David (L) and Kaleb (R) with proud mom, Angela, in the background following today’s trip. The smiles tell it all!!

This morning I had the pleasure of welcoming two very fine young men aboard — David and Kaleb M. Their mom, originally from El Paso, is on active duty serving at Ft. Hood.

The boys’ previous fishing experience was very limited, so, we began with casting lessons before even boarding the boat. David’s hands were a bit larger than Kaleb’s (they’re 2 years apart) so he did best with a closed-face reel, while Kaleb seemed to do best with an underspin reel. So, with our arsenal now customized, we went hunting for the big ones.

We enjoyed success in two general areas today. First, right at sunrise schools of both largemouth and white bass began to lightly surface feed near Area 910. This was nowhere near as aggressive as yesterday’s heavy feed, but still provided a “target rich environment” for my beginners. We used Spook Jr. hardbaits at first; they weren’t a good match for the forage size, but the boys needed the weight to add distance to their casts. We caught 18 fish during the first volley and before the winds went flat and the fish left the surface.

We downrigged for about 25 minutes as we hoped the wind would pick up and bring another round of surface action with it. We boated only 1 white bass and 1 largemouth on the downriggers during this lull.

The wind did pick up again from the NNW at around 4-5mph and the fish responded very quickly, this time in the vicinity of Area 206.

Despite the heavier-than-weekday weekend boat traffic, we slipped off by ourselves and fish undisturbed for all but the last 30 minutes of the trip.

From ~8:40 to 10:45a there was an unbroken stretch of topwater action. The harder the wind blew, the more aggressive the fish became, and vise-versa. While the wind rippled the surface, the Spook Jr. worked adequately, but, once it calmed, only a much smaller swimbait would do the trick. The whole trick was to cast long and reel fast. The longer the cast the more fish that got a look at the boys’ baits, and the faster the retrieve speed, the less detail the fish picked up on the artificials we were using. The shad that most fish were chasing are about 2.25 inches and swim for all they are worth when those bass are after them. We tried our best to imitate that look with good result today.

The boys boated a total of 47 fish today including 41 largemouth bass ranging from 9 1/2 to 16 1/8 inches, as well as 5 white bass, and 1 smallmouth bass.

TALLY = 47 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time: 11:05a

Air Temp: 62F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~80.5F

Wind: Winds were NW3 at trip’s start, going light and variable by 8:00a, then finally taking on a set direction and velocity at NNW4 until going flat at 11:00a.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.

Wow! The fish fed long and hard today on top. The weather was glorious, the winds were just right, and the company was top-notch…

Ed re-mastered the art of casting with spinning gear, covered the distance, had the accuracy, and put fish after fish in the boat today.

Joe worked both swimbaits and hardbaits for variety’s sake and did extremely well on both.

Mister Joe came to life when the largemouth and whites headed to bottom and we began jigging for them — no one could keep up with him!!

Fishing was a simple as it gets today. We launched, we drove straight to where the fish should have been, they were there, and we caught them for 2 1/2 hours straight!!

Today I was joined by Ed T. and Joe O., both with Central Texas Christian School in Belton, and by Mr. O., Joe’s father. What a decent bunch of fellows they are and what an enjoyable trip that makes for both guide and client!!

We encountered, in the vicinity of Area 910, many well-dispersed schools each holding many (50-60) fish per school. This was true of both white bass and black bass. We fished with swimbaits and hardbaits and kept them on the small side so as to match the primary (but not only) forage — that being threadfin shad ~2.25 inches in length. In the first blitz of the morning, from 7:00am to 9:30am, we boated 74 fish up until the time that the topwater ended.

We then searched with sonar in this same general vicinity and found a deep school of white bass at Area 911 in 48 feet of water. We sat over these fish for a while and managed to get 7 in the boat with a few more missed as the fellows got the hang of the necessary jigging technique. This bite went soft as the gentle breeze we had began to go slack.

From 9:30 to ~10:15 we struggled on a flat calm surface, but, by ~10:25, the breeze began WNW4 again and the game was back on in the deepwater.

We again located abundant, bottom-hugging, aggressive white bass peppered with the occasional largemouth and wore these fish out, boating a final 39 fish in the last 30 minutes of our trip.

As we headed in at 11:00 (due to appointments the fellows had to keep) we left the fish biting with exactly 120 fish boated for our efforts.

TALLY = 120 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 10:55a

Air Temp: 59F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~80.6F

Wind: Winds were NNW4-6.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.

The Lakey Family, big sister Abigail, Mom Heather, and little brother Asher.

Asher hoists a well-fed “schoolie” largemouth he caught all by himself.

The S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Program exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families as a way of showing our support for our troops and providing a respite for their spouses. The following is a note to SKIFF supporters about this most recent outing…

Monday, 05 Sept. 2011

Dear Austin Fly Fishers and Friends of SKIFF,

On the heels of a brisk north wind that began in earnest on Saturday, the teeth of the season’s first cold front passed over Central Texas this morning. As I awoke to prepare for today’s trip, the outdoor temperature was 75F, by the time I left the house it was 73.8 and heading towards 70F by around 9:00am, only to bounce back thereafter with the warming of the sun. The pre-frontal and frontal conditions between now and late December will each bring with them some great fishing, and today kicked it all off.

There wasn’t another soul on the lake this morning (now remember, it’s Labor Day weekend) due to both the stiff 15+ mph wind blowing due north and “bad press” about low lake levels. That didn’t bug me or my fishing buddies today in the least.

I had big sister & little brother Abigail (6th Grade) and Asher (Kindergarten) on board today. Their dad, Sergeant Brian Lakey is currently serving as a forward observer with the 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade out of Forward Operating Base (FOB) Spin Boldak. The Lakey’s all originally hale from Oklahoma where their grandpa has taken the kids out on Lake Texoma in the past.

The wind was our foe today. It made boat handling a bit tough especially when trying to keep a wary eye on a Kindergartener. Also, we’ve been having some great topwater action of late, but, that topwater, although it existed today, was largely masked by the many whitecaps blown by the 15-18mph wind.

We did a bit of downrigging to “work out the kinks” and ensure some immediate success at Area 885. We boated 2 white bass and missed a largemouth here, but then, with the ice now broken, moved on as I wasn’t seeing as much bait or gamefish as there has been of late.

We encountered our next bit of success at Area 909. There were truckloads of bait packed into this area and the mix of white bass and largemouth bass that found the bait were having a feast. Although this area ranged from 26-29 feet deep, most fish we saw on sonar were at 10-12 feet down. We just adjusted our downriggers upwards and scored 3 more fish with another one escaping here. While we were working for fish #6, I saw among the whitecaps some heavy topwater action about 150 yards away, at Area 908. We left the downriggers in, picked up our speed and got to the fish with gear already in the water. As we got to where the action was, both downrigger rods went off and the sonar lit up with fish in the bottom 4 feet of the water column.

I got the kids re-rigged quickly with pre-rigged slab spoons, we e-anchored over top of these fish and then jigged for all we were worth. I had the kids practice this jigging motion before we ever left the boatramp areas for just such a time as this. With the water temperature high and the fishes’ metabolism equally high, these fish don’t stay put very long, so, having the kids already familiar with what to do helps “make hay while the sun shines”. We boated exactly 26 keeper whites in a flurry, and then, just as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone.

We took a little break at this point to eat some snacks, snap some photos, and then discussed our gameplan (as I knew Asher’s attention span had to be nearing it’s end at this point).

We agreed that fishing with “bobbers” for sunfish would be a nice change of pace, so, that’s what we did. We found the sunfish reacted pretty quickly to the falling water temperatures (~4 degrees F over the past 2 days) and weren’t as thick as they normally are, but we managed 7 bluegills before “mom’s taxi” was to pull up signalling the end of our day. Our tally stood at exactly 40 fish, all caught and released.

On this Labor Day, I thank you all for your “labor of love” in giving of your earnings to support SKIFF, our deployed soldiers, their hard-working spouses, and the kids who benefit from these outings.

Sincerely,

Bob Maindelle

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.5F

Wind: Winds were N15 at trip’s start, ramping up to N18 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were “bluebird” and clear.

Zach exceeded his previous personal best fishing trip tally by over 80 fish today!!

Eric had a good bit of fishing experience and adapted quickly to the 3 new techniques we used on today’s trip.

The S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Program exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families as a way of showing our support for our troops and providing a respite for their spouses. The following is a note to SKIFF supporters about this most recent outing…

Saturday, 03 Sept. 2011

Dear Austin Fly Fishers and Friends of SKIFF,

We had another tremendous excursion today with two super young men, Zach Christenson and Eric Foster. Although both boys’ dads are deployed, Zach’s adventure fell under the SKIFF banner and Eric came by way of another booking made by his mom, but, I suspect that we’ll see him back for a SKIFF trip before too long!

Zach’s dad, Staff Sergeant Ryan Christenson, is a tanker assigned to the 2-8 Cavalry stationed at Camp Echo near Taji, Iraq. His mom, Erica, is doing admirably at juggling the schedules of 3 youngsters for the remainder of Ryan’s deployment.

Eric’s dad, Stephen, is a Private First Class. He’s new to the Army and this is the family’s first deployment experience. Stephen is an airframe repairman assigned to the 2-227th, 1st Cavalry Division aviation. He’s based in Mazar-E-Sharif, Afghanistan.

Fishing was simple and productive today — and just right for having kids on board!!

We began our day with twin downriggers working down at 24-25 feet, bounded by Areas 885, 886, and 887, amidst suspended bait and gamefish with a Pet Spoon on one rod and a White Willow Spoon on the other. We boated 10 fish in our first hour of fishing including 8 white bass, 1 largemouth, and 1 drum.

I have to say that spending all this time with kids on these fishing trips is stretching and modernizing my vocabulary. Eric, upon seeing our first hooked white bass approach the side of the boat as Zach reeled it in, exclaimed, “Oh man, that thing is gi-normous!”, which, after thinking about it, I assumed to be a combination of gigantic and enormous. It was, after all, an 11 inch white bass!

Next, another lesson, again from Eric, came as his own largemouth bass leapt into the air about 15 feet behind the boat. He yelled, “That thing is a sea cow!!”. It was 14 inches in length.

And so it went, fish after fish, for 4 hours straight landing 84 creatures of immeasurable proportions … we boated exactly 60 more white bass using 3/4 oz. TNT jigging spoons at Areas 906/907 and then went on to boat a final 14 sunfish (2 green sunfish and 12 bluegills) at Area HB002 on slipfloats and maggots. Were it up to me, we’d never have left the strong white bass bite, but, both boys had reddened right palms and their fingers were literally getting cramps thanks to the very aggressive white bass action we experienced.

Both boys were right around 10 years old and that is a “just right” age for the kind of fishing we experienced today. The boys were old enough to follow technique-specific guidance and had the manual dexterity to maximize our fish-catching potential once we found fish. All three of us had a blast today!

Thanks again AFF and friends of SKIFF for paving the way for trips like this to take place!

Sincerely,

Bob Maindelle

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:05a

Air Temp: 79F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.0F

Wind: Winds were light at N3 at sunrise increasing to N9 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were fair.

Little brother, big fish!! Wade caught our largest fish of the trip today, a 15 1/2 inch largemouth bass.

Big brother, ugly fish!! Christopher landed this spunky channel cat that hit, of all things, a downrigged Pet Spoon traveling about 3 miles per hour in 31 feet of water!

S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families as a way of showing our support for our troops and providing a respite for their spouses. The following is a note to SKIFF supporters about this most recent outing…

Monday, 29 August, 2011

This morning I was joined around 7 a.m. by brothers Christopher R. (4th Grade) and Wade R.(Kindergarten) of Copperas Cove, TX. Their dad, Lieutenant Colonel James R. is currently deployed for 1 year and is slated to return to the U.S. in July of 2012. Mrs. Karen R. is taking care of the home front including home-schooling the boys, which is what allowed them the flexibility of being on the water with me on this weekday while public school is in session.

The boys both had very limited prior fishing experience, so, we started with the very basics of safety on the boat, and moved right into how to hold and reel both spinning and conventional tackle.

If Wade asked once, he asked 75 times in the 4 minutes it took us to motor through the no-wake zone, “How fast are we going to go?” Each time my answer was the same, “This boat can go about 30 miles per hour, but it’ll feel faster than that because there is no windshield in front of you like you have in a car.” Once I’d cleared the no-wake zone by a minimum of 1/16th of an inch, I throttled up and Wade was thrilled!!

Now it was off the the fishing grounds. Today’s hunt began in deep water (40-50 feet) with fish suspended and scattered in a 4-foot band from ~28 to 32 feet deep. I ran the downriggers (two) in this “band of life”, one with a Pet Spoon and one with a White Willow and we began picking up fish regularly. By 8:20a we landed 18 fish including 15 white bass up to 13.5 inches, 1 channel catfish, and 2 school-sized largemouth bass. I could tell the boys were getting increasingly “antsy” in between fish as we waited for our lures to work their magic, so, after fish #18 was swung aboard, we changed up a bit and took our act shallow.

We headed over to a deep, still-green weedbed that I haven’t fished in a long time (Area HB002), and was pleased to see all kinds of fish activity through my polarized lenses as we idled around this area. I got us stopped in one place so as to make a steady platform for the boys, and we then broke out the sunfish tackle and pursued bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, and longear sunfish with slipcorks and maggots for a while. As we watched sunfish of all sizes swim by, get brave, and take our baits, we also observed small largemouth patrolling nearby, as well as a nearly 3 foot long spotted gar. With great action, two young boys, and spiderweb line, tangles soon proved to be an issue, so, we engineered a suitable solution in which one brother would fish with one rod long enough to catch 2 fish, while the other brother sat “criss-cross-applesauce” (for us old-timers that is the politically correct term that used to be referred to as sitting “Indian-style”). Once 2 fish were landed, the boys would swap positions and roles and it worked out great!! — Can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that before as I recalled all the time over the past decades I’ve spend untangling kids’ lines! Oh well! Long story short, we put exactly 30 sunfish in the boat here and, by around 10am, the kids were again ready for a change of pace.

I headed us uplake and looked around with sonar. We were fortunate enough to have our search coincide with the start of a breeze from the west, as well as some grey cloud cover thick enough to obscure the sun. At the very first area I searched (Area 251), sonar lit up with exactly what I was hoping to see — tightly schooled, bottom-hugging white bass. I e-anchored over top of these fish, and reviewed the jigging techniques I’d instructed the boys on earlier “just in case”. Down went the slabs and up came the white bass, 10 in all, each caught “all by myself” as the boys said!! All I did was coach and unhook fish. We closed out our day with a tally of 58 fish caught and released.

By the time this school of fish played out, it was time to meet mom back at the boat ramp, so, we prepped the boat for travel, I again informed Wade exactly how fast we’d be traveling, and we made a beeline to the boat ramp just in time to see the blue Honda minivan pull in to the parking lot.

As I accompanied the boys up to the parking lot, I presented them each with a SKIFF tackle box, a SKIFF bracelet, a SKIFF camping blanket, and a brand new lure to decorate their new tackle box with. You’d have thought it was Christmas!

Thank you one and all for helping to make memories like this for the kids of our armed forces!!

Sincerely,

–Bob Maindelle

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.4F

Wind: Winds were SSW4.

Skies: Skies were greyed over sufficiently to obscure the sun; light level still bright.

The S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Program exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families as a way of showing our support for our troops and providing a respite for their spouses. The following is a note to SKIFF supporters about this most recent outing…

Zach (L) and Mason (R) with a pair of white bass we downrigged from out of the deep with White Willow Spoons and Pet Spoons.

The boys display our largest fish of the trip, a “loner” largemouth I first spotted on sonar ghosting beneath a school of threadfin shad around 30 feet.

Thursday, 25 August, 2011

Dear Friends of S.K.I.F.F.,

This evening I arranged to pick up my fishing buddies at the Extraco Bank building in Harker Heights. With restrictions on bringing boats and trailers onto Ft. Hood proper for security reasons, I am not able to go to the doorstep of those kids who live on post any longer.

This evening, I welcomed Zach Leonard aboard for his 2nd SKIFF trip. He first came out with me in Oct. 2009 when his dad, Specialist Daniel Leonard was deployed to Iraq. Since then, SPC Leonard returned stateside and headed back to Iraq, this time for 12 months spent at Contingency Operating Base (COB) Spicher working as a medic. Zach, a 5th grader, showed up proudly dressed in his SKIFF ballcap and SKIFF t-shirt that he got back in 2009. With Zach came Mason Andrade, age 5. Mason’s mom and Zach’s mom are friends and so the boys were already acquainted with one another before the trip. Mason’s dad, Sergeant Jason Andrade is currently serving with the First Cavalry Division in Afghanistan and is stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Lightning. He’ll return to the U.S. in July 2012.

There’s always a “funny” that happens on these S.K.I.F.F. trips. On this one, Mason, who evidently at age 5 has never read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” asks, 2 minutes into our drive to the boatramp, “Mr. Bob, are you old?”.

