This morning I drove into Killeen to pick up sisters Patty and Melissa (Missy) L. for the first fishing trip of their lives!!

When I asked Patty what she thought of her first fishing trip she said, “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be.”.

When I asked Missy what she thought of her first fishing trip she said, “It was really fun.”.

This trip was paid for by a person from the girls’ church, Memorial Baptist Church, in Killeen. This person learned that the girls had never been fishing before, and wanted to give them that experience. The girls’ dad is raising them alone and is a hard-working fellow with no fishing experience of his own, so, that, coupled with the fact that the girls had no formal plans for Spring Break due to dad’s work schedule, looked like a match made in heaven.

Today’s weather was good fishing weather — dreary, grey, warm, and a bit breezy. We found our first batch of fish at Area 995 in about 15 feet of water. We cast bladebaits out horizontally and worked them back over fish we’d located in small groups via sonar after marking them with a buoy. We landed 23 fish here before the action tapered off.

Next, we headed to Area 054/602 where 4 terns were working and pointed the way to some very shallow white bass feeding very aggressively on shad. We used lighter bladebaits here and fished them higher in the water column to net 13 more fish.

We finished up flatline trolling with Reef Runner Ripshad 200’s to put 11 more fish in the boat before the morning bite died.

On the drive back to the girls’ home, I got to enjoy a few tales about what each sister does that gets on the others’ nerves, about where they like to go out to eat when they get the chance, and a bonus tale about dad’s cooking abilities.

TALLY = 47 fish, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 11:45a

Air Temp: 66F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 61F

Wind: Winds were S7-8.

Skies: Skies were heavy grey to the point of occasional drizzle.

This evening I fished with Raul G. of Harker Heights, TX, and his 3 kids, Lauren, Olivia, and Cristian.

One of the last fish we boated this evening was this chunky 18.25″ largemouth bass that slammed one of our crankbaits as we flatline trolled attempting to locate tightly bunched groups of white bass.

We caught lots of white bass today both by way of jigging and smoking techniques.

Raul took some vacation time off for Spring Break to spend it with his children and things worked out very well as far as both weather and fish cooperation level were concerned. Just being on the boat was a big thrill for the kids.

We made a short stop at Area 074 where we caught 11 white bass in no time, thus allowing for some “instant gratification” and allowing for the kids to get practiced at the techniques we’d be employing for the rest of the trip.

Next we headed to Area 1055 where we boated 35 white bass from out of ~37 feet in open water, all on TNT180 slabs, and all using either a jigging or smoking tactic.

As sunset approached, the clouds in the west thickened which meant our sunset would be obscured and the fishing would come to an end a bit earlier than normal. We headed to shallower water once this clouding occurred, and fished first at Area 698. We found a few fish on sonar, gave it a try, boated 2 white bass and left after seeing this wasn’t going to materialize into much.

We made our final stop at Area 549/103 and put out twin flatlines with Wiggle Warts and RipShad 200’s tied on to work the entire depth range encountered in this area. We made multiple passes here over about a 30 minute span and put a final 6 fish in the boat, including the largest fish of the trip, a nice 18.25 inch largemouth.

TALLY = 54 fish, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time: 7:45p

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 62.1F

Wind: Winds were S8-10.

Skies: Skies were partly sunny to mostly cloudy.

This evening I fished with Nate R. of Academy, TX, and his three kids, Eliza, Ben, and Sam. Nate works at Scott & White hospital in Temple, TX, where several of his co-workers (some with kids of their own) had fished with me in the past and suggested he give me a try.

Eliza walked away with big fish honors tonight … a 6.25 pound largemouth which threw up a 9 inch white bass in mid-battle.

Little Sam held his own today with a channel cat caught during our “practice round”. It tipped the scales at 5.50 pounds.

Ben was steady as a rock … he had the best form and most consistency and caught the most fish independently today.

Nate’s kids all had very limited fishing experience prior to today’s trip, so, we started with the fundamentals … how to hold a rod, what the parts of the rod and reel are called, how to work a lure in a way attractive to the fish, and so on, so that when we encountered fish, we could maximize our potential. This would pay off later in the trip.

Before even leaving the boatramp area (Area 797), as we work on adjusting our lure height relative to bottom and on the proper jigging tactic, we got a “big bite” and Sam (the youngest sibling at 6 years old) was fast to a very large channel cat. As he cranked and cranked on the reel’s handle for all it was worth, the drag did its job and buffered any rookie mistakes that might have been made. In a few moments I slid the net under our first, and what I assumed would be our largest, fish of the trip … a 5.50 pound channel cat. Wow! What a start.

