This morning I fished (and froze my butt off!) with father and son Larry and Tony H., both from Louisville, KY, as a stiff cold front pushed its way into Central Texas.

Tony went “hardhats to helmets” transitioning from a carpenter in the private sector to now serving in the U.S. Army Cavalry at Ft. Hood. He’s served two combat tours in five years.

Proud papa Larry had to come check on his boy-turned-soldier and decided to spend some father and son time aboard my boat to do it.

This was a “spur of the moment” sort of trip. Larry came to Fort Hood to visit his son and had but a one day window to get in some fishing. When we spoke by phone the day before our trip, I told him the forecast was for poor fishing weather due to the arrival of the cold front overnight following a nice 5 day warming trend.

Larry said he’d fished plenty of trips without landing a thing, and if our trip turned out that way, he’d just be glad for the time spent outdoors with his son and learning a thing or two about our lakes and the fish in them. I told him I could work with a fellow with that kind of attitude!

We struggled through 3 fishless hours until finally, around 10:30, things began to change. Up until this time the skies had been dark and the temperatures slowly and steadily falling. But, at this time, the cloud cover thinned so that the skies brightened, although no direct sun shone. Also, the temperatures halted their decline and began to rise ever so slightly.

As all this came together, we were on Area 1024 and, after watching sonar and seeing some fish beginning to coalesce along bottom, we ran twin downriggers set within 6 inches of bottom. In less than 5 minutes with the riggers down we had a double hookup on white bass. I got a buoy in the water right on top of the fish we marked and immediately after getting the two hooked fish in the boat we brought the riggers in and began vertical jigging very meticulously over the school we’d just downrigged through. Over the next 90+ minutes we worked and worked over this area and scrubbed exactly 21 white bass and 1 short hybrid off this area using both 3/4 oz. white TNT 180’s and 3/8 oz. chartreuse TNT 180’s.

At no time today did we see any fish-related bird activity. We did observe birds feeding right after the (obscured) sunrise, but these were feeding on shad at or on the surface of their own volition, not shad forced there by gamefish beneath.

By 1:15 the fish had slowed back down and we were all wind-whipped and ready for lunch. When I suggested Schoepf’s BBQ, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Tony. He just had to have some of that, and quickly, too!! So, we packed it in and headed back to civilization.

Honestly, I was very pleased to have boated 22 fish given today’s adverse conditions. About the only thing that could have made this weather situation worse would have been precipitation accompanying it and perhaps a more easterly direction to the wind. Great job today grinding it out with me fellows!

TALLY = 22 FISH all caught and released

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Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 1:15p

Air Temp: 51F at trip’s start and falling through 10:30a, then stabilizing.

Water Surface Temp: 56.4F.

Wind: Winds were NNW13-15.

Skies: Skies were grey the entire trip.

Today I held off fishing until the afternoon as the forecast called for dead calm and foggy conditions through noon. The calm and fog did happen and lingered until around 2pm.

Eric and I had to work for ’em tonight, not giving up until the fish absolutely quit well beyond the sunset obscured by clouds.

At 2:15 I met Eric M. of Belton at the ramp. Eric has fished with me twice before on the occasions of his 16th and 17th birthdays, courtesy of his grandma, Sandra. Today he was back at it a few days in advance of his 18th birthday.

After we greeted one another, I asked him straight away, “So, what are you planning to do with your life?” It was beyond encouraging to hear the young man rattle off exactly what he intended to do and why he intended to do. Eric’s plans are to graduate high school (he’s all but got that one in the bag), then attend college for at least 2 years, then begin applying to get into a police academy to begin a career in law enforcement. He’s already worked his way into tagging along on “courtesy patrols” so he can be familiar with lingo, operations, expectations and more. I wish we had more young men thinking ahead like this.

As for the fishing … we had to work for every fish we caught today, but, we finally put together a fair catch.

After launching at 2:15, the first significant winds of the day came up at 2:45 and blew for about 30 minutes before dying back down. During this time we found fish right on top of Area 930 and vertically jigged for them resulting in 8 caught fish and about 6 more missed as Eric got “warmed up”.

After this brief spurt, we went fishless for nearly 2 hours as the winds just puffed, and any birdlife we found rested on the water’s surface.

As dusk approached, we hit Area 163 and almost as soon as we arrived the few birds we saw there began to take wing and search. 5 birds turned to 10, then 10 turned to 40 and all of the sudden it was game-on for about the last hour of light.

We vertically jigged and “eased” with 3/8 oz. TNT slabs. We found silver outperformed white in the clear water here. In all we boated 16 more fish in this area.

When all was said and done we’d boated 2 dozen fish for our efforts. As we returned to the ramp under the cover of darkness, some rain began to fall stinging our faces pretty good, but at the same time giving us hope that this Spring will see the end of the drought.

TALLY = 24 FISH all caught and released

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Start Time: 2:15

End Time: 6:40p

Air Temp: 65F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 57.0F.

Wind: Winds were SE2-3 building to SE6-7.

Skies: Skies were grey following the clearing of fog that lasted until 2:00p.