Grade “A” White Bass — 124 Fish, Spring Break trip #11

This windy afternoon I fished with old college buddies Ben and Bryan Uy (pronounced YOU-wee), and their friend Xerxes Pascua.  Ben is now an Austin attorney, Bryan is an engineer, and Xerxes works at a state-level savings and loan regulatory agency.

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From left: Xerxes, Bryan, and Ben with a sampling of this evening’s catch.  Fish typically continue to bite during a cold front right up until the winds let up.  Fortunately, the winds stayed up sufficient to fuel feeding behavior for our entire 4 hours on the water.

 

As the cold front that roared in around 6:45p yesterday began to blow itself out, the winds which blew steadily 20-22 and gusted higher on occasion, began to slowly scale back.  As we began our trip at 3:45p, the winds were at NE18 with temps in the high 50’s thanks to clear skies and direct sunshine.  The winds would continue to taper down to about 11 mph by trip’s end at 7:45p.

 

We had some factors working both for us and against us.  In the “Pros” column: warmer than normal water temperatures, wind-moved water, clearing water, hungry post-spawn fish, some natural “sign” in the form of gulls and ospreys working over the water here and there.  In the “Cons” column: northerly wind direction, bright skies, winds impacting boat control to some extent.

 

As we motored to the area I wanted to try first, I really wasn’t sure what sonar might or might not reveal.  I was therefore quite relieved to see a nice, tight cluster of fish on a breakline that produced earlier this morning.  As we got baits down to the fish to sample their activity level, they responded, but were pretty subdued about it all.  We managed a few fish here and on a few short-hops in this general vicinity, then moved on with 8 fish landed from out of ~34′.

 

Our next stop came in right at 40′ of clearer water.  Sonar revealed fish closely packed together on a breakline.  As soon as the slabs went down, the fish came up.  We fished over these fish for just over an hour and 20 minutes, boating an additional 61 fish for our efforts until they played out.

 

Our third stop was a bust, but, our final stop (at around 6:45p) would be our best stop of the trip.  We had more manageable winds and decreasing light levels working in our favor.  We nearly doubled our catch in right at an hour’s time, finishing the trip with 122 fish.

TALLY = 124 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  7:55p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Water Surface Temp:  65.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Hard NE winds at 17 tapering down to 12

Sky Conditions:  Clear blue skies thanks to incoming high pressure

Water Level: 625.10 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1143 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.13 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 50

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

19MAR16

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 108/1049 – vertical jigging with slabs
 
**Area 128 – vertical jigging with slabs
**Area 780 – vertical jigging with slabs

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

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