From there, we made our way to progressively deeper water finding a few fish suspended under birds in the vicinity of Area 1053. We ran downriggers staggered at 12 and 15 feet and boated 2 white bass and a short largemouth before the action died.

We then headed to the deepest water that we would fish this trip — 38 feet around Area 1042. We found schooled (but not heavily schooled) white bass on the downwind side of this bottom feature and hovered over them while working our TNT180 slab spoons. The older two kids, Eliza and Ben, did great once they got the hang of adjusting their lure depth in this “non-practice” scenario. Sam required a bit of help from me and dad, but, that’s what we were there for. In all, the kids boated 28 fish from this small patch of bottom including Eliza’s 6.25 pound largemouth shown above. As this fish first breached the surface, a partially digested 9 inch white bass was thrown from its mouth. Eliza’s hook held through that above-water headshake and she stayed pretty cool and eventually brought the fish to net for a quick photo and weigh-in on my certified scales.

As the time pushed near 7p, the light level decreased as the setting sun fell behind some clouds to the west. We headed back shallow and finished up doing some flatlining in the vicinity of Area 995, boating 2 final white bass for the evening.

TALLY = 35 fish, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time: 8:05p

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 58.4F

Wind: Winds were SSE 6-8.

Skies: Skies were partly sunny to mostly cloudy.

This morning I fished with the Mayberry family currently stationed at Ft. Hood. The Mayberry’s oldest child, 12 year old son Keaton, actually did all the fishing, the rest of the family (Dad, Mom, and baby sister) all just came along for the ride.

Keaton got tickled while looking at the minor movements that the white bass’ eye was making as he held this fish, our largest white of the trip, up close for the photo! This fish went 13.5″.

I met the Mayberry’s two weekends ago at the “Captains’ Weekend” event hosted by Cabela’s in Buda, TX. At this event, 25 guides from all over the state of Texas (both fresh and saltwater) were invited to set up booths to advertise their services, as well as to be present to answer questions, give guidance on gear, do seminars, etc. David is in the military, so we had that in common and began talking. As it turned out his son was about to go on his first wild turkey hunt and David thought a fishing trip would be the perfect Spring Break vacation addition to round out the outdoor experience, so, he booked a trip for the whole family.

I liked our conditions as we started off this morning — balmy, breezy, and grey.

I introduced Keaton to both flatline trolling and downrigging gear, and we ran one setup of each on opposite sides of the boat. The downrigger got us 3 fish with a White Willow Spoon attached to the business end, while the flatlining rig picked up a single on the Shad Rap. After the first two fish came on the downrigger, we buoyed a small concentration of fish, then backed off and cast Cicadas at them in ~13 feet of water. We boated 6 fish out of this school before they scattered. We then continued with the flatline and downrigging program for two final fish off this area (Area 1048/108) before moving on as the skies began to clear and the winds began to go slack.

We checked a few areas coming up with just 1 white bass and 1 crappie at Area 986/789. We continued to struggle for about 90 minutes as bright, calm conditions prevailed.

Finally, around 10:30a, a light S. breeze began to come up and we headed to open water where its effects would be most felt. We got on fish at Area 1052 and boated exactly 23 white bass here, all on a TNT180 slab, and all with a jigging technique.

TALLY = 35 fish, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 12:00 noon

Air Temp: 63F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 58.0F

Wind: Winds were S6 until 9:15a, then went calm, then picked up at S8-9 after 10:30a.

Skies: Skies were 100% overcast when the wind blew, and partly sunny during the calm mid-morning time.

This morning I fished with returning guests “Grandma” Joyce W. and two of her six grandsons, Nate (8) and C.J. (12). This is the fourth year in a row the trio has made the drive from the Dallas area to camp out in a Salado hotel and then fish with me during Spring Break.

C.J. was “Mr. Consistent” today, keeping his vertical jigging technique just right when it counted and he enjoyed consistent success as a result.

Nate, we joked, was like the blind sow that occasionally found the acorn! He sang, told jokes, listened intently to my war stories, snacked, and, oh yeah, caught a fish now and then, too!!

Over the years we’ve encountered some crazy Spring Break weather, and this year was no exception. Over the weekend a cold front, followed by a slow moving Pacific low pressure system dumped rain over all of Central Texas. We got 2.2 inches on the south shore of Stillhouse, but the lake didn’t take on much runoff. However, a heavy blanket of fog awaited us this morning but, fortunately, began clearing as we got out on the water.

