If you tuned in yesterday, you’ll know that I fished with “Daddy John” G. of Belton and his grandsons, 12 year old Frank, and 10 year old Harrison, both of Lexington, Kentucky. Today, that same trio joined me again.
We ended with a bang today — 31 fish in the last 40 minutes of fishing!! Obviously, Frank did his part.
Harrison was set on beating yesterday’s tally of 88. We pulled ahead to 103 in the ninth inning.
The boys were just as enthusiastic to get on the water for Day 2 as they were yesterday. We got right down to business this morning since the boys had already lived through the learning curve the day before.
Downriggers set where the suspended fish showed to be interspersed with bait just above the thermocline did the trick once again today. We started our hunt where I felt the SSW wind would be most directly impacting underwater structures and this paid off well. We boated 56 fish by 9:00am via the tandem-rigged Pet Spoons, with one episode of “smoking” slabs (TNT180’s) thrown in for good measure. (Area 884/842/1130).
By 9:30 this area began to cool off so we went hunting. I looked over one area quickly with sonar, found a few fish but no bait, and gave it a try for a few minutes without result. This was not surprising as the wind was not impacting this area much.
We then headed for what would be our final destination of the day. Between Areas 1242 and 1237 we found deep white bass schooled in 29 to 32 feet of water over a deeper bottom. In 5 passes we boated 16 fish which told me these fish were really turned on even though they were not tightly bunched together. As we prepared to re-rig after a double release, I spotted a large school (several hundred fish) of tightly grouped whites associated with the others we’d been catching. If my boat had brakes, I’d have slammed them on right here. Instead, I tossed a buoy to mark those fish. We got over top of them with the trolling motor and used the Spot Lock feature to hold on them.
The boys went to work with my smoking rods and they wore those fish out. We caught 31 fish in that small area (about 12 feet in diameter) over the next 40 minutes, taking our fish count past yesterday’s count of 88, and all the way up to 103 fish before the school settled down and we called it a great day, thus ending on a high note.
Our catch of 103 fish consisted of 1 crappie, 1 drum, 5 largemouth bass, and 96 white bass. Good stuff!!!
TALLY = 103 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 11:05a
Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 85.6F
Wind: Winds were SSW10 at sunrise, tapering back to SSW8 within 30 minutes following sunrise.
Skies: 95% thin grey cloud cover.
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas