We struggled to get the fish count out of the teens this morning and the weather forecast didn’t hold much hope for improvement, but, even catching a few is better than sitting around eating leftovers or watching TV, so, out we went.

I’d fished with Abby twice before, both in the summer time — once using live shad for hybrid and once throwing bladebaits for warm water white bass, so, this was our first cool water trip thus allowing for an introduction to “slabbing” (vertical jigging) for white bass.

Abby got the hang of slabbing very quickly, so, each time she was able to perform a certain skill well, I added a new skill so she’d be exposed to as much as time would allow for.  We started off with the basics of line control and depth control, then we added the jigging stroke, then we threw in an “easing” tactic for changing cadence, then we moved her up to observe sonar while doing all of these things, and, finally, began some basic sonar interpretation skills.

We found small clusters of fish in 25-38 feet of water.  When I marked fish on sonar, we’d hover over them, catch 2 or 3  and then the bite would die.  We’d move a boat length or two, catch a few more, and then the bite would die again.  Slowly we put together a bag of 19 for our efforts with both Rodney and I missing more fish than is typical thanks to soft, tentative bites, almost like the fish were nudging the slab instead of taking it into their mouths.

By sunset it was getting cool and the fish had done all they were going to do, so we came off the water so Rodney and clan could head over to the “Christmas in Lights” display at Belton Lake Outdoor Recreation Area (BLORA).

We caught all the fish we caught from 3 different areas and all in the first 90 minutes of the day.  After that sunrise bite died, is just got really tough.  We tried downrigging to cover some ground with baits in the water and, several times, marked fish only to try to return to them and find them gone.

Fishing aside, I got to hear about “Mr. Bob’s” flyrod techniques for farm pond panfish back in North Carolina and catch up on how a few classmates Bobby and I have as mutual friends were doing.