This past Thursday morning I fished with Dr. Ron Grimwood and retired physician Dr. John Greene.

 

From left: Dr. Ron Grimwood and Dr. John Greene with a sampling of the largemouth we caught on small, shad-imitating paddle-tail grubs as they fed heavily on the surface for the first several hours of this morning’s trip.  Although there were certainly average-sized “schoolies” as are typically found feeding in topwater schools, there were also quality 3-4 pound fish like these mixed in as well.

 

After the surface bite died, we went deep and found more 2-3 year class fish than we did yearlings holding in deep schools in over 60′.  Slabs worked vertically did the trick for these heavily congregated fish.

I’d first met John, a retired pathologist, back in 2013 when he arranged for a summertime fishing trip for his two grandsons from Kentucky.  This was the first time I’d met Ron, a dermatologist at Baylor Scott & White.  A friend of his, Dr. Chad Housewright, presented him with a fishing gift certificate for two last year, and so today was the day to redeem it.

We had stable, grey, mild conditions this morning which were, once again, just right for topwater action.

After a brief, but action-packed, downrigging session in which we landed 17 singles, doubles, and triples of white bass on 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons, we transitioned right into casting to surface-feeding fish once they appeared in force on the surface just a few minutes before 7am.

We stuck with this aggressive, engaging surface activity for about 2.5 hours until it finally died.  During the frenzy, we cast paddle-tail grubs on jigheads and used a fast retrieve to imitate escaping young-of-the-year shad.  When the surface went temporarily quiet, I’d use sonar to find bottom-hugging schools of white bass (which seemed to be everywhere), and we’d fish slabs vertically with a smoking tactic until more surface action erupted.

Around 9:30am, the topwater bonanza ended and we searched for deeper schools of white bass in water as much as 62 feet deep and closed out the trip catching these fish on smoked slabs.

TALLY: 107 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp: 83.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE6 most of the trip

Sky Conditions: Once the sun cleared a grey cloud bank in the east, we had increasingly clear skies to ~30% cloud cover by trip’s end

Water Level: 0.34 feet high and slowly rising; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 100

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 723-781 – downrigging under low light conditions for aggressive, suspended white bass, yielding singles, doubles, triples on Pet Spoons

**Area 781-1908 – 2.5 full hours of casting to topwater action

**Area 915 – last 45 minutes spent working slabs with smoking tactic for deep, heavily congregated white bass

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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