Today David B. of Temple and his boys, Jack (6th Grade) and Jay (4th Grade) joined me to get in one last lick on the fishing before the reality of the new academic year sets in on Monday.
From L to R — Jay, David, and Jack “wore ’em out” today!!
We had an atypical slow start to our day today, despite darn good conditions — an unobscured sunrise, a light breeze from the SW, and above average fishing the day before. I did note that the waning 3/4 moon was still high in the sky, but, it’s anybody’s guess why the fish do what they do when they do it… The slow fishing allowed us to catch up on things that had happened since our last trip … a vacation to Colorado, whitewater rafting, and David’s newest dermatological discovery: a never-before attempted technique for the removal of skin cancer — alpine sliding!!
Anyway, we struggled to put just 5 fish in the boat, all on downriggers, by 9:15 with a 6:55 start time — that’s pretty slow. Two fish came off Area 040/853, and three fish came off Area 875 The boys were troopers, though and watched the downrigger rods faithfully through the tough spell.
Things began to take a turn for the better when, at around 9:15, I spotted some light topwater action. I headed to the scene of the crime and found small, schoolie largemouth popping shad on the surface in open water. I found white bass under these fish and so established a hover over the white bass school and quickly switched the rods over to prepare for “slabbin'”. My tool of choice has been the TNT 180 3/4 oz. in “silver halo” — it’s dead on for the size of the threadfin shad right now.
From 9:15 to around 11:00am, we “spot-hopped”, spending decreasing amounts of time at each location we found schooled whites at, including Areas 882, 883, 878, 879, 880, and 881, in that order. (BA: 12 AT). By the time the “bell-curve” of the the morning feed flattened out, we’d boated 78 fish on our slabs, including 73 white bass and 5 largemouth. Not a single white bass was shorter than 10.75 inches, and not a single white bass exceeded 14.5 inches. All were healthy — not plump, but healthy.
TALLY = 83 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:40a
End Time: 11:10a
Air Temp: 81F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: ~85.8F
Wind: Winds were SSW5 at trip’s start, building to SSW8-9 by trip’s end.
Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.