This morning I conducted the 5th SKIFF trip of the 2014 season with youth from two military families joining me, including 8-year-old Antonio (Tony) Butler, 12-year-old Jayden Koop, and 15-year-old Khayman Koop.
Here was my crew for today: L to R: Jayden Koop, Khayman Koop, and Antonio Butler.
Jayden caught 3 fish at one time (a “triple”) as we downrigged for deep, suspended white bass holding at 37 feet over a 42 foot bottom.
Khayman served as my “first mate” today, taking care of everything I could not, all to make sure the younger 2 kids had a good, safe outing.
Antonio was very squeemish about holding his fish for a photo, even with the fish-gripper, but, he was brave enough long enough for me to snap this photo.
Antonio is the eldest of the two sons of U.S. Army Sergeant Terrence Butler and his wife, Elizabeth. SGT Butler is currently beginning a 30-day rotation with his nuclear/biological/chemical unit at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, taking him away from home during the time when Antonio was to celebrate his 8th birthday.
Jayden and Khayman’s father, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Jeremy Koop is now just several weeks into a 1-year unaccompanied tour as an Army paralegal to Camp Casey in South Korea. Jayden and Khayman previously joined me in 2009 on the 7th SKIFF trip ever conducted while their dad was deployed to Iraq.
SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S. All it takes is a phone call from a parent to me at 254-368-7411 to reserve a date.
I coordinated this trip specifically to pair Jayden and Khayman up with Antonio when I learned that Antonio was taking it hard about his dad not being present for his birthday. Jayden and Khayman have both faced such things several times with their dad away serving during holidays, birthdays, and other special events, and I knew that they would be willing to befriend Antonio during our time on the water. During a transition from fishing in one area on our way to another, I asked Jayden and Khayman to give Antonio any tips or advice they had for dealing with dad being gone. Jayden didn’t have to think long at all to offer that, “You have to look for the positive.” When I asked her to explain that, she said that you have to think about the good things you have to look forward to spread out over the time that your parent is away, and that you can’t just sit in the house an be sad about it. Evidently, Antonio “got it”, as he then mentioned several things that he then realized his mom had planned for him to do to help pass the time — including going fishing and swimming.
The fishing was just fair today which was to be expected with our very turbulent weather and the fact that the thermocline has not yet set up strongly lake-wide.
We ensured a “quick score” for Antonio by parking on top of a sunfish colony right after launching, and putting 17 sunfish of all sorts and sizes in the boat in our first 30 minutes.
We then headed out to open water and downrigged for white bass. Jayden scored first and scored big on this method, boating a bona fide “triple”, catching 3 white bass at the same time on an umbrella rig.
We wrapped up our trip on a midlake hump in about 25 feet of water fishing live bait near bottom. We picked up 5 more white bass here. Fortunately, the fish stayed active up until the last 20 minutes or so, so even though the action wasn’t red-hot, it was consistent from start to finish.
TALLY = 27 FISH, all caught and released
Start Time: 6:45am
End Time: 10:45am
** Vicinity of Area 200: sunfishing
** Vicinity of Area 1245-1246: downrigging
**Vicinity of Area 803: white bass on bottom