To that I said, “Well, to someone like you who is only 5, I might seem old, but so someone older than me, say 80 years old or so, I wouldn’t seem old. I am 42 years old, so, I’d say I’m in the middle.” To that, Mason said, “Mr. Bob, are you old?”. I guess he’s a yes or no kind of kid…

Well, old or not, I took the kids out in the 100F heat and we proceeded to catch fish. The strong high pressure that has made for some fabulously consistent fishing has moved off to the east over Louisiana, and a SE component to the wind kicked in which always dampens the fishing a bit. We found willing fish, but they weren’t heavily congregated and it took some coaxing to get them turned on.

We first went after white bass with our downriggers. I used both ‘riggers tonight, one with a Pet Spoon and one with a White Willow Spoon — both imitate the larger shad size that’s most common right now. We found fish — and caught 6 of them — holding down at 30 feet in an area triangulated by Areas 885, 886, and 887. After a few runs through the already scattered fish, they became few and far between.

We headed out to between Areas 871 and 872 and found fish along the deep edge of the breakline here and, using the same tactics as before, brought 11 more white bass and a 15 inch largemouth bass to net. I was hoping against hope that we’d find a school of whites ganged up on bottom, but that east wind just didn’t permit it tonight. By around 7pm or so, I could tell the novelty of downrigging had run its course.

We headed to (what remains of) a midlake hydrilla bed at Area 231 and set the boys up with some slipfloat rigs using maggots for bait and got into some sunfish (1 green, 1 longear, and 3 bluegill) before the sun set and the sunfish shut down. We’d now boated a total of 23 fish for the evening’s effort.

Stillhouse is now over 14 feet low so I’m now fishing in areas that are traditionally too deep to hold fish (as they would normally be below the thermocline at the areas I’m now fishing). So, each trip is a bit of an experiment, and, fortunately we’ve been able to crack the code on location this summer and stay on top of the fish. Pray for rain!!

As we wrapped up the trip Mrs. Andrade picked the boys up and little Mason’s mouth couldn’t move fast enough to tell of all the new things he’d seen, heard, and learned. Zach earned his First Mate certificate tonight helping me keep up with the boat, the wind, the sonar, two downriggers and one really enthusiastic 5 year old!

Thank you, Austin Fly Fishers and friends of SKIFF, for continuing to make days on the water like this happen! With school in session now thing get a bit trickier on scheduling trips, but I expect to be able to continue running SKIFF trips on Monday evenings and Thursday evenings right up until the time change in November, and then settle on holidays and Saturdays only for the cold months.

Sincerely,

Bob Maindelle

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 8:30p

Air Temp: 100F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~87.3F

Wind: Winds were SSE7-8.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.

In the midst of a 47 day run of 100+ degree days, we took a little break from the sun and fun of white bass fishing and did a little bowfishing last night.

Trent proudly hoists his pending Jr. Angler lake record Stillhouse common carp

Trent’s dad displays this THICK smallmouth buffalo he shot weighing in at over 11 pounds.

We got out on the water around 8:15pm just as the sun had set in order to give us enough remaining light to do some practice shooting to check aiming pins and work the kinks out of our equipment.

I had two shooters with me, my younger brother, Andy, and my nephew, Trent, age 15.

Both had bows which is a nice arrangement allowing for both followup shots in the event of a miss, or a double shot in the event of sighting more than one fish at a time.

As light faded to dark, we spooked 4 drum off of rocky shorelines, but didn’t see any carp or buffalo until we got off the rocks and moved on to softer bottoms.

The shooting was good right up until 10:15 when a wind came up and persisted bringing the trip to an earlier than expected end.

We had a good time of shooting before the wind cranked up, resulting in a total of 5 boated fish — 3 carp and 2 buffalo.

We had three highlights this evening. First, Trent beat the standing record for the Junior Angler bowfishing category with a common carp he brought in going 8.25 pounds and measuring 24.75 inches. Next, his “old man”, not to be outdone, stuck an 11+ pound buffalo that honestly looked as tall as it was long — almost saucer shaped. And finally, we boated a “double” where the boys shot at two different fish just seconds apart, and managed to land both of them; Trent got his fish while shooting at a quickly moving spooked fish — a really nice shot!

Besides the bowfishing we enjoyed spotting deer, raccoons, blue heron, and hearing a multitude of coyotes calling back and forth to one another and yapping. There was other aquatic life to observe, too … we saw all manner of bait fish, large gizzard shad,lots of sunfish, largemouth bass, and one very unconcerned turtle.

