This morning I drove into Killeen to pick up sisters Patty and Melissa (Missy) L. for the first fishing trip of their lives!!
When I asked Patty what she thought of her first fishing trip she said, “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be.”.
When I asked Missy what she thought of her first fishing trip she said, “It was really fun.”.
This trip was paid for by a person from the girls’ church, Memorial Baptist Church, in Killeen. This person learned that the girls had never been fishing before, and wanted to give them that experience. The girls’ dad is raising them alone and is a hard-working fellow with no fishing experience of his own, so, that, coupled with the fact that the girls had no formal plans for Spring Break due to dad’s work schedule, looked like a match made in heaven.
Today’s weather was good fishing weather — dreary, grey, warm, and a bit breezy. We found our first batch of fish at Area 995 in about 15 feet of water. We cast bladebaits out horizontally and worked them back over fish we’d located in small groups via sonar after marking them with a buoy. We landed 23 fish here before the action tapered off.
Next, we headed to Area 054/602 where 4 terns were working and pointed the way to some very shallow white bass feeding very aggressively on shad. We used lighter bladebaits here and fished them higher in the water column to net 13 more fish.
We finished up flatline trolling with Reef Runner Ripshad 200’s to put 11 more fish in the boat before the morning bite died.
On the drive back to the girls’ home, I got to enjoy a few tales about what each sister does that gets on the others’ nerves, about where they like to go out to eat when they get the chance, and a bonus tale about dad’s cooking abilities.
TALLY = 47 fish, all caught and released.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 7:45a
End Time: 11:45a
Air Temp: 66F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 61F
Wind: Winds were S7-8.
Skies: Skies were heavy grey to the point of occasional drizzle.