This evening I fished with 14-year-old D.J. Burfischer and 5-year-old Jordann Simmons, accompanied by Mrs. Ann Burfischer (D.J.’s mom and Jordann’s grandmother), all of Waco, TX. This all began with a simple e-mail from Ann to me back on September 23rd after she found me by doing an internet search and saw that I work a lot with kids and family groups.
L to R: D.J. and Jordann with a sampling of the 63 fish we caught as an autumn cold front pushed through.
We had some crazy weather today with 1.2 inches of rain falling between 2am and 11am with the arrival of a cold front. Once the turbulent weather passed, the rain ended, and the heavy grey clouds began to lighten up, things were just right for a bite to turn on, and, fortunately we were able to work the timing on this trip to take advantage of this window of opportunity.
We were less than 4 minutes out of the No Wake zone when we got onto our first fish of the trip. We encountered a large school of white bass in 38 feet of water orienting to the bottom. We started off working slabs through these fish, then “mopped up” with bladebaits, landing a total of 16 fish in our first 30 minutes of fishing.
The thermocline is breaking down and as it does, deeper and deeper waters become oxygenated that have been off limits to fish all summer. After a summer consisting of 80%+ percent of each trip spent downrigging, today, downrigging was but a fraction of our program, and then only in the waning moments of daylight for fish coming up off bottom to take advantage of the remaining light up shallow.
We spent our entire trip today hopping around a 3 main locations, 2 of which I had scouted earlier in the week. Each location was 36-44 feet deep, each with large concentrations of bottom-oriented white bass, and each giving up fish to a slab and bladebait tactics.
Young Jordann had never caught a fish before, so, he earned his First Fish Award this evening!
We wound up with exactly 63 fish, every last one of which was a white bass. Fish from the 1, 2, 3, and 4 year classes were present in our catch.
TALLY = 63 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:20p
End Time: 7:30p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 62F
Water Surface Temp: 77.4F
Wind Speed & Direction: NNW12, tapering to NNW9
Sky Conditions: Fully greyed over but thinning and lightening
Other: GT=15
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 914 – smoking 3/4 oz. TNT’s and working blades
**Area – 1459 – smoking 3/4 oz. TNT’s and working blades
**Area – 1006 – 1451 – smoking 3/4 oz. TNT’s and working blades
**Area 1458 – 1460 downrigging for a final triple, double, and single — 6 fish in the last 10 minutes of light
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com