This morning I fished our monthly trip with John M. and his son, Matthew. These trips have served as an incentive for Matthew to keep his grades and attitude up, and have provided an opportunity for others to join in on the fishing fun, too. Today’s lucky guest was Matthew’s cousin, Bennie, from Rogers, TX.

This hybrid would be our largest fish of the trip, weighing in at 4.25 pounds. The white bass, though dwarfed by the hybrid, was a solid 14″ fish.

This 3 pound blue cat nailed one of our live shad later in our trip. It took the boys approximately 62 attempts to net this fish. Talk about teamwork!?!

Matthew enjoyed catching different species today. This smallmouth also came on a live shad fished over a rocky bottom.

I knew from the forecast that we were in for a tough go of it today — not impossible, but tough. We had a high pressure system (with some great fishing) break down and be replaced by low pressure and characteristic damp winds from the north.

Fish, when they feed under low pressure conditions, always seem to feed in short spurts, and those spurts never seem to be very enthusiastic.

So it was today … we experienced two distinct periods of activity. First, at Area 788, we tried downrigging so we could have baits in the water as I looked the area over with sonar. There was a ton of bait in the area, and gamefish, too, but nothing was interested in moving fast enough to hit a downrigged lure. I came prepared with live bait as a safeguard after seeing the forecast prior to our trip. We got live bait down and working and began to pull fish. We boated white bass, a few hybrid, a few catfish, and a few largemouth, all on shad and all just off bottom in about 25′. As we sat over top of these fish, we saw several short eruptions of schooling activity by white bass forcing shad to the surface. Some were within casting distance, so we picked off a few white bass as we maintained our position while fishing the bait. Rarely did the fish stay up long enough to allow for more than 1 or 2 to be caught. We boated a total of 18 fish here.

Now, this is where the “statistician” part comes in. Matthew is a baseball stats nut. He has taken to running numbers in his head about other things he enjoys, too, including fishing. So, after our first hour had gone by, we’d boated 7 fish. He was planning on a 4 hour trip, and so confidently reported to all of us that we were on track for a “definite double-digit 28 fish day”. I had to chuckle at that one. Despite their pea-sized brain, fish are often not such linear thinkers…

After this area played out, we struggled a bit doing more sonar searching than fishing until, finally, we located a suspended, loosely congregated bunch of fish hanging at mid-depth along with baitfish at around 27-29 feet at Area 365/192. We first downrigged for these fish with doctored Pet Spoons and got our first fish of the day using this tactic. This told me we were dealing with more active fish than we’d encountered up to this point. We worked these fish over with pass after pass of the downrigger, picking up a fish each time. We found suspended largemouth, hybrid, and white bass here. After the downriggers failed to produce, but while fish still showed on sonar, we immediately slowed down and switched over to live bait to try to tempt the fish as they got increasingly disinterested. By 1:00pm, we’d managed to work our way slowly but surely up to a tally of 40 fish thanks to the live bait action.

I really enjoyed fishing with these young men. They were both respectful, considerate of one another, and appreciative of the opportunity that John was providing for them. John and Matthew have now fished with me in all seasons and have seen most all of the techniques I commonly employ. We’ve had great days and not so great days. This one was somewhere in the middle! Thanks, fellows!



TALLY = 40 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 1:00p

Air Temp: 71F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 81F

Wind: Winds were NNW5-8

Skies: Skies were heavily overcast following a night of rainfall due to a low pressure system sitting over Central Texas.

The following blog entry appears in the form of a report to those who support the Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (S.K.I.F.F.) program which serves to put the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on the water at no charge to their families…

(L to R) Ivan, Jason, and Robbie (and their moms!) braved the sprinkles and cashed in on a mixed bag catch this evening!!

07 June 2012

Dear Friends of S.K.I.F.F.,

This evening I welcomed aboard Jason (10 yrs.) and Ivan (6 yrs.) Venne, accompanied by their mom, Olga; and Robbie (6 yrs.) Rodriguez, accompanied by his mom, Teri. These ladies’ husbands, Major Jason Venne and Lieutenant Colonel Rob Rodriquez, are deployed together in Kuwait with 2-8 Cavalry. They were (literally) the last Americans out of Iraq and still have not made it back to the U.S. as they wrap up all the loose ends.

Mrs. Venne with her son, Jason Jr.

Mrs. Rodriguez with her son, Robbie.

I met Mrs. Venne at the Harker Heights Farmers Market over the Memorial Day Weekend when, instead of battling hordes of recreational boaters, I set up a booth to advertise SKIFF during the Memorial Day Parade.

Our weather was quirky today. An early June low pressure system brought 3/4″ of rainfall overnight along with a NNW breeze, heavy cloud cover, and light rain during our trip. The boys were so excited about this trip, however, that a monsoon would not have deterred them.

All 3 boys had little or no prior fishing experience, so, we started off simply, and increased the level of complexity (and patience) required as we worked our way through the trip.

We began by targeting sunfish in shallow water. At Area 200 we found abundant, willing sunfish in less than 4 feet of water and used poles (without reels) to fish for these fish. We boated exactly 35 fish here before the novelty began to wear off.

Next, we “took it to the next level” and downrigged for larger fish. We used Pet Spoons set down around 22-24 feet at Area 820, just above the thermocline, to boat 15 more fish, including a mix of white bass, largemouth bass, and an unusual number of drum which, based on the fact that we saw eggs oozing out of the females, must have been congregated heavily in this area for spawning.

Our final attempt at “really big fish” came as we used live bait to tempt largemouth bass. We began working over top of some open water hydrilla at Area 057 and landed one largemouth almost immediately, but then things quickly quieted down (beneath the boat, that is, as with 3 young boys it was never quiet on the boat). We shifted to rock at Area 042/433 instead of weeds and, in the last 15 minutes of the trip caught 4 additional fish per boy as a very nice way to end our day with a total of 55 fish boated for our efforts.

The majority of our Fort Hood men and women in uniform have, thankfully, been in a bit of a down cycle as far as deployments are concerned so far in 2012, but, it looks like the Fall will see the deployment of a significant force from here.

Thanks to all of you, we’ll be ready to lend some aid to their kids and spouses when duty calls. Thank you for your ongoing support!!

Sincerely,

–Bob Maindelle

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TALLY = 55 FISH all caught and released

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Start Time: 4:45p

End Time: 9:05p

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 81F.

Wind: Winds were NNW7 entire trip.

Skies: Skies were 100% cloudy due to a low pressure system which moved directly over us bringing 0.75″ rain overnight.