This past Friday morning I fished with Jerry Morgan and his son and daughter-in-law, Chris and Holly Morgan.

 

From left: Chris, Jerry, and Holly Morgan with a sampling of the deepwater white bass we found in ~56 feet of water slowly combing over bottom with sonar.

 

Holly landed a triple early in the game — catching 3 fish on each of the Pet Spoons on a 3-armed umbrella rig.

Chris landed a multi-species double by catching a largemouth bass on the treble hook of a slab and a white bass on the Hazy Eye Stinger hook I retrofit all of my slabs with.

Jerry landed the big fish of the trip — a 3.3 pound largemouth which hit his 3/4 oz slab.  We lost several like this one right at the boat as they rose quickly from the depths and did the characteristic “largemouth head shake” right at the surface.

Jerry worked in the grocery business most of his career and then, for the last ten years before retiring, taught high school students at Shoemaker High School in Killeen. Chris is the offensive line coach for the Atlanta Falcons and graduated from Killeen High School.  He met Holly during his college years.  They have twin 4-year old boys and an 8 year-old daughter.

I was a bit concerned about how today’s trip would pan out because, for the last several days, much of our success came on fish feeding on young-of-the year shad at the surface.  Today’s high winds were not going to allow for spotting such activity if it even developed.

As we got going, we began downrigging in the same vicinity that has produced fish all week in the opening hour of the trip.  Today, the action was just as strong as before, but, as the skies brightened, the time at which top water feeding began on Monday through Thursday saw a downturn in action today.  We enjoyed a brief spurt of action using slabs in a vertical presentation, but after that dried up, the entire area went quiet.

We went about 45 minutes without fish from about 7:45a to 8:30a before I moved us to the most wind-exposed area I could find, hoping the moving water would have some deepwater fish stirred up.

With just a little bit of sonar effort, we found what we were looking for.  Atop Area 1956 we put over 100 fish in the boat over a 2 hour span, including 1, 2, and 3 year old white bass,  largemouth up to 3.3 pounds, and even a few freshwater drum for variety’s sake.

TALLY: 133 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp: 83.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW winds at 13 at trip’s start, building to SSW18 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: 100% cloudy conditions slowly cleared to 50% clouds by trip’s end

Water Level: 0.35 feet high and stable; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 85

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1043-1908-1951 – downrigging under low light conditions for aggressive, suspended white bass, yielding singles, doubles, triples on Pet Spoons; 32 fish

**Area 1956 – 2 hours’ worth of slabbing for 101 fish; mixed back of whites, blacks, drum

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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