This morning I fished with Doug L. of Salado, TX, and his college-aged twin children, Alex and Ashley.
Persistence paid off today. We went into the trip’s 5th hour with just 14 fish caught, and ended that hour with a tally of 68 fish after finding an aggressive, bottom-hugging school ready to do business.
I first met Doug through a mutual friend, Dick C. of Harker Heights, when Dick invited me to a morning Bible study that he and Doug attended at The Kettle restaurant in Killeen. That was several years ago. Later, after Dick has several good experiences out on the water with me, Doug thought he’d give it a try and do so while his younger two kids were home from college. Today was the day. Alex is heading into his junior year at Texas A&M majoring in chemical engineering, and Ashley heads into her junior year at the University of Texas, majoring in industrial design.
Once again under the influence of a bright full moon which shone along with the sun, we struggled a bit today until around 10:55 when things finally started going our way.
We started the day well with 7 fish boated in the first 30 minutes (5 white bass, 1 drum, 1 largemouth), including a double for Ashley, all coming on the downriggers using a pair of tandem rigs outfitted with doctored Pet Spoons. These fish all came from 23-26 feet, suspended over a bottom just a bit deeper, in the vicinity of Area 1112/658. After this action died, we failed to find fish at two other locations.
We re-established contact at Area 644/444, but, of the 7 fish we boated here, 3 were yearlings. I typically move when such small fish are present because 1) there a typically a lot of them and they’ll beat the larger fish to a bait, 2) because they can be hooked and go undetected, thus reducing the chances of catching another fish on the second bait, and 3) because undetected fish can be drowned as they are pulled through the water too forcibly for them to keep their gills working. So, we moved on with 14 fish on the “clicker” at this point.
I left the downrigging behind and began searching some humps and breaklines and came up clean (not even largemouth or shad on most areas) until checking on Area 1117. At the 25-26 foot mark here, the colored sonar and downscan sonar both began to light up real well revealing a lot of fish holding on or near the bottom. This was looking good. I got us positioned in a “hover” over top of the fish and we broke out the “smoking” rods to allow us to work 3/4 oz. TNT180’s in white/silver in and around these fish. We had excellent results right off the bat as Alex stuck a fish before his slab even hit the bottom on his first drop. For the next 40 minutes we continued to catch fish immediately beneath the boat and out and around the perimeter as we used a “smoking” tactic and a “lift-drop” tactic. Every one of these fish was in the same year group (I estimate 3 years old) and was right at 13″ +/- 1/2″. We boated a total of 54 fish here, 53 of which were white bass, along with 1 largemouth.
Just as quickly as the fish turned on, they turned back off again, and, by 11:45 sonar showed a clean bottom and the fish had simply vanished again.
TALLY = 68 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 11:45a
Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 85.7F
Wind: SSW8-13.
Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.