We started early doing some trolling to find fish and then cast Cicadas to them once we found larger concentrations and buoyed them. We boated 15 fish in the vicinity of Area 995 in 15-17 feet of water during the time that some lifting fog obscured the sunlight.

We struggled a bit during mid-morning as the fog lifted leaving us with bright, calm conditions (among the toughest for white bass fishing).

By 10:45, a light S. breeze at 6-7 picked up and the skies went from bright to fair. We hit some deepwater areas (40-45 feet) and found congregated white bass ready to feed. We stayed atop Area 1042 for ~2.5 hours steadily boating fish with a jigging retrieve, an easing tactic, and, occasionally, with a slow smoking tactic. We put 41 fish in the boat at this one location over this time frame including 40 white bass and 1 drum, which Nate was enamored with (hence the photo above).

One of the lighter moments of the trip came when a kind of quiet had fallen upon us … Joyce was enjoying being outdoors, C.J. was concentrating on jigging for his next white bass, I was focused on reading sonar, and Nate was (suspiciously) quiet. For no reason whatsoever, Nate states, “I’m adorable.” Joyce and I just looked at one another, smiled, shook our heads, and went back to enjoying the quiet.

TALLY = 56 fish, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 1:15p

Air Temp: 53F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 58F

Wind: Winds were calm at (obscured) sunrise and until around 10:30, turning S6-7 for the remainder of the trip thereafter .

Skies: Skies were fair.

This morning I fished with Father Pedro Garcia-Ramirez, his brother, Jose, and his nephew, Isaac. This trip was presented to Father Pedro by the Knights of Columbus on the 25th anniversary of his ordination into the ministry

Father Pedro boated the largest fish of the trip today, a 3.25 pound channel cat that hit his Cicada bladebait in an area otherwise holding a large concentration of white bass.

Isaac caught the largest white bass of the trip today. This 15 3/8 inch long specimen qualified him for a Texas Parks and Wildlife Big Fish Award for exceeding the 15″ threshold.

Fr. Pedro is the pastor of St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church in Pflugerville. With a congregation of over 4,000 parishioners, a man can get spread very thin. So, today was a day to relax in God’s creation with family.

Our day began bright and windless — pretty tough white bass conditions — so, we started off flatline trolling in the vicinity of Area 995 to tempt the few interested fish among the many still disinterested fish. In our first 30 minutes or so, we boated 4 fish in this fashion using Shad Raps. Then, around 7:45, as we continued trolling, we went over a 50 foot stretch of bottom loaded with fish. These fish were just about glued to the bottom and not a single one rose up the 2-3 feet required to nail the crankbaits we had working behind the boat as those baits came overhead. But, I suspected they’d be catchable if we got down to their level and fished bladebaits more thoroughly right amongst them. So, I maneuvered the boat so all 3 of my guests could hit the area I’d buoyed and we began to work our Cicadas over the fish. The fish were sluggish at first, but, as the first breeze of the day came up, the action increased, then later fell off again as that gentle WNW breeze died. By the time the action here played out we had spent nearly 3 hours in this one area and boated 65 fish with a number of others hooked and missed. Father Pedro caught the best of the bunch — a 3.25 pound channel cat that was mixed in with our white bass school. Isaac boated a very large white bass that measured 15 3/8 inches. This school of fish we were over consisted mainly of 3-4 year old fish. Nearly every single one was over 12 inches, with multiple fish exceeding 14 inches.

A funny thing happened amidst all of this action that taught me a great cultural lesson. It so happened that Jose had brought along soft tacos to share. He told me he brought 4 just for me. I asked what was on the tacos. He replied “puerco” (pork) and “frijoles” (beans). I happened to like both, so, I unwrapped the taco and bit right in. What happened next I can only describe as an amazingly intense oral scorching sensation. Without permission, I helped myself to Jose’s cooler full of Cokes and water. After downing one of each of these, the lake water surrounding us also looked amazingly refreshing. After but a short 70-80 minutes or so the sensation began to subside. The cultural lesson? Don’t ask, “What’s on the taco?”. Instead, ask, “What is the taco seasoned with?” To him, it was a given that the taco would blister the lining of one’s mouth and one’s tongue, but, that did not occur to me.

