This past Wednesday evening, July 19th, I fished with “grandpa” Ernie Degenhardt and three of his grandsons – – 13 year old Dylan Degenhardt, 11 year old Drake Degenhardt, and 6 year old Noah Voorhies. Dylan and Drake are brothers from Temple, Texas, and Noah is a cousin to the boys, living in the Dallas area.
Dylan Degenhardt with one of the larger white bass we downrigged for this afternoon.
Drake Degenhardt with his best white bass of the trip.
From left: Drake, Grandpa Ernie, and 6-year-old Noah with white bass landed simultaneously on our pair of downriggers.
Although it was a bit against my better judgment to fish with a group which included a child as young as Noah on a Texas summer afternoon, Ernie’s “window” to have all three grandsons was quite limited, so we made a go of it.
Ernie, a Vietnam-era veteran, retired from the U.S. Army after 33 years in the medical field and recently moved to the Temple, TX, area to be near grandkids.
Since this was a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip, it lasted for 3.5 hours versus a full-length 4+ hour outing. Our best results came in the first two hours as we downrigged for loosely congregated white bass spread over a 200 yard area.
Although I did find a few situations where we were able to work slabs vertically, the fish were not schooled heavily and our results using the “smoking” technique which has been so successful of late in the mornings just did not produce as well. We picked up 3 drum and 2 white bass fishing vertically, and missed a few more whites and a single largemouth which got off on the jump at boatside.
I noted that we saw no topwater action at all this afternoon.
When all was said and done we had managed to put 43 fish in the boat with just a handful of other fish missed.
Our catch included exactly 40 white bass and three freshwater drum.
TALLY: 43 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 5:15p
End Time: 8:45p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 97F
Water Surface Temp: 90F
Wind Speed & Direction: S breeze <7 mph the entire trip
Sky Conditions: 30% cloud cover
Water Level: 0.22 feet high and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam
GT = 40
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1150 to 1198 and 329 to 033 – all fish caught downrigging for scattered groups of 2-5 fish
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle
Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle