This morning I fished with returning guest Coleman R. and his fishing buddies, Craig and Will, all proud “Kangaroos” from Killeen High School in Killeen, TX.
The fishing was truly in overdrive this morning as pre-frontal warming and winds turned the bite on big-time. This was one of many times all 3 boys landed fish at the same time. From L to R: Will, Craig, and Coleman.
Many times this morning sonar showed the water column completely filled with fish as we worked our shad-imitating baits amongst the white bass and hybrid stripers foraging on shad. This screenshot off of my sonar unit shows literally hundred of fish on a heavy feed.
Coleman took Big Fish honors today with this hybrid striper weighing in at 4.00 pounds and measuring 20.00 inches.
The fishing was just phenomenal today! We’ve got a cold front on the way and the fish were cranked up to feed in advance of its arrival.
We got on the water about 15-20 minutes before sunrise, but, for the 3rd day in a row had no action until the sun rose and began to shine directly on the water. Due to a low cloud bank in the east, the sun actually shone a bit after it rose above the horizon, around 7:30. Literally the moment it directly appeared the first of the fish in our vicinity began to break the surface chasing bait and a few birds began to work over top of this bait.
From 7:30 until 10:15, we never went more than 3-4 minutes without boating a fish, and, often times had 2 or 3 fish being caught at the same time. We encountered all of our action today within an area bounded by Areas 1143/837/344/1144 (BA:70G).
The number of hybrid striped bass we caught today was remarkable. Of the 121 fish we boated, all were white bass and hybrid stripers (no crappie, no blue cat, no largemouth as is typical). More than 60% of our catch was made up of hybrid stripers, and not a single one of them was less than 16″, nor more than 20″.
The fishing was very straightforward. We observed for fish striking the surface and or bird activity, went to it, searched in that immediate vicinity for fish schooled in that vicinity, set the trolling motor to hover us in that spot, and fished until the fish moved on using slabs (both TNT180’s and KastMasters) to replicate the bait size which was around 2 1/8 inches based on what we observed the fish we caught regurgitating.
I normally toss a line in when things get slow in order to locate fish near the boat and to gauge what the fish are doing or preferring. I rarely touched a rod today as I was busy unhooking fish, keeping the boat maintained in the wind, and untangling the occasional knot or fouled line.
By 10:15 the bite was winding down and so we gave downrigging a try. We boated 2 sets of doubles (all white bass) on Pet Spoons fished on tandem rigs and then, with the winds increasing to over 20mph, decided to head for safety’s sake.
Congratulations to Will! He caught the first fish of his life today and earned a Texas Parks and Wildlife “First Fish” certificate for it.
TALLY = 121 Fish, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 10:45a
Air Temp: 68F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 68F
Wind: SE at 9-11, ramping up suddenly to SSE20 with higher gusts by trip’s end.
Skies: Skies were 25% clouded on an otherwise fair sky.