This afternoon I fished with Sam R. and Shawna B., both U.S. Army lieutenants serving with the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood.
As sometimes inexplicably happens, one person seemed to be the “quantity” person, and the other the “quality” person. I’ll let you check with them yourselves to see who was who on this particular trip.
Sam is a Transportation officer originally from Mobile, AL, and graduated from Auburn University; and Shawna serves as an Ordnance officer originally from Arizona, and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. These two were real troopers. They showed up prepared with rain gear and then endured drizzle, rain, wind, and spray, and (for a while) some uncooperative fish, all in the pursuit of white bass. We linked up at 2:30, went over some basics necessary to consistently boat fish at this point in the season, and then headed out in search of fish.
Right up front I told Sam and Shawna, as I tell many folks — fish aren’t that hard to catch, but they can be terribly hard to find. We struggled for the first 2 1/2 hours as I looked over many areas of many different depths and in different parts of the lake looking for fish. We managed 2 fish, a short white and a crappie, just off the river channel at the 3rd or 4th stop we made, but there was no consistency here. That short white, I should note, was landed independently by Shawna, making that the official first fish caught of her lifetime!!
This Spring has been odd thus far with wildly varying weather, colder than normal water, and many days of high winds. All of these factors combine together to keep fish from turning on and staying turned on; instead they are on one day and off the next or feeding for only short periods, or both.
Regardless, we persisted and, taking advantage of a break in the clouds allowing for some deeper water areas to be well-illuminated, we checked out a few areas in 50+ feet of water. One of these, Area 946, was loaded down with fish.
After having “practiced” our vertical jigging at a number of areas, coming up with only 2 fish thus far, Sam and Shawna were ready to go when this big school of fish holding below us decided to cooperate. From the first slab we dropped into the fray to the last time we reeled up as darkness crept up on us, we caught fish after fish, taking our tally from an austere count of 2, up to an above-average catch of 73 fish. All of these fish came on the TNT180 slab in white, 3/4oz.
Thank you, Sam and Shawna, for your service to the nation. I enjoyed fishing with you today and, Shawna, aiding you in landing your first fish. Very fun!!
TALLY = 73 fish, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 2:30p
End Time: 6:30p
Air Temp: 67F at trip’s start
Water Surface Temp: ~57F
Wind: Winds were SSE12-17
Skies: Skies were heavy grey, slowly clearing to 60% cloudy.