This morning I fished with Grandpa Lynn H., his son, Clay, and Clay’s two children, August (Auggie, age 6) and Katerina (Kat, age 10). This was a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip in which only the kids did the fishing.
Kat saved the best for last! Our biggest fish of the trip took Kat’s bait just before we wrapped up today and helped us end on a good note.
The white bass put on a show for us this morning allowing multiple doubles. We boated 20 white bass before the novelty wore off, but could have kept right on catching them.
I first met “Grandpa” Lynn last summer when he brought a buddy out along for the ride and paid for his buddy’s grandkids to fish. This time the summer schedule allowed for his own grandkids to come along, so, we had three generations aboard and plenty of fish to go around for the kiddos.
As I often do with elementary-aged kids, I tried to break this trip down into several “mini-trips” each distinctly different in technique and species sought.
Today, we targeted white bass first. We found abundant, suspended white bass between Areas 209 and 039 for the first time this season. We downrigged this area with doctored Pet Spoons, one set in tandem, and one fished solo. I had the kids take turns and they each boated 10 fish before the novelty wore off and they were ready for something new. Of the 20 fish, 15 were white bass and the balance were school-sized largemouth.
Next, it was off to catch sunfish. With our 13+ foot rise in water level thanks to two significant rains in March and subsequent lighter rains since then, our water level is within 1.5 feet of full pool and the hydrilla is starting to grow again in the shallows. This is where we headed for sunfish, at Area 189 to be exact. It was a pretty simple thing to get the kids on fish and keep them on fish. The only thing that limited our potential was the occasional lost bait or tangled line. In no time the kids had landed 42 fish here including longear sunfish, bluegill sunfish, and a few blacktail shiners thrown in for good measure. We kept a few of these for bait.
Our last challenge was to land some larger fish on the sunfish we had held onto for bait. By the time we got around to doing this the wind, although from a favorable direction, was up to around 12-13 mph, and had our rods rocking pretty good which is never a helpful thing when using bait. Nonetheless, Aug pulled in a channel cat whose eyes were bigger than its belly as we drifted through Area 204, and, to close us out, Kat put a nice largemouth bass over the side on a sunfish at Area 458 before we headed back in and called it a day.
TALLY = 64 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 11:30a
Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 81.2F
Wind: Winds SSW8 at sunrise, then slowly building to SSW12.
Skies: Skies were fair with 30% cloudiness.