Mr. Clean & the Long-Cast Queen — 72 Fish, Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report, 26 Nov. 2012






This morning I fished with a very nice young couple from the Austin area, Richard R. and Abby R. who came out with me for the first time.



As Abby brought this fish to the surface, it teetered on the rim of the net just as her slab pulled free. It could have tipped either way, but today luck was on her side. This baby went 4.75 pounds on a certified scale.




White bass were the mainstay of our catch today, although a few bass and drum added some variety.


Richard is a small businessman who owns his own industrial cleaning service and manages ~100 employees, and Abby is just starting out in the Austin real estate and leasing business. Abby was the one that initiated the couple’s interest in fishing, and she brought some “good skills” (sorry, Napoleon) to the table, including a great two-fisted cast. The best thing was that she’s a lefty caster, so, I had her on the left pedestal seat and Richard on the right as I stayed in the middle and we stayed relatively tangle free at times when the fish required that we cast and work our baits horizontally.

The closer we got to today’s date, the more excited I got about our fishing prospects as the weather setup was just perfect — SW winds blowing in advance of an incoming cold front which would actually hit about 10 hours later.

Murphy’s Law took effect during the couple’s morning preparations and put us about 30 minutes behind getting on the water, but, this allowed me to thoroughly glass for bird activity and so, by the time they arrived, we literally drove from the dock, to the birds, and began catching fish … no waiting for, watching, or chasing the birds in the pre-dawn cold required!

Our first action of the day was also the shallowest action we would encounter. We found fish in as little as 17 feet right down the centerline at Area 994. We smoked slabs (TNT180’s in 3/4 oz.) and threw bladebaits worked in a lift-drop fashion for a total of 19 fish before this shallow bite died. We then downrigged our way back out to deeper water following the fish and birds as they exited, picking up a single and a double (two fish at at a time on one rod) on a tandem Pet Spoon rig.

We moved on to deeper water and spent about 90 minutes in the vicinity of Area 1154/036 after seeing abundant, bottom-hugging white bass on sonar. The wind hadn’t really kicked in yet, so these fish were kind of lackadaisical. We’d catch a few smoking, then they’d lose interest but hit a slabbed lure; next, they’d perk up again and lift off bottom requiring us to go back to smoking, and so on. We pulled another 26 fish off this area as we waited, hoping that stronger wind would materialize. Our tally now stood at 48 fish.

Once the wind came up and had been working on the water for a good 20 minutes or so, we made one last move to Area 103/995 and found the bottom carpeted with white bass in a solid feeding posture. I buoyed an especially large concentration of schooled fish, we got slabs down to them and the party started … we boated our last 24 fish in all of 20 minutes and had to leave them biting so we could head back to the dock to allow Abby to honor an appointment she had to keep back in the city.

During our 3 1/2 hours out, we employed a variety of techniques including downrigging, vertical jigging, smoking, and working bladebaits with a lift-drop method. Richard and Abby really enjoyed the variety, but, when asked, said the smoking was hard to beat!

TALLY = 72 Fish, all caught and released, including 2 largemouth bass, 3 freswater drum, and 67 white bass

back to home page

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp: 64F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 63.5F

Wind: SW2-3 at trip’s start, slowly and steadily building to SW8 by trip’s end.








Leave a Reply