This morning I fished with 15 year old Matthew M. of Temple, and his 13 year old cousin, Bennie, both accompanied by their grandfather.
Bennie boated the trip’s big fish today. This 3.5 pound largemouth slurped up his bladebait near bottom in 23′ of water.
Matthew and Bennie worked bladebaits and the downriggers today to take some very nice white bass with a few largemouth, sunfish, and drum thrown in for good measure.
We experienced a wrinkle in our fishing today in that we had winds already from a westerly component before sunrise, then shifting to north of west by mid-morning. The fish still fed and we caught plenty, but they were tentative. We experienced next to no topwater bite, and what topwater action there was was fast and sporadic.
I really wanted to get the boys on some sight-fishing opportunities to allow them to cast to boiling fish with topwater baits so as to see the strike, but that just didn’t work out today.
We got into the fish well for the first time after 7:30a in the vicinity of Area 458/205. White bass were pushing shad to the surface and the commotion is what caught my eye and brought us to that area. As we shut down the motor and crept in, I assessed things and thought a sub-surface approach would be best given the situation. So, we rigged up with bladebaits and fished them via a count-down style and with a lift-drop tactic and scored well both ways. We put in about 1 1/2 hours in this area casting and netted 39 fish for the effort.
After this, we stayed in this general area and continued to downrig tandem-rigged Pet Spoons for 6 more fish before pulling the plug and looking elsewhere. It was at this time that the windshift occurred, and with it, a short interruption in our fishing success.
We headed over to Area 1232, found fish well congregated at around 30 feet over a 35-38 foot bottom. We ran slabs through these fish but they simply weren’t interested in a vertical presentation. After picking up just one drum out of what was clearly a lot of white bass, we gave the downriggers another go and worked over this exact spot again horizontally and scored multiple times. In the next 45 minutes we continued boating singles and doubles and even double-doubles (two rods each with 2 fish on the tandem rigs equaling 4 fish brought in at a time). We took our tally from 46 fish up to 65 fish.
As we began this morning, Matthew, who has fished with me on a number of occasions, requested that we leave some time for fishing for sunfish in the shallows. He had enjoyed doing this on previous trips and wanted to show Bennie the method. So, with the white bass still hitting the downriggers well, we left these fish biting to target some sunfish and then wrap up for the morning.
At this point our count stood at 65 fish boated. It was here that a bit of competitive spirit kicked in. On a recent trip out with his cousin Kelsie, Matthew and she boated 68 fish. Well, Bennie wanted to beat that total. So, as we quietly approached Area 200, the boys were on a mission to boat at least 4 sunfish. As we eyed the situation, got our float depths adjusted and lines in the water, it was clear the sunfish here were eager. The “68” mark was soon eclipsed and the bite died down only after the 9th sunfish was brought aboard, making our grand total 74 fish on the day. In Kelsie’s defense, we had to spend nearly 5 hours on the water to accomplish this 74 fish feat, so, the comparison to her (4 hour) trip’s result is not exactly “apples-to-apples”.
TALLY = 74 FISH, all caught and released
Get my fishing reports sent to your Facebook page
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:25a
End Time: 10:05a
Air Temp: 79F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 84.1F
Wind: Winds were SW4 slowly increasing to WSW8, then changing abruptly to WNW8 around 9:45.
Skies: Fair and cloudless.
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas