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.
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..