This morning I finished with Don Roe, his wife Tracey, and their youngest son, Kevin. The Roe family traveled in from Dayton, Texas, to visit their oldest son, Donnie, who is stationed at Fort Hood serving with the 1st Cavalry Division where, in just 4 years of enlisted service, Donnie has seen 2 combat tours, one to Iraq, and the other to Afghanistan.
L to R: Don, Tracey, and Kevin Roe of Dayton, TX, took in a family fishing trip while visiting their oldest son, Donnie, at Fort Hood.
Don and Tracy run their own sports uniform and screen printing business, and Kevin is headed to college for his freshman year on a baseball scholarship to Angelina College in Lufkin, TX.
As we got going this morning the bite began around 7:15am. We begin to encounter suspended schools of white bass on the move. After putting 8 to 10 fish in the boat on three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons, we began to see widespread surface feeding by largemouth bass and terns dipping to the water surface to pick up crippled shad. We looked within 150 yards or so of this activity, slowly and carefully sweeping the area with sonar and found small “patches” of fish (schools of 30-40 fish) – on bottom and ready to feed.
I simply dropped a buoy on top of these fish, turned back around, and let the i-Pilot work it’s magic in keeping us directly over top of the fish we had buoyed. We worked three-quarter ounce TNT slabs vertically in and around these fish and kept fish coming in the boat for a solid hour and 20 minutes making about three stops in one general vicinity over this period of time.
Once this bite died at this location, the overall bite softened very quickly over the next hour. We found a few more suspended schools of white bass holding down around 26 to 28 feet and downrigged successfully for 5 more fish, despite seeing dozens on sonar. By 10:15 the bite was over and, despite searching three more areas hoping to find some stragglers, we found nothing but bait and called it a day by 1045.
Our total catch today was 58 fish including 56 white bass and 2 freshwater drum.
TALLY = 58 FISH
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:30am
End Time: 10:40am
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F
Water Surface Temp: 86.1F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE6, shifting to SSW12 over the first 4 hours of daylight
Sky Conditions: Fair with no cloud cover.
Other: GT=40
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1260 downrigging in low light conditions at trip’s start for ~8 fish
**Area 882 smoking with slabs
**Area 856 and vicinity, smoking with slabs (most productive area of the morning; ~45 minutes of action)
**Area 1222-668 downrigging for reluctant, suspended fish as the bite was dying; picked up last 5 white bass here
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)