s graduation.

In preparation for this trip I netted sufficient live shad (~120 baits) including a mix of threadfin and gizzard shad.

As with most evening trips, the first 2 hours was slow, giving up only 6 fish.  The final 2+ hours is when things really began to happen, and in the last 45 minutes of that final 2+ hours the fish bit nearly non-stop.

Our first area fished was at the top of a deep breakline where the fish were oriented near the bottom in ~30 feet of water.  The more productive second area we fished saw fish suspended at 15-20 feet down over a gently tapering 30 foot bottom.

As often happens when larger and smaller hybrid are mixed together, the larger hybrid in the mix at this second area attacked our baits first, then the smaller, more numerous fish got their turn.  Once the smaller fish began to feed we encountered lots of fun action, with an occasional larger (18″ legal sized fish) being caught just every so often.

The Linder’s were a fun family to fish with — they were all out to catch fish but also to enjoy the reunion and one another’s company, as well.  Towards the middle of the slower first half of the trip, Audrey, who knows Elliot has a quirky aversion to having his head rubbed, suggested everyone rub Elliot’s head “for good luck”.  Now, Elliot was the last of the 4 to catch his first fish, and also the last of the four to land a “keeper-sized” hybrid.  Now, I could be mistaken, but, as Elliot was intently watching his rod waiting for that big strike indicating a large hybrid had taken his bait, I though I saw him ease his left hand up under his hat and rub his own head — I could be wrong on that — you’ll have to ask Elliot, I guess.  Either way, his rod went down and up came a nice hybrid of the sort he was waiting for.

We wound up with 61 fish including 14 legal hybrid striped bass, 4 largemouth bass, and with the balance consisting of a mix of white bass and short (<18″) hybrid striped bass.  Due to the number of smaller hybrid in the mix, our smaller gizzard shad and threadfin shad produced best, as the larger gizzard shad typically got “thumped” and killed by the smaller hybrid with “eyes bigger than their belly” as they attacked and killed the baits without being able to swallow them sufficiently to allow the hook to do its job.