Today I fished with separate parties in the morning and afternoon. My morning trip was spent with bosom buddies Coleman, Chris, and Craig, all from Killeen.
Short bursts of action under the birds accounted for a bunch of hard-pulling hybrid this morning. Here (L to R) Coleman, Chris, and Craig show their schoolie hybrids caught seconds apart under near-surface fish action.
Chris’ rod was bent to near breaking as he worked in this trio of hybrid which all struck at the same time on 3 of the 4 baits of our Captain Mack Umbrella Rig.
Coleman’s mom, Melissa first got him a birthday gift certificate to come out with me in the warm months last season. That went over so well, she got another for Christmas and today was “cash it in day”!
We located 4 separate congregations of fish today, two of which were under birds. The first action today came at Area 1012 in about 27 feet of water. The sonar showed slim pickings, but, little other natural sign existed to indicate fish activity elsewhere, so we put slabs down amidst these fish and worked on the boys’ slabbing technique here to get the kinks out so they could realize the full potential of a better bite later on. We boated 6 fish here in about 20 minutes and moved on once we saw some bird action begin to coalesce.
The first birds we found working were within 70 yards of the shoreline around Area 358. The fish beneath these birds were moving bait very rapidly and, with 4 persons in the boat, casting was a bit dicey, so, we went with a downrigging approaching working 1 White Willow spoon and 1 umbrella rig. Due to the presence of trees, we kept both presentations at the level of the shallowest fish located at 12-20 feet beneath the surface. We quickly added 12 more fish to our tally before this bite fell off and the birds dissipated.
Our next bit of success again came beneath birds, this time off the tip of Area 155 over open water. These fish were strictly focused on bait and were not relating to bottom features of any sort. Most of the fish were at or above the 30 foot level and, with trees lacking in this area, we ran out baits exactly where we saw the fish on sonar. We added 6 more fish to the count here, all via downrigging, again with the White Willow and the umbrella rig.
Our last hoorah for this morning’s trip came right at around noon to about 12:35pm. We found a willing school of average-sized white bass in about 29 feet of water very near Area 1012 where we had started the day off. By now, all three boys got settled into a groove on their vertical jigging and enjoyed success, albeit slow but sure. We pulled a final 14 fish off this patch of bottom including 1 hybrid, 12 whites, and one small, pale largemeouth. All fish here came on 3/4 oz. TNT 180 slabs.
By 1:00p, the birds had settled, the bite had died and the mid-day “lull” was upon us. We called it a good morning right then and packed it in.
TALLY = 38 FISH all caught and released
Start Time: 7:40a
End Time: 1:00p
Air Temp: 63F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 51.0F.
Wind: Winds were S13 at trip’s start, ramping up to S16 by mid afternoon, and then tapering off to S8 by sunset.
Skies: Skies were grey and nearly 100% clouded all day.