Nate G. of Fort Hood is a great young multi-species angler — very talented for his age!

I had the pleasure of fishing this evening with Nate G. today, son of Specialist and Mrs. Leonard Dedinas. SPC Dedinas is currently serving at COB Adder in Iraq as an Apache helicopter mechanic.

It is routine for me to ask children’s parents about their children’s experience level in advance of each trip I take that includes children, just so I know what techniques may and may not be options given the weather and fish activity, etc.

Nate’s mom told me that Nate had done “a lot” of fishing in Florida, that he could use most any kind of fishing tackle, that he had caught quite a few fish, and that he was really excited to be going fishing with me. She was absolutely right on all accounts!!

This 8 year old young man can cast long and accurately, baits his own hook, takes his own fish off the hook, picks up on and imitates successful presentation nuances very quickly, and he can flat catch fish … 41 of them on this day … more than he’d ever caught on any previous trip.

We began our day over some hydrilla focusing on sunfish and did very well there using slipfloats and maggots. After 25 fish in about as many casts, I knew I wasn’t dealing with your “average” kid here!!

We picked our weather, and as we experienced a bit of a decrease in wind and increase in grey cloud cover, we headed out searching for largemouth and white bass feeding high in the water column, and we found both.

At Area 916 and 661, we found bottom-hugging white bass beneath smaller numbers of more aggressive fish feeding on very small shad in the top 8 feet of the water column. A white TNT 180 (for cloudy conditions versus silver for sunny conditions) did the trick in 3/4 oz. today. I sat back, watched sonar, and kept Nate on the fish as he reeled in one after the other — 16 in all — before the skies got stormy and brought a quick end to the action as the sun set early behind a bank of thick clouds to the west, but it was fun while it lasted.

Nate was all for catch-and-release, but not before making sure mom saw some hard proof of his labors. He fished two white bass out of the livewell as we approached the dock at the end of the trip and grinned from ear to ear as he held them up for her and his little sister to see.

TALLY = 41 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time: 8:00p

Air Temp: 90F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.0F

Wind: Winds were ENE at 4-8 due to some instability.

Skies: Skies were grey and mostly cloudy.