Congratulations, Trent, on your record. I know you’ve practiced in the backyard a bunch to get ready for this bowfishing trip, and the hard work paid off!!

I’m confident you didn’t miss a lick at your 7:00am football practice this morning, or if you did, were wise enough not to let your mom know about it!

With sunrise only 20 minutes away, I welcomed Lynn H., his old buddy from church, “PaPa Butch” B., and Butch’s grandkids, 11 year old Leah G., and 9 year old Alexander G. aboard for a fun morning of fishing.

Alexander kicked things off with a sassy largemouth that hammered his White Willow Spoon down around 30 feet.

Leah’s strong suit was vertical jigging. She needed next to no coaching and was a “natural” at it. Consequently, she bagged a bunch of white bass using TNT 180’s today.

We caught a bunch of sunfish today, both bluegill and greens, and clicked this shot of Leah with a particularly colorful one.

The fishing has been so consistent lately due to the “cookie-cutter” weather patterns we’ve been having, that I was able to make a good gameplan before hitting the water that would ensure the kids enjoyed success from start to finish — and it worked!! (Although it doesn’t always.)

The plan was to downrig during the low-light period until around 8:30am for scattered, suspended white bass, then to target sunfish for what has been a predictable “slow period” in the mid-morning for white bass and largemouth, and then finish up strong with some slabbing for white bass in the last 45 to 60 minutes of the trip.

I worked with the kids before we left the boatramp area to show them how to use both spinning equipment and the downrigger rods so we could take advantage of all the fish that came our way and not be fumbling when there was a fish on the line. The kids took to both kinds of gear very well and with that lesson complete we were on our way to the fishing grounds.

We downrigged the expanse of water from Area 040 to Area 864 and found most of our fish right on or just over the breakline running SW to NE here. We put a Pet Spoon on one rod and a White Willow Spoon on the other rod to match the larger shad now found in this area. By 8:30 we’d boated 22 fish including 21 white bass and 1 largemouth, and the bite was starting to wane.

We switched over to panfishing for about an hour or so using maggots on slipfloat rigs to catch bluegill sunfish (26 of them) and green sunfish (3 of them) relating to deep hydrilla weedbeds. By 9:45 the novelty was wearing off of that technique, so we returned to open water.

For the last hour or so we searched for bottom-oriented, tightly schooled white bass using sonar. Due to the light winds and bright sunshine, I knew strong schooling action on the surface wasn’t very likely, so we didn’t depend on seeing fish to find them, but rather relied on sonar. At Area 250/884 we found exactly what we were after. We let our slabs (3/4 oz. TNT 180’s in white and in silver halo) down to the bottom and worked up a nice mess of 17 white bass and 1 schoolie largemouth that was hanging out with the big boys.

As we approached 11:00am, the kids had all the fun and sun that one morning could bring so, we broke out the snacks, cleaned up the boat, and headed back in with a great morning of fishing to look back and remember as summer break gives way to the new school year ahead.

Thanks Lynn and Butch for all your hands-on help and encouragement for the kids!!

TALLY = 69 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 10:55a

Air Temp: 81F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.8F

Wind: Winds were SSW45 at trip’s start, building to SSW7 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.

Today David B. of Temple and his boys, Jack (6th Grade) and Jay (4th Grade) joined me to get in one last lick on the fishing before the reality of the new academic year sets in on Monday.

From L to R — Jay, David, and Jack “wore ’em out” today!!

We had an atypical slow start to our day today, despite darn good conditions — an unobscured sunrise, a light breeze from the SW, and above average fishing the day before. I did note that the waning 3/4 moon was still high in the sky, but, it’s anybody’s guess why the fish do what they do when they do it… The slow fishing allowed us to catch up on things that had happened since our last trip … a vacation to Colorado, whitewater rafting, and David’s newest dermatological discovery: a never-before attempted technique for the removal of skin cancer — alpine sliding!!

Anyway, we struggled to put just 5 fish in the boat, all on downriggers, by 9:15 with a 6:55 start time — that’s pretty slow. Two fish came off Area 040/853, and three fish came off Area 875 The boys were troopers, though and watched the downrigger rods faithfully through the tough spell.

Things began to take a turn for the better when, at around 9:15, I spotted some light topwater action. I headed to the scene of the crime and found small, schoolie largemouth popping shad on the surface in open water. I found white bass under these fish and so established a hover over the white bass school and quickly switched the rods over to prepare for “slabbin'”. My tool of choice has been the TNT 180 3/4 oz. in “silver halo” — it’s dead on for the size of the threadfin shad right now.

From 9:15 to around 11:00am, we “spot-hopped”, spending decreasing amounts of time at each location we found schooled whites at, including Areas 882, 883, 878, 879, 880, and 881, in that order. (BA: 12 AT). By the time the “bell-curve” of the the morning feed flattened out, we’d boated 78 fish on our slabs, including 73 white bass and 5 largemouth. Not a single white bass was shorter than 10.75 inches, and not a single white bass exceeded 14.5 inches. All were healthy — not plump, but healthy.

TALLY = 83 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 11:10a

Air Temp: 81F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.8F

Wind: Winds were SSW5 at trip’s start, building to SSW8-9 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.

I fished this morning with Kenny B. of Kempner, and his boys Jacob, “Little” Kenny, and Logan.

From L to R — Kenny, Jacob, “Little” Kenny, and Logan, all with nice keeper whites, all taken less than an hour into the trip on downrigged Pet Spoons.

If I’ve mentioned it once, I’ve mentioned it a dozen times now — this summertime fishing under the influence of strong high pressure makes for some incredibly consistent fishing. The fish are literally doing the same things, in the same places, and at nearly the same times each day. If you’re a regular blog reader and have been thinking about booking a trip, think hard about doing it soon. The kids will be going back to school, football season will kick in, as well as dove and then deer hunting seasons, and the pressure on the lakes will continue to decrease as each one of these factors kicks in. The fishing today was top-notch and I expect it will stay that way at least until the weather breaks.

We began our day downrigging between Areas 854 and 040. The fish were a bit higher in the water column today, so we raised the downrigger balls accordingly and were immediately into fish. We boated 13 white bass in under an hour, all while the fish were still suspended and scattered.

Around 9:00a the fish began to coalesce and pursue bait more aggressively. We did a sonar sweep around Area 250, spotted fish on the steeper, wind-struck side, buoyed them and went to work. These fish weren’t totally turned on yet but did initially respond well to our slab presentation. We boated 13 more fish here in under 15 minutes and then the action died.

We did a little sonar searching with the downriggers in the water so we still had a shot at some fish while I covered water looking for bait and gamefish. We picked up 3 white bass and 1 largemouth in the vicinity of Area 875 in the process before coming across a substantial concentration of fish in the lower 1/3 of the water column right at Area 876. I e-anchored on top of these fish and it was game-on for about an hour’s time. We took our tally from 30 fish up to a final count of 85 fish sitting right on this area, keeping our technique consistent, and putting fish after fish over the side. As for “making hay while the sun shines” … it is very important if you wish to maximize your catch in summertime situations like this to focus on the fishing while the fish are aggressive. This is not the time to snack, joke, take photos, take a leak, etc., etc. When white bass are hooked, they struggle, the regurgitate what they’ve eaten, and they defecate due to stress. All of this commotion, scent, and vibration turn the other schoolmates on. If you keep catching fish, you keep the momentum going and will keep catching fish as long as the “feeding window” is open. Most fisherman I observe will catch a fish, fool around unhooking it, getting it in the livewell, etc. and drift off their spot only to return to it minutes later only to find the bite has cooled off. Anyway, we boated 49 white bass, 1 freshwater drum, and 5 largemouth bass off this patch of bottom less than 60 feet in diameter.

It was at this point that the fellows got competitive and the trip took a humorous turn. First came the comparisons … something like “I think we’ve done better over on THIS side than ya’ll have done on THAT side of the boat.”. Next came a defense … something like, “Oh no, we’ve done much better on THIS side.”. Next came scorekeeping … “Okay, we now have 8 on this side to your wimpy 6 on that side.” Fabrication followed … “Well, overall this side has caught at least 3 dozen, and they were all big ones!”. And so it spiraled out of control until finally, I was asked to step in and referee. All I had to go off of was my “tells-no-tales” fish-clicker, and it read 85 fish for the TEAM effort. That seems to quell the disturbance (a bit).

By 10:50 the feeding frenzy had ramped up, peaked, and fallen flat and I knew to persist would be anticlimactic, not to mention very hot, so, we wrapped ‘er up right there and headed on in.

TALLY = 85 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 10:55a

Air Temp: 81F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.8F

Wind: Winds were S4-5 at trip’s start, building to SSW8 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.