Back to fishing … after Area 995 played out and a S. wind began to pick up suddenly at about 8 mph, we headed to deeper water, this time just to the NW of Area 074. I had not found fish in this area since the day before our big rain 3 weeks ago, but, today the fish returned here in force. In 45 minutes of fishing here my three guests boated an additional 42 fish, all taken on the TNT180 slab in 3/4 oz. via both vertical jigging and easing. These fish averaged a good bit smaller than the first bunch we got into, going around 10.75 to 11.25 inches on average.

At this final spot we fished, and as we approached our 100th fish boated, I let everyone know that it is customary for the person who catches the 100th fish to buy the others lunch. This brought some interesting responses. The best was when uncle Jose (who went on to catch the 100th fish) jokingly(?) accused nephew Isaac of having the 100th fish hooked, but not reeling it in until someone else beat him to it, just to avoid paying for lunch.

This was a great morning of fishing with some great men who clearly cared for one another and valued the fact that they were family. I’m honored that the Knights of Columbus entrusted me with making this trip a good one for Father Pedro.

TALLY = 107 fish, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 12:15p

Air Temp: 70F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 61F

Wind: Winds were calm at (obscured) sunrise, turning NW8 for about an hour, then going calm, and finally picking up S8-9 for the duration.

Skies: Skies were bluebird clear.

This morning I fished with north Austin angler Pat W. Pat works for the University of Texas and chose to spend a part of some much needed down time on the water with me.

Pat caught a personal best today. This 6.25 pound largemouth hit a shad pattern TNT180 slab in ~30 feet of water.

We had a little oddity occur on board — this white bass regurgitated a freshly swallowed log perch. Evidently these cigar-shaped and tiger-striped members of the darter family are fair game when white bass are on the prowl!!

You’ve heard the basketball phrase “nothing but net” when a shot goes perfectly — not even touching the rim as it goes into the basket. Today we experienced the fishing version of “nothing but net”.

Pat and I met up just as the sun was peeking over the cloud bank in the east. He was easy-going and willing to listen and learn. Over the next 5+ hours we would catch fish from start to finish using a variety of tactics in shallow water and deep.

We had flat calm conditions at first so, I started us out flatlining Rapala Shad Raps in the vicinity of Area 995, expecting sluggish, scattered fish holding tight to the bottom until the winds picked up. We picked up two white bass in short order here and, as we did, noted a concentration of fish holding on a slight breakline in this general vicinity. Since it’s difficult to run crankbaits on the face of a slope, I buoyed the fish, backed off a cast’s length, and began horizontally casting bladebaits (Reef Runner Cicada’s) to these fish. The fish jumped all over these baits!! We e-anchored in one spot and pulled 37 white bass up to 14 inches from this area, of which, only one fish went less than 10″. We stayed on this area until the bite died at around 9:30a. We resumed flatline trolling while checking adjacent areas out on this same feature. We caught one more white bass, but saw nothing leading me to decide to stay here any longer.

By now the skies were brighter, but still overcast, and a nice pre-frontal NW breeze came up around 8mph. We searched a number of deepwater areas until finding fish at Area 1047 (BA:6T, 3RBG) in approximately 32 feet of water. We used a combination of jigging and easing tactics here to boat exactly 39 fish over a two hour span. These were larger than average fish, with most going 12.75 to 13.25 inches, and several going 14.00″ to 14.125″. Every last one of these fish came on the tried and true TNT 180 in 3/4 oz. size.

By just after noon, things began to slow as they typically do. We hit one more location, just E. of Area 176. Much like our first area this morning, we found fish gathered along the face of this short, gentle breakline. This time, I hovered us over the break and we jigged for these fish at first. Pat put two fish in the boat before I could even get my lure to hit the bottom, then we both began catching fish (and missing them as these fish began short-striking as sluggish fish about to turn off often do). When the vertical approach gave out, we went horizontal with bladebaits, allowing us to land our final 2 fish of the day to top us off at 86 fish.

It was great to have success from start to finish. This is typically not the case and I was quick to point this out to Pat. I told him I didn’t want him to go home spoiled thinking it was always like this — most days involve more “hunting” than “pecking”.

TALLY = 86 FISH, all caught and released, including 2 largemouth, 1 crappie, and 83 white bass.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 1:15p

Air Temp: 70F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 59.7F

Wind: Winds were calm at (obscured) sunrise, turning NW8 for the duration as of ~8:00a.

Skies: Skies were overcast the entire trip.

This morning I welcomed aboard a very nice, young couple — Glenn and JJ.

JJ and Glenn did very well under less than ideal conditions because they were disciplined in their technique, were teachable, and stayed focused the entire time on bite detection