This fourth day of Spring Break 2013 I was joined by Tom S. of Dallas, his son, Jack, and Jack’s friend, Jake, both age 17.
Jack with two of the nicer fish we boated on blade baits cast horizontally this morning.
Tom with a TPWD Big Fish Award winner. That fat white bass on the left measured 15.25 inches.
Jake was pretty new to fishing, but is an athlete, so, his coordination kicked in after a bit of coaching and he held his own on what was a new adventure for him today.
Sometimes a fishing trip is a nicety, other times, it is a necessity. I’d rank this trip in the “necessity” category. Spring Break has not been easy on Tom and his clan — Tom suspects his new Lab puppy of burying his wallet earlier this week with cash, cards, ID, and fishing license. Next, Jack’s car got a “free towing package” awarded to it as it sat at a Subway while he and Jake attended Six Flags in Arlington, and, to top it all off, they all got a major runaround from a major outdoor retailer while trying to get Jake his license for this trip. By the time they got to the boat ramp after an early morning 3+ hour drive from DFW, they NEEDED to catch some fish for therapeutic purposes!!
We made “first contact” with fish today using downriggers between Area 052 and 335 over a 20-25 foot flat. Terns showed us the way to the fish, but the fish were widely scattered in small clusters, so, we covered ground in a hurry with the ‘riggers and wound up boating 21 fish in our first 70 minutes, including 3 sets of doubles, all on Pet Spoons.
Next, we headed to Area 1183 and found white bass feeding aggressively along the bottom at a breakline from ~17 to 25 feet of water. I saw these fish were stacked vertically on the drop and dispersed horizontally up on the flat in this area, so, we first “smoked” slabs vertically for the fish directly beneath us, and then cast blade baits and worked them near bottom to coax the fish on the flat into striking. We put 26 fish in the boat in this area, most of which went 13.5 to 14.5 inches, with one fish Tom boated going exactly 15.25 inches, thus qualifying him for a TPWD “Big Fish” Award.
By around 12:30 things were beginning the downhill slide toward the midday pause in action between the morning bite and evening bite. We tried one last stop at Area 074 and, with very little showing on sonar, managed to put a final 5 fish in the boat, all via a vertical jigging approach.
TALLY = 52 fish, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 8:15a
End Time: 1:15p
Air Temp: 50F at trip’s start
Water Surface Temp: ~57-58F
Wind: Winds were SSW10-13
Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.