This morning I fished with returning guests “Grandma” Joyce W. and two of her six grandsons, Nate (8) and C.J. (12). This is the fourth year in a row the trio has made the drive from the Dallas area to camp out in a Salado hotel and then fish with me during Spring Break.
C.J. was “Mr. Consistent” today, keeping his vertical jigging technique just right when it counted and he enjoyed consistent success as a result.
Nate, we joked, was like the blind sow that occasionally found the acorn! He sang, told jokes, listened intently to my war stories, snacked, and, oh yeah, caught a fish now and then, too!!
Over the years we’ve encountered some crazy Spring Break weather, and this year was no exception. Over the weekend a cold front, followed by a slow moving Pacific low pressure system dumped rain over all of Central Texas. We got 2.2 inches on the south shore of Stillhouse, but the lake didn’t take on much runoff. However, a heavy blanket of fog awaited us this morning but, fortunately, began clearing as we got out on the water.
We started early doing some trolling to find fish and then cast Cicadas to them once we found larger concentrations and buoyed them. We boated 15 fish in the vicinity of Area 995 in 15-17 feet of water during the time that some lifting fog obscured the sunlight.
We struggled a bit during mid-morning as the fog lifted leaving us with bright, calm conditions (among the toughest for white bass fishing).
By 10:45, a light S. breeze at 6-7 picked up and the skies went from bright to fair. We hit some deepwater areas (40-45 feet) and found congregated white bass ready to feed. We stayed atop Area 1042 for ~2.5 hours steadily boating fish with a jigging retrieve, an easing tactic, and, occasionally, with a slow smoking tactic. We put 41 fish in the boat at this one location over this time frame including 40 white bass and 1 drum, which Nate was enamored with (hence the photo above).
One of the lighter moments of the trip came when a kind of quiet had fallen upon us … Joyce was enjoying being outdoors, C.J. was concentrating on jigging for his next white bass, I was focused on reading sonar, and Nate was (suspiciously) quiet. For no reason whatsoever, Nate states, “I’m adorable.” Joyce and I just looked at one another, smiled, shook our heads, and went back to enjoying the quiet.
TALLY = 56 fish, all caught and released.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 7:45a
End Time: 1:15p
Air Temp: 53F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 58F
Wind: Winds were calm at (obscured) sunrise and until around 10:30, turning S6-7 for the remainder of the trip thereafter .
Skies: Skies were fair.