Tom’s friend, Chuck Smith, lives in Morgan’s Point right on Lake Belton. Chuck got wind of my guide service through his neighbor two doors down, Rob Page, who had a successful outing with me around Christmas. So, Chuck brought his son, Nolan, and Tom brought his son and daughter, Jacob and Heidi, and a family friend, Tristan Early, for a grand total of six anglers on this cool, damp early March Saturday.

A small storm system passed over our area from southwest to northeast and cleared the area just before first light. This provided us with two dry hours of fishing through about 9 AM, with the last two hours bringing just the lightest of occasional drizzle.

Like many teenage boys, the ones aboard my boat today thought themselves invincible and showed up in, catch this, shorts! It came as no surprise when, at around 9 AM, the boys took me up on my offer of a loaner set of rain gear to cover up with when we made a quick restroom stop at that time.

As for the fishing, we enjoyed a full two hours of shallow water blade bait fishing under active birds. The surface temperature actually slacked off a bit from the high it had reached around 62 Fahrenheit. Today’s starting surface temperature was 60.1, thanks to two chilly days on Thursday and Friday following a clear cool front that push pushed in.  The fish we found under birds were in 24 to 28 feet of water.

After our 9 AM bathroom/clothing break we returned to the area we had been throwing blade baits in, only to find the action had died there.

The remainder of the trip was spent searching out deepwater areas adjacent to the old Lampasas River channel using sonar to find large concentrations of white bass along the breakline. Using the Spot Lock feature on my trolling motor, I would very precisely position us directly over these fish, and then let my crew’s six slabs rain down into those fish. Once the first “icebreaker” fish was caught, the rest of the fish often “loosened up” and bit readily, albeit typically only for a few minutes.  After the bite turned off, although we still saw fish holding on bottom via sonar, they simply refused to bite. That meant it was time to continue looking for another school of fish.

Our success was fairly evenly spread over the morning. From 7 AM to 9 AM we landed 49 fish, and from 9 AM through 11:20 AM we landed another 64 fish.

There is no doubt that those shallower fish we caught on blade baits early were, on average, larger than the smaller, deepwater fish we took on slabs later in the trip. As we closed out the day I good naturedly chided the boys with one of my favorite sayings attributed to the Norwegians  – – “There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.”

Since the day Tom reserved this trip, I really looked at it as a bit of a challenge. Not only was the party a large one – – maxing out my boat with six anglers – – but, this trip came at a time when the weather very much impacts the fishing. Add to that a handful of youthful anglers, and the fact that Chuck is blind, forced me to think through exactly how I was going to position everyone in the boat, how I would explain the tactics we would be using to everyone, and where we would go to find fish.

When the trip was concluded and all six anglers had caught about the same number of fish, I was pleased that I had intentionally thought through these things and then had seen them come to a positive outcome. It certainly helped that all six of my crew had positive attitudes, and enjoyed one another’s company, despite the somewhat uncomfortable conditions.