The Lacanne Boys Pull in 71

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning I fished a multi-species trip with Shane Lacanne and his sons, 6-year-old Jackson, and 5-year-old Fisher.  Shane makes his living selling real estate as a broker in the central Texas area through his business, Entire Real Estate L.L.C.

 

That’s Shane Lacanne holding up his boys’ fish, and that Fisher on the left and Jackson giving the “thumbs up”.  We used 3 different tactics in 3 different areas today to provide the boys with enough change of focus and change of scenery to keep them engaged from start to finish.  They landed 71 fish.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR:  This was a multi-species trip focused on white bass,

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED:  Wednesday morning, 15 August 2018

HOW WE FISHED:  Given the boys’ ages of 5 and 6, I wanted to “mix it up” over the 3.5 hours of this “Kids Fish, Too!” package trip.  Even on the best of days kids this young won’t stay interested in the same thing for very long, so, we began by sunfishing up in the shallows under low light conditions, and managed to capture 25 fish this way on bream poles, including bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, green sunfish, blacktail shiners, and a juvenile largemouth bass.  Next, I introduced the boys to downrigging and we downrigged one area until both boys had the opportunity to catch a fish and go through the entire process of setting up the ‘riggers through to landing a fish.  As this area where we did this “intro” was not all that productive, we moved on to a second area which had an abundance of gamefish and shad present.  We continued downrigging in this local, taking another 40+ fish in this area in the form of singles and doubles striking the Pet Spoons on our 3-armed umbrella rigs routinely.  Once I saw Fisher, the younger brother, starting to play out a bit, I introduced the boys to our final tactic of the morning — that of using tailspinners.  The key to using tailspinners is parking the boat over aggressive, bottom-oriented gamefish.  Some days, ample opportunities exist to do this, on other days shots at such fish are scarce.  Today, in our last hour on the water, and in about 38-40 feet of water, we came upon exactly what the doctor ordered — abundant, feeding fish tight to the bottom.  All four of us worked the tailspinners vertically and handed hooked fish off to the boys to reel in if they weren’t already battling a fish of their own.  When all was said and done, we landed 25 small fish on the bream poles, and 51 larger fish on the downriggers and tailspinners, including 1 freshwater drum, 2 largemouth bass, and 48 white bass, most of which were in the 2-year class.  With some well-timed snacks woven in, the boys stayed engaged the entire time and were already asking when the could go again as they disembarked back at the boat ramp.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 

This week’s thermocline measurements were as follows:

0 feet 84.5°

5 feet 83.8°

10 feet 83.8°

15 feet 83.8°

20 feet 83.8°

25 feet 83.7°

30 feet 83.7°

35 feet 83.6°

40 feet 80.1°

45 feet 70.7°

50 feet 66.8°

55 feet 63.5°

60 feet 61.4°

 

TALLY: 71 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp:   84.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW wind at 8-9 through 8am, then ramping up another 3-4 mph to S13-14 thereafter.

Sky Conditions: ~20% cloud cover

Water Level: 7.26 feet low and falling

GT = 25

Wx SNAPSHOT:  

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  201 – sunfish

**Area  1447-495-1970 – white bass via downriggers and tailspinners

 

 

 

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingelleTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

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