This morning I had the pleasure of fishing with retired Sergeant First Class Art A. of Killeen. Art is a Vietnam veteran who worked in Army Aviation his entire career.
Hybrid were in short supply today, but, Art stuck it out until connecting with a good one!
We had beautiful weather today — cool enough for a windshirt in the early morning, then warming up enough for just short-sleeves by trip’s end.
Today’s tactic was “downrig to find ’em, then slab for what ya’ found”.
We got into fish just as soon as it was light enough to see what was going on. Our first success came on downrigged Pet Spoons going parallel to the contour from Area 1097 through Area 1071, to Area 1023. Along this “circuit” we continuously picked up white bass in singles and doubles on the tandem rigs we were pulling. Upon seeing fish aggressive enough to come up off bottom to inspect the downrigger ball, I knew they were aggressive enough to strike at cast lures, so, at Area 1023, we e-anchored and began working these fish over. We used bladebaits in a “lift-drop” fashion and pulled fish every 2-3 casts for 25+ minutes, taking our tally up to 23 fish.
At that time, around 8:15, I spotted some larger fish (likely hybrid) throwing spray up in the air as they fed on the surface some distance away. We moved on over to try take advantage of the topwater action, but, by the time we got where they were, they had moved on.
So, back we headed towards Area 1023. As we went, I watched sonar closely and found a tightly bunched school of white bass on the slope at Area 1139. I buoyed these fish, and we circled back and caught fish continuously through 9:35. By the time we departed, we’d boated 51 fish. These were all taken via a “smoking” tactic, given how tightly bunched they were. Looking back at the morning in review, when these fish lost interest, the feeding window was beginning to close rapidly.
Next, we went searching with sonar and found a small bunch of fish on the breakline between Area 953 and 506. We boated 12 fish there and moved on. The fish were definitely getting tight lipped now.
Our final bit of action came at Area 844/506. This was all on downriggers as by now, we had to get our baits in front of a lot of inactive fish to comb out the few still willing to chase and eat. We managed to pick up 9 more fish in this area including a hybrid (which, regardless of size, were in noticeably short supply today). The hybrid we found were up high in the water column around 15-20 feet down, and the white bass were much lower down, from 40 feet on bottom, up to around 34 feet.
As the morning feed shut down, we ended our outing with a grand total of 72 fish, the most Art had ever boated on any trip of his life. He’s 65 years old. That’s a good day!
TALLY = 72 fish, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 7:15a
End Time: 11:30a
Air Temp: 64F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 69.5F
Wind: SSW at 6-9
Skies: Skies were fair.