Pre-Frontal Feeding Spree – 43 Fish, SKIFF Trip #23 of 2014

This afternoon I fished a SKIFF trip with Matthew Schaefer of West Fort Hood, TX.  This was the 23rd SKIFF trip of the 2014 season.  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.

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Matthew landed 43 fish this evening, including his first fish ever, and fish of 3 different species as the fish went on a feeding spree in advance of an early-autumn cold front’s arrival.

8-year-old Matthew is the son of U.S. Army Sergeant Mark Schaefer and his wife, Amy.  Mark is currently in the midst of a 9 month deployment to Afghanistan — his 3rd deployment.  Mark serves as an electronic device repairman.  Amy has two daughters as well, one older than Matthew, and one younger.

Matthew made a wonderful “first impression”.  He waved “hi” to me from the parking lot, so, I knew he was both excited and outgoing.  Before we shoved off, he hugged his mom (without prompting!) and he kissed his little sister, Anna, (again, without prompting).  Later, when he dug out his bag of a half-dozen giant chocolate-chunk cookies from Chick-fil-A, he offered me one before he dug into the bag for his own.  Of course, like most 8-year-olds, he asked 1,001 questions, but that is part of the experience.

Matt had been fishing once before at a Lake Belton fishing derby, but came up empty-handed, so, today when his downrigger rod went off less than 10 minutes after we launched, he felt the tug of something on the end of his line for the first time.  Suffice it to say that not only was the fish hooked!  Matt reeled in a small white bass — his first fish ever — and in so doing earned a TPWD First Fish Award.  Matt was a fast learner.  In no time he was capably using my baitcaster reels with linecounters, paying out the right amount of line behind the boat, then, once I clipped the lines into the downrigger releases, he hit the right buttons on the downriggers’ keypads to send the downrigger balls down to the correct depth.

We fished for both bottom-oriented fish and suspended fish today using 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons down around 27-33 feet.  As an early-fall cold front made its way into central Texas, we enjoyed some really aggressive pre-frontal feeding activity.  Largemouth bass were topwater feeding on shad for the first 3 hours of the trip nearly continuously (although difficult to spot in the heavy chop caused by the 13-14 mph winds).

As an illustration of just how aggressive these fish were feeding, Matthew successfully boated 6 triples (a “triple”is when 3 fish are landed at the same time, with one fish caught on each of the 3 lures affixed to the 3-arm umbrella rigs we were using) and 2 doubles.  That is the greatest number of triples I’ve had come over the side of the boat in the several years I’ve been using 3-armed umbrella rigs.

Around 7:00pm, as the cold front edged ever closer, I kept checking the weather radar on my i-Phone, and, by this time the lead edge of an approaching thunderstorm was right at the western edge of Fort Hood.  We played it safe and, with 43 fish now boated, called it a good day about 30 minutes early and headed back in.

We caught a grand total of 43 fish, including 1 largemouth bass, 1 freshwater drum, and 41 white bass.

 

TALLY = 43 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  7:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  88F

Water Surface Temp:  81.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW14, slowing and shifting to SW12

Sky Conditions:  60% cloudy

Other: GT=0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1246 was active for the first half of the trip, then migrated south to…

**Area  862, just south of Area 1246, which lit up the second half of the trip

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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