I fished a half day “Kids Fish, Too!” trip this morning with Mr. Paul S. and his sons, Tanner and Ty, of Temple. The boys had some basic fishing skills down before they arrived, and we reviewed the use of both spinning gear and closed-face gear at dockside before starting the day’s hunt for fish. We had storms in the early evening last night that resulted in cooler, overcast conditions this morning with a NW to N breeze puffing at 5-7 mph the entire trip.

Tanner with a nice downrigged white bass taken from a suspended school of fish

Ty with a beautifully colored bull bluegill taken on a slip float rig up shallow

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time: 12 Noon

Air Temp: 69F at trip’s start, heading towards the mid-90’s with clear, calm conditions.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.1F

Wind: Winds were W at 3 at sunrise, then went SE at 1-2 by 9:00am

Skies: Skies were clear and bright.

At sunrise, we searched for topwater action and found only light, briefly appearing schools of white bass in the vicinity of Area 017. To do well in this scenario, quick, accurate casts were a must. The boys did their best and did land a handful of white bass by casting Cork Rigs to these fish, but I saw we were going to be hard-pressed to excel at that, so, we turned to downriggers to help us out. By around 9:35am we’d boated 14 white bass from between Areas 017 to 204 to 205. As the novelty of these two techniques wore off, it was clear that a change of pace would be a good idea.

We headed out in search of some sunfish and found a good supply of them holding at the transition from weed to rock near Area 189. The boys wore these fish out with slip-cork rigs, boating 27 sunfish at this single stop.

We then searched for some congregated deep-water bass to fish for but found little despite 3 immediate strikes upon anchoring at Area 193.

As we reached the end of our trip, the boys requested that we make one more sunfish run. This time we headed to Area 200 and finished off the day with an additional haul of 9 sunfish here.

TALLY = 50 Fish

I fished a half day “Kids Fish, Too!” trip this evening with Mr. Cliff S. and 3 of his grandchildren: Tyler, Zach, and Mason, all cousins to one another. All three boys were under the age of 13 and were some of the most fishing-capable kids I’ve had on my boat. They could handle spinning gear, closed face gear, flipping, casting from muliple positions, taking their own fish off the hook, and more.

Mason with the record-breaking largemouth — a 7.75 pound, 24.25 inch monster!!

Zach with a nice pair of white bass

Tyler with his lunker

Start Time: 4:45p

End Time: 8:45p

Air Temp: 84F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.1F

Wind: Winds were WSW at 7-9 until tapering off to 1-3 at sunset

Skies: Skies were grey, but bright.

After the usual safety talk, we headed to the rocks at Area 642 and used slip corks to fish for sunfish. This let me gauge how the boys could cast, retrieve, stay-tangle free, etc. Nearly immediately Tyler and Zach were fast to fish. Mason, who didn’t have a lot of spinning reel experience got off to a bit slower start, but, with some one-on-one by grandpa, he was holding his own by the end. The boys randomly picked the number 27 at the number of sunfish we should catch before moving on to a new technique, so, catch 27 we did, then packed up and headed elsewhere.

We got onto suspended white bass between Area 534, 601, and 643 and the boys immediately grasped the concept of teamwork when it came to fishing with downriggers by setting the lines out, reeling the balls in once a fish was hooked, and helping one another out. We boated 20 fish via downrigging including 18 white bass and 2 drum. We were fishing a single Pet and a Pet/Licker combo. Of the 20 fish, all 20 came on the Pet. Only one fish hit the Licker, and it was a white bass double, however the lead fish came off.

The boys expressed an interest in shooting for some largemouth, so, with about an hour left before sunset, we slipped over to Area 125. I saw good sonar readings here that looked promising. Again, with excellent teamwork, the boys got the rods unsheathed, dipped bait, and kept good noise discipline over our anchored position. As we began putting our 3 lines down, we immediately got thumped. Little Mason had a titanic struggle with, and eventually prevailed against, a sweet 7.25 pound 22.25 inch largemouth. Then, incredibly, as we continued baiting lines and getting them down, each of the boys landed a bass over 5 pounds. We then took another run through the batting order landing 3 more solid largemouth. We then began our THIRD run through the batting order. Mason was up once again. The rod went down, he went to work, and I netted a 7.75 pound, 24.25 inch largemouth that just left us all slack-jawed — not that it happened, but that it happened twice to the same kid on the same night!!! This fish broke the existing Jr. Angler Catch and Release record for Stillhouse which was set on my boat only a few weeks ago by young Mario P. of Copperas Cove. We gathered all the necessary data and photos and will be submitting it all to Austin this weekend. We finished the night off with one last fish for Zach and called it quits right at dark. Wow!!

TALLY = 55 Fish