They Drove 800 Miles to Catch the Wily White Bass! 44 Fish, 17 March Spring Break 2012






This evening I fished with Jeremy and Paula C., both from the Cheyenne, Wyoming area.

Jeremy and Paula were so excited to boat a new species of fish. Paula landed her first white bass and told me “Mission accomplished! I did what I came to Texas to do!”

Jeremy and Paula are a really nice couple, married 15 years. They enjoy the outdoors together in a number of ways including fishing (mainly in creeks and rivers), bowhunting, and working with their 5 dogs.

It is their love of dogs that brought them here to Texas. Jeremy drove Paula 800+ miles to drop her off at a canine handlers’ course in Florence, TX, where she’ll gain the skills and qualifications necessary to train all manner of working dogs. Jeremy works in industrial refrigeration repair and needed a little break, so, while they were down this way, they chose to pursue a species of fish they’d never before had the opportunity to catch.

Our deep bite (which I’ve been counting on all week on my afternoon trips) definitely got softer as the week went by and the water warmed. We started our day off checking out quite a number of deeper 30-45 foot areas, only to find small schools of fish occupying these areas. We found 5 fish at Area 986 and moved for lack of additional action. Same thing at Area 1063 (5 fish), and Area 1027 (6 fish).

So, we headed shallower earlier than I had headed shallow all week and while the skies were still bright with direct sun (around 5:45p).

We headed first to Area 103 and found fish loosely schooled together here in 17-20 feet of water. I buoyed them, backed off a cast’s length, and we worked them over with bladebaits, boating 34 white bass, 1 crappie, and 1 drum in about 90 minutes time. These fish responded best to a horizontal retrieve, but, on occasion hit a vertically smoked bait.

After this school dissipated, we found 2 other tightly bunched schools of white bass in 12-14 feet of water, but they were on the move. We stuck with a flatline trolling regimen to try to intersect with these moving schools for our last 30 minutes on the water or so and did manage to boat 5 more white bass on trolled Wiggle Warts.

Good luck to you as you go “back to school” Paula. I hope your hairy students are all cooperative!!

TALLY = 44 fish, all caught and released.


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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time: 8:05p

Air Temp: 77F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 64.1F

Wind: Winds were S14-16, tapering to S11-12.

Skies: Skies were partly cloudy.








Lights, Camera, Action! 55 Fish, 16 March Spring Break 2012, Round Rock Fishing Guide Report






This morning I took teenaged fishing buddies Taylor and Matt of the Austin area out fishing in a belated celebration of Taylor’s most recent birthday.

From L to R — Matt, me, and Taylor back at the boat ramp as we showed Taylor’s mom, Elizabeth, the best 4 of the 55 fish we’d boated today. Thanks for the camerawork, Marty!!


This trip came on the second re-schedule following two previous Saturday rain-outs. This time, the weather was just right — cloudy, breezy, warm, and humid.

Taylor and Matt have fished with me twice before, once in the summer and once in the fall, so I got to introduce them to the use of bladebaits which really shine as a white bass producer in the spring time when fish are shallow and aggressive.

We began our day up shallow at Area 1056. Using only the bladebaits, we boated 35 fish over the first two hour plus. The fishing was moderately paced and consistent.

Next, after seeing some nearby tern action, we moved even shallower over to Area 1060 where we found white bass so aggressive they were popping shad at and on the surface. We fancast this area and boated another 10 fish here before the wind died down a bit and caused the action to slow, as well.

During this slow time of light winds, we put out flatlined crankbaits and trolled. We found fish on and around Area 055, and caught 2 on the crankbaits, but never pinned down enough concentrated fish to stop and cast to.

Our final hour plus was spent along the river channel at Area 1034/1058. We found loosely schooled fish here consisting of white bass with some drum mixed in. These fish were sluggish as the morning bite was about to be over. We initially tried vertical jigging and got a few fish to respond, but they shut down right away. The fish would not respond to an easing tactic, either. Finally, we hooked up the downriggers and, using twin White Willow Spoons, passed over the concentrations of fish we saw on sonar over and over again. Each pass we picked up at least one fish until, after taking a total of 8 fish off this area, they dispersed and we called it a day.

On this outing we were fortunate to be accompanied by Marty and Kyle Wall. They captured video clips throughout the trips to help piece together some visual products aimed at getting the word out about fishing trip I offer, especially those trips conducted free of charge for the children and youth of our deployed servicemen and women.

TALLY = 55 fish, all caught and released.


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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 12:10p

Air Temp: 66F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 63.1F

Wind: Winds were S6-7 increasing to S10-11 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were 100% overcast..








Caleb, Baboo, and Fishing for Two! 45 Fish, 16 March Spring Break 2012






This evening I fished with Steve N. of Temple (a.k.a. “Baboo”) and his nearly 7 year old grandson, Caleb (the one who calls Steve Baboo).



Steve and Caleb display the best of 45 fish we hunted down from deep to shallow today using a variety of tactics.


Steve, a Temple CPA, and Caleb have been out with me on a number of occasions. It is neat to see how, over the years, Caleb has matured. On our first trip a few years back his attention span, as I recall, could be measured in minutes, but, today he stayed on task the whole time independently landing a number of fish with no assistance whatsoever. His manners, too, were more polished with “Yes, sir.” and “Thank you.” a very regular part of his vocabulary. To his credit, Steve brought lots of snacks just in case of temporary attention deficits!!

As we got going today, we began our afternoon trip right where we’d concluded the morning’s trip, at Area 1034/1058. Again, we found fish here but they were very sluggish. They responded only to our first attempt at vertical jigging, then turned off not to become interested again. We boated just 4 fish here and had to move on.

We dropped down into deeper waters this time and pulled 21 fish off of area 1043 in ~38 feet of water. These all came on TNT 180 slabs in silver, white, and a silver/white combination — all worked equally well. I really had to search hard for these fish and there wasn’t as many in this general area as there has been all this winter. I believe this area is playing out given the rising water level, water temperature, and increasing day length.

As I have all week, I moved us shallower as sunset approached so as to be fishing in yet still well-lit water as dark approached. We were fortunate to drive right up on a large school of fish holding near bottom in 20-22 feet of water at Area 103. We set up over top of these fish, I changed out our 3/4 oz. slabs to 3/8 oz. slabs, and we vertically jigged very successfully for the final hour to add exactly 20 more white bass to our count for the trip. As dark neared, Steve and I both clearly noted that the fish fed less effectively and less accurately. It was not uncommon to have a fish strike and miss 3 or 4 times before actually connecting with the slab. I suspect this is because the begin to change from primarily sight feeding to using their lateral line to detect the bait’s position.


TALLY = 45 fish, all caught and released.


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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time: 8:05p

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 63.4F

Wind: Winds were S10-12.

Skies: Skies were partly sunny to mostly cloudy.