This morning I fished with Rob O. of Gatesville, his 19 year old son, Nick (a college student at Tarleton State), and Goncalo, a 16 year old foreign exchange student from Chile, now living with Rob and his family and attending Gatesville High.
Despite cold hands, damp breezes, (and spilled coffee!), everyone boated both good quantities and quality of fish this morning.
Goncalo came up with this largemouth on a crankbait fished in 12 feet of water. It was the first fish of his life!!
We’re at that magic time of year where rising fish metabolism trumps all else including foul weather. Despite a damp, mild cold front pushing in overnight (which usually negatively impacts the fishery), the fish were on a solid feed up shallow for the first 90 minutes of light this morning, and never quit feeding completely until both the wind stopped and the sun began to shine brightly after noon.
I met up with Rob, Nick, and Goncalo and, thanks to a handful of helpful gulls, we were able to drive from the boat ramp to the fish and began bringing fish in on our first series of casts. We first contacted fish in 6-12 feet of water near Area 742/089. We knew the white bass were pushing baitfish to the surface, and, as I idled into the area, I saw even more fish lying tight to the bottom, so, we went with a horizontal approach casting blade baits. This scored a total of 22 fish before the feed eased up, and the fish pushed deeper, scattered a bit, and got a bit sluggish.
At this point, we worked over Area 089/1159 with flatlined crank baits and targeted fish holding on bottom in 12-16 feet of water. We picked up 15 fish, including white bass, largemouth bass, drum and crappie, catching steadily for about 45 minutes until that success began to erode and we decided to search deeper.
We headed out to search the 30-45 foot range and found both fish and shad in abundance along the old Lampasas River channel in several places. We first contacted these deeper fish at Area 1189, boating an additional 7 white bass, then made a “short hop” in the same general vicinity and picked up 10 more before these fish moved off.
We again found fish adjacent to the river channel at Area 074/1017 and had a field day here, taking our tally from 54 fish to a final tally of 94 fish in our final 30 minutes on the water. These fish were tightly bunched and occasionally rose up off the bottom to strike our slabs as they fell downwards.
Rob, Nick, and Goncalo were a fun bunch of fellows to be with; Goncalo was an excellent ambassador and represented Chile well.
I asked Goncalo what he felt his greatest misconception of America or Americans was, now that he’s able to look back and consider his preconceived notions versus the reality he’s now experienced. He said he thought Americans would be very different than he actually found them to be. He said, “Really, Americans are just like the people in my country, except they speak English.”
TALLY = 94 fish, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 8:00a
End Time: 12:50p
Air Temp: 49F at trip’s start
Water Surface Temp: ~63-64F
Wind: Winds were NNE13 slowly tapering to calm by trip’s end.
Skies: Skies were leaden grey until 10:30, then the overcast slowly began to thin through trip’s end at which time the sun shone directly for the first time all day.