This afternoon I fished a trip with brothers David and Sean F. of North Carolina; the young men are both in college there and are home visiting their parents who recently relocated from N. Carolina to Belton. I was a bit concerned about the weather, as the effects of E. winds are always unpredictable.

David shows the best 2 culled from our first 58 fish caught vertical jigging.

Sean, in the, ahem, only photo he would even grudgingly smile for, shows a nice white he bagged on a Cicada bladebait.

The boys had some limited past experience and referred several times to a “family curse” which revolved around multiple instances of fishlessness even in circumstances when others immediately nearby seemed to have no such angling angst.

We first headed to deep water while the light level was as great as it was going to get today. We ran sonar over a piece of bottom between and just north of Areas 638 and 640. There wasn’t much to see, but what there was looked right — I tossed a buoy, let down a “test” slab and came up with a healthy white bass in all of 8 seconds. I got the boys rigged up and provided some OJT as they refamiliarized themselves with the spinning gear I provided. In no time both young men were consistently detecting and hooking fish — all white bass — in ~36 feet of water. Over a 2 hour span we moved less than 20 yards in any direction and boated exactly 58 fish, including 57 white bass and 1 drum. Eventually our E wind turned N and our N wind turned calm and that’s when our deepwater bite died.

At this time we looked over one area for white bass and another area for channel catfish, but didn’t do anything at either locale.

We moved on to Area 336 and at first attempted flatline trolling with Storm Wiggle Warts. We did well, boating 8 fish in about 20 minutes. Once a trend became noticeable concerning fish location, we backed off the “sweet spot” and saturated the area with casts using Cicadas. This put a final 5 fish in the boat including 4 white bass and a hybrid sunfish. The action died right at (obscured) sunset.

TALLY = 71 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 1:30p

End Time: 5:25p

Air Temp: 52F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~56.7F

Wind: Winds were E6, turning NNE4, then going calm, then picking up at NE7.

Skies: Light grey 100% cloud cover