Find the MAL Original and the 3/4-ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slab at the Liberty Mart on Adams Ave. uphill from Temple Lake Park, or here: https://whitebasstools.com/

We had yet another morning right at 45°F before sunrise.  This morning winds were light and from the west at sunrise, thus there was not as much of a chilly bite in the air as we had yesterday morning. With decreased wind velocity, fish interest was also decreased as compared to yesterday.

Still, we enjoyed a low-light bite in the first hour following sunrise, after which things got a bit tougher as the winds went slack prior to shifting out of the southeast on the lead edge of a warm-up.

We struggled a bit both finding and catching fish during this calm, but, as soon as the slightest ripple began from the southeast, the fish turned on and kept getting more aggressive right up until the winds peaked around 10:30 AM. During this time I hit two distinct areas several hundred yards apart and in similar terrain in about 30 feet of water.

I thoroughly coached Matt and Joe on using the white, 5/8 ounce, Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs they were using with a slow-smoking tactic in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope. The harder the wind blew, the faster the fish moved horizontally, the more willing they were to chase vertically, and the higher they would suspend off of the bottom. It is really amazing how white bass activity coincides with wind velocity.

These three areas I described gave up all of the 58 fish, Joe and Matt would catch this morning. That catch included 4 freshwater drum, 1 hybrid, striped bass, and 53 white bass.

100% of today’s catch was made on the white, 5/8 ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slab used with a slow-smoking tactic.

Today was the second full day of a northerly blow following a cold front which passed through late Monday night dropping our morning low temperature to just 45° this morning.

Although we faced post-frontal conditions, we still had enough wind to keep the fish stirred up.

We experienced a solid low-light bite for the first hour following sunrise, putting 20 fish in the boat, rather easily, using a combination of easing and slow-smoking with a white, 5/8 ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slab.

As we were catching fish, about 20 birds were working a different school of fish nearby.

As we stopped catching fish where we were, the bird stopped working where they were, and the fishing got slower for about 90 minutes. During this time, we found fish, albeit in rather small schools, caught , one or two or three fish, and then had to move after these fish remained visible on sonar, but refused to chase and bite.

Around 9:45 or so the bite began to bounce back, and we began to put more fish in the boat with each of the last three stops we would make. Our last area produced 18 fish, which came out of 46 feet of water, the deepest I’ve caught fish in over six weeks.  We changed over to 3/4 oz. slabs for this deeper work to cut the wait time as the slab sank toward bottom.

We wrapped up the trip with exactly 60 fish landed, including 57 white bass and three freshwater drum.

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.

On Thursday afternoon, March 28, I fished with a pair of fathers and sons from the Salado area. Joining me, were Mike Splawn, and his son, Josh, and J.J. Peckham and his nine-year-old son, Declan.

Thanks to a nice warm-up into the low 70s, and winds which were steady at S 12–13, fishing was better this afternoon then I have seen in over a week’s time. Although the fish were still not aggressive, they were fairly easily found, and, with enough schools yielding 10 to 20 fish each, we were able to put together a catch of 89 fish with two rather inexperienced boys, who only stayed hard after it for about three of the four hours.

For the first half of the trip, while the fish were less aggressive, we relied on working white, three-quarter ounce slabs vertically with a slow smoking tactic.

By the trip’s halfway point, fish were beginning to chase farther off the bottom and more quickly upwards, thus indicating an increase in their energy level. As I saw this happening, and as fish presented themselves off the port or starboard side of the boat as seen on side imaging, I had , Michael and J..J use the sawtooth method with MAL Original lures to present baits to a greater number of fish by reaching out horizontally.

This trend of increasing aggressiveness continued right up to sunset, allowing us to jump right into horizontal presentations at the last two areas we fished .

Since the boys were not all that focused at this point, I had them use the MAL Lures vertically since their main interest was now in watching fish follow their baits on the Garmin LiveScope.

The 89 fish catch this afternoon consisted of 88 white bass and 1 white crappie.

Although this morning’s 48° start was still 11° warmer than yesterday‘s 37° start, the overnight temperatures were still well below the surface temperature of the lake, thus we continued to cool off following last Friday’s cold front.

The fishing was not quite as tough as it was yesterday, but the fish were still far from giddy. We managed a few fish horizontally in under 17 feet of water just after sunrise, picking up seven nice white bass on MAL Original Lures cast into about 20 feet of water and worked with a sawtooth method. That dried up after about 50 minutes.

I did some looking, and scratched at two areas while looking with sonar. The third area I headed to looked pretty good with two gulls working as we approached.

As I got over the patch of water the birds were working, I could see active fish as much as 2 or 3 feet up off the bottom, so I Spot-Locked on them, and we switched over to vertical tactics, employing three-quarter ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs using a slow smoking tactic and moving the lures at a pace of 93 BPM.

This was our most productive stop of the trip and the action lasted about 30 minutes. As we fished, I noticed increased gull activity back behind us in deeper water – – about 30 feet of water.

I’m motored over toward these fish, and as I got closer, I could see some very light surface activity, despite a bit of chop on the water. I cut the motor a good hundred yards out from  this surface activity and trolled the rest of the way in to the fish. As we trolled in, I gave Terri and Roger instructions on how to use a countdown method to target these fish, which were obviously near the surface.

I had them cast, count the lure down four seconds, and then do a steady retrieve at a rate of 105 BPM. They each landed four or five fish that way, after which the fish activity and the bird activity slacked off.

Still seeing plenty of fish on bottom on both down- imaging and 2-D sonar, I switched us back to slow smoking with the slabs, and we landed another dozen or so until finally the activity at this entire area fell to nil.

We continued fishing another 45 minutes or so, and although we found fish, we simply could not get them to chase, nor show any interest whatsoever in our presentations.

We finished the day with 43 fish landed, including one hybrid striped bass, one freshwater drum, one largemouth bass, and 40 white bass.

We had a very tough weather scenario facing us today as classic, post-frontal conditions plagued us for a full  2+ hours of our trip. During this time, the sun was bright, the temperatures were cold, and the winds were flat. Over this span of time we managed a total of 18 fish going from place to place, picking up just single digits, and then moving along, all the while using vertical tactics .

Finally, around 10:30, a returning South wind kicked in and within minutes we saw our results turn around as the wind continued, the bite built, and we wound up picking up a total of 50 fish by around 12:15.

100% of our fish today were caught on the white, 3/4-ounce Bladed  Hazy Eye Slab.  I upsized to this bait earlier this week after observing both spawning shad and adult shad being fed upon by even small white bass as fish fed on the surface late last week.

Our catch of 50 fish included 5hybrid striped bass, 1 blue, catfish, 1 freshwater drum, and 2 largemouth bass with the balance consisting of all legal white bass.