This fourth day of Spring Break 2013 I was joined in the afternoon by Dr. Dan D. and his 15 year old son, Jason, of San Antonio, TX.
Dan boated this long 6.00 pound flathead catfish from amidst an aggressively feeding white bass school in 38 feet of water.
Jason caught this 2.00 pound largemouth and the white bass just feet away from where Dan hooked his big catfish.
As the sun set and the shadows got long, we experienced a short blitz of white bass action allowing us to put 59 white bass, most of this quality, in the boat in under an hour.
Dan and Jason no sooner concluded a morning flyfishing outing for trout on the Guadalupe River than they sped north to link up with me this afternoon for some conventional tackle fishing for white bass on Stillhouse.
As most afternoon trips this time of year do, this trip started off a bit slow, then built as we moved towards sunset.
Before leaving the ramp area, we went over in detail exactly how to vertical jig with a slab, as I expected most, if not all, of our trip would involve this tactic.
We first connected with a few fish on a gentle breakline near the old river channel at Area 1185. These fish were sluggish and appeared in small clusters of 3-5 fish each, so, this made for some slow going, but, it also allowed us to boat some fish during a typically slow time of day AND to really polish up our jigging technique. We boated 17 fish in this area before moving on.
With their slabbing skills now honed, we moved on to Area 1038 and found a large school of smallish fish right at the break into the old river channel on the extreme NW portion of this topographic feature. We went to work with our slabs and, over the next 90 minutes, put an additional 35 fish in the boat including a few 12 inch white bass, a 2 pound largemouth, and a 6 pound yellow catfish. By 6:45p this area had played out.
I went looking over a few other areas adjacent to the river channel but saw little. Then, in the distance, I saw a few terns working anxiously over a fair spread of water. They were definitely looking “fishy”. As I idled about beneath the area (Area 1184) where the terns were working, the bottom literally lit up with white bass — they were all over this place, from bottom and upward to as much as 4-5 feet above the bottom. I did my best to hover us in place over what appeared to be the “center of mass” for this action and the game was on! We sat in one spot and more than doubled our catch in less than 50 minutes, taking our tally from 52 fish up to 111 fish. We used only a moderately-paced smoking tactic here. Jigging was not necessary as these fish were neither sluggish nor bottom-oriented.
Now, about those green eggs … it’s not what you’re thinking. “Green Eggs” are actually some new-fangled form of grill which use ceramic material to retain heat and provide a consistent cooking temperature over time. There is evidently a “Green Egg Grill” convention in Salado this weekend and Dan and Jason are pairing up to cook some samples and enjoy the festivities planned at Pace’s Park.
TALLY = 111 fish, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 3:30p
End Time: 7:45p
Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start
Water Surface Temp: ~58F
Wind: Winds were SSW10-13
Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.
Environmental Note: Noted first mayflies hatching today and first mass “rise” of insect life off the bottom at sunrise tonight.