We had lines in the water this morning by 7:45 AM and enjoyed a strong bite through 9:35 AM.

During this time, Byron and Cyrus landed 37 white bass and missed additional fish as they worked MAL original lures along the bottom, using a sawtooth method. I was pretty impressed with Cyrus in that he did not know how to cast with spinning gear prior to the trip .

With just a brief lesson near the boat ramp before we set off to find fish, he was casting close to the maximum distance the rod/reel/line/lure combination would allow for, was controlling his slack well, and was very consistently working his bait correctly . He reaped the benefits of this by landing just as many fish as his dad.

Around 9:40 AM, the winds really ratcheted up very suddenly, and the fish we were on simply quit biting, despite being present. In hindsight, the bite actually all but ended around that time, but we did not realize it at that point.

I spent a fruitless 35 minutes searching for the next group of fish we would present lures to, only to have them refuse to approach the baits horizontally and refuse to rise off bottom to chase after them vertically.

Realizing that we were going to be fighting an uphill battle from this point, I tried to find fish as deep and as heavily schooled as I could, as these fish always seem to be more approachable when fish up shallow turn off. We did locate one such school and Byron and Cyrus very much enjoyed watching the schools of fish pass under the boat, watch their lures rise and fall, and watch the fish response to their lures as they used Garmin LiveScope for the first time.

I coached them through the use of a slow-smoking tactic using the three-quarter ounce, white bladed Hazy Eye Slab to tempt these fish.

This would be the final fish we would fish for, as this school gave up seven fish over the span of about 50 minutes.

I would have to say this was one of the most striking changes of attitude I have observed in white bass given that the only weather change was the spike in wind speed we experienced.

When all was said and done, Byron and Cyrus landed 44 fish, including 43 white bass, and 1 short hybrid striped bass.