Two Very Different Perspectives — Texas White Bass Fishing Guide Report — 34 Fish, 04 March 2013






This morning I fished with Pat W. of Austin who was once again given a fishing gift certificate by his in-laws this past Christmas. This was Pat’s second trip out with me.


Fishing was tough today, but, persistence paid off and we were able to string together a catch of 34 fish for our efforts.

The very first thing Pat said when we shook hands this morning was, “Well, I’m a dad now.” He was obviously very proud of baby George, now just 20 weeks young. Did I mention that Pat looked sleep-deprived?

Well, the fishing was tough today. We had what the weatherman calls pre-frontal compressional warming which means that the atmosphere gets “squeezed” by the weather we are experiencing now and a cold front on it’s way in. This results in warm, windy days and typically tough conditions. In a normal 4.5 to 5 hour trip, I expect about 90 minutes of really solid fishing with a ramp up to that and a ramp down from that. Today, our window was compressed into about 50 minutes of fishing, between 8:30 and 9:20pm. We caught two-thirds of our catch during this time. We noted that this was the only time we witnessed birds (terns and gulls) flying and feeding today, as well.

This bit of success came at Area 1174 in only 14-16 feet of water (the shallowest I’ve fished so far this year) and via a horizontal approach as we used bladebaits to work out away from the boat.

After this, we dropped back into deeper water and just “pecked” a few fish here and a few fish there. Everything we found was within a few yards of the Lampasas River channel. It is interesting to note that today’s take of 34 fish included 5 crappie and 1 largemouth bass, which is an unusually high percentage of crappie.

For me, coming off of two 100+ fish days at the end of last week, I was really hoping to put together some better numbers for Pat. I was really working to find fish, studying sonar closely, trying different areas, and put about 2 extra hours into the trip. Pat, on the other hand was enjoying a gift, nowhere near his barking dog or crying baby son, and certainly not at the office. While I had my face anxiously buried in the sonar screens, Pat had his head rested back on the console and his feet up as I slowly idled over potential fish holding bottom features — truly two very different perspectives.

Well, I just hate to send anyone home on a “dry spell”, meaning have them leave after not catching many fish toward the end of the trip so their final impression not as good as it could be, so, we scrubbed 3 different areas in the last 45 minutes on the water until we found one small pack of white bass near Area 401 and we worked those fish over until we nearly “willed” one to strike Pat’s slab so he could drive back to Austin with a good final memory from our day’s adventure. With that fish added to the tally, we closed out our trip with 34 fish boated today.


TALLY = 34 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:


Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 1:30p

Air Temp: 57F at trip’s start

Water Surface Temp: ~56F

Wind: Winds were SSW17 at trip’s start slowly tapering off to SSW11. Today’s weather was due to pre-frontal compressional warming.

Skies: Skies were light grey with high, thin clouds .