11 | March | 2016 | Fishing Report

This (rainy!) Friday morning, March 11th, I met up with Dennis Moses, his wife, Nakeya, and their 7-year-old son, Ayden. Let me start out by saying, all three were real troopers to put up with the wind and rain they put up with this morning. In the end, they were definitely rewarded for their persistence.

From left: Dennis, Ayden, and Nakeya Moses with Ayden’s 4.5 pound largemouth taken on a bladebait in 25 feet of water.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The white bass fed for a solid 2 hours this morning, allowing for consistent action on both bladebaits and slabs during that feeding window.

This all started with an email from Dennis to me in late February. Dennis wanted to do something special with his son before he deployed to Turkey with his military police unit on March 20th. This morning was the earliest I had free and which Dennis could take leave, Nakeya could be away from her job as a loan officer in Cove, and that Ayden could afford away from school.

As it turned out, it was a “now or never” kind of proposition because, with a completely full booking calendar for Spring Break, I had no alternative dates to offer Dennis if this morning didn’t work. So, we kind of “made it work” … which meant we fished in the wind and, at times, an outright downpour.

Our first 40 minutes on the water had me concerned. The discolored water which was at the west end of Union Grove last night had moved even farther downlake this morning, so we had to avoid that. There was not much bird action, and what bird action we found was just “recon” flight, not feeding activity. So, combine the dark, the wet, the cold, and no fish, and I thought we were going to have to pull the plug early as rain started soaking into socks, underwear, etc. Just then, a fish bit. Then another, then another. Then the birds started to show up, and the rain and wind slacked off, and, before long it was “game on”!

We vertically jigged and cast blade baits with equal success in ~25 feet of water at three separate open water areas for 2.5+ hours and the action never slowed down once it started until right at 9:40am. At this time the birds departed or went to rest on the surface and the bite died very quickly.

By this time we’d already boated exactly 61 white bass and 2 largemouth. I could see Dennis was thinking about being happy with all that had transpired and taking his family to a nice, warm truck. To put him at ease, I let my super-troopers know that if we fished the final hour we’d likely only add another 10-15% to our catch, but that we’d seen the vast majority of the fish we were going to catch this morning given the bird and fish behavior I was observing.

So, with 63 fish to our credit, including a really nice 4.50 pound black bass landed by Ayden, we took some family photos to commemorate the trip with, had Dennis and family tuck their heads down to avoid the stinging pelt of the raindrops on a quick ride in, and we headed ‘er to the dock.

TALLY = 63 FISH, all caught and released

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 9:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 59F

Water Surface Temp: 63.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: Winds were higher than forecast this morning – NNE13-14

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies with a light mist or drizzle falling most of the trip.

Water Level: 624.78 and rising with 622.0 being full pool. Water is now being released at a light 1819 cubic feet per second. Water discolored to beyond Union Grove.

Other: GT= 0

Wx SNAPSHOT: