I’ve mentioned a number of times through the years in this blog that you are reading exactly what happened on the water. No fudging, no embellishments, no sugar-coating. I do this to lend credibility to all that I do and say.

The bottom line today was … we got spanked!!

I had a wonderful, experienced angler, Mr. Tom K. from Minnesota on board. He had about 9 days to choose from for his fishing trip during this Texas tour he took to escape from the snow up north. I tried to hand-pick the best day of the bunch for him and it just didn’t work out. Earlier this week we had our second deep freeze of the season with temperatures down into the teens and a second ice storm forcing school and business closings. Today was forecast to have increasing, warm SW winds in the afternoon. Instead, we had light, variable winds from the south, and the fish just never got going in the afternoon.

Due to the unusually cold weather, more shorebirds have pushed into the area than I’ve ever seen before — we have all manner of gulls, loons, terns, kittiwakes, and more, but, all of the bird action I saw today was centered around the loons’ fishing activities and not fish pushing bait. The cold snap also pushed our water temperatures to what will no doubt be their low point for this season — 46F on the surface in many areas.

We focused our efforts over and along the channel from the river to mid-lake and only boated 2 white bass and a single crappie, all on slabs. Fortunately, Tom caught all 3 of these. These fish came from Areas 722, 399, and 329 (only 1 fish came off each area).

At no time did any of the hundreds of birds on the lake take flight and search for fish or bait being driven by gamefish.

I spoke with fellow guide Henry N. who primarily focuses on largemouth bass. His club held a tournament on Stillhouse in the morning hours today. In their efforts, 52 fisherman returned to the scales with only 12 keeper bass. It was just a tough day all around and Tom and I were not immune.

For better or for worse, Tom is a musky fanatic. Known as the “fish of 10,000 casts”, musky are hard to come by even when you know what you are doing. He’s gone on many trips and not caught a thing and kindly shared with me that he still enjoyed being out on unfamiliar waters (free of snow on the landscape!) and especially seeing the unique ways in which I use sonar. In a number of situations we were able to compare and contrast traditional sonar readings with StructureScan readings.

TALLY = 3 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 12:30p

End Time: 6:00p

Air Temp: 68F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~46F

Wind: Winds were light and variable from the S at calm to 5.

Skies: Skies were fair.