This morning I fished with four soldiers’ kids — Rayna and Victoria Klutse, and Muhammad and Jebreel Ba, all accompanied by Mrs. Brandy Klutse. This was the 11th SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun)trip conducted so far this year.
(L to R) Jebreel, Rayna, Victoria, and Muhammad were all smiles about the white bass that hit our downrigged Pet Spoons this morning.
Rayna and Victoria’s dad, Captain Klutse, has been deployed 3 times. Following his most recent deployment he was sent to a conference focused on tactics adjustments based on lessons learned in Afghanistan, and, once he returns will head to gunnery, so, despite the fact that he’s back on U.S. soil, his kids won’t see much of him for weeks to come. Muhammad and Jebreel’s dad, Chief Warrant Officer Ba, has also been deployed multiple times and is currently preparing with his unit in the field for yet another deployment to Afghanistan in September, so his boys won’t see him for quite a while either.
I postponed all trips last week waiting for the low pressure system to pass and was glad to see that with the return of southerly winds and high pressure, the fish resumed the habits they demonstrated before all of last week’s rain fell.
Due to both the age and number of kids, I decided to stick strictly with downrigging today as long as the kids stayed interested. As it turned out, that was for about 2 1/2 hours. During this time we enjoyed a consistent white bass bite for fish averaging 12.5 inches (Area 1237 to 1239 early, then Area 1237 to 1233 later). We caught both singles and doubles as we used a tandem-rigged set of Pet Spoons on each of the two downrigging rods, putting together a catch of 39 fish (34 white bass, 1 largemouth, and 4 freshwater drum).
After the kids’ interest began to wane, we changed gears, headed shallow, and fished over a mix of wood, rock, and hydrilla for sunfish (Area 1098). The sunfish were eager to bite today, and we wound up catching 15 of them — a mix of longears, bluegills, and greens, all on a light slipbobber rig. The sunfish we found were in a protected cove, so there was little wind blowing. As the sun got hotter and the winds passed over us, it started to get uncomfortably warm as we fished for these sunfish, so, we changed up again and decided to give it one more try with a goal of landing one more white bass per child out in open water where the breeze blew before we wrapped up.
At Area 1231, we found the white bass holding down around 28 feet, so, we got our gear adjusted accordingly, and, in about 25 minutes accomplished our goal of boating each child one more fish for the day.
We all enjoyed the breezy ride back to the boat ramp with 58 fish caught for our efforts today!
To all of you friends of SKIFF who give of your time, talent, and treasure to provide these trips for our soldiers’ kids, I thank you.
TALLY = 58 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:40a
End Time: 10:45a
Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 84.1F
Wind: Winds were S6-7 the entire trip
Skies: Fair with < 80% cloud cover at trip's start, tapering off to 25% cover by trip's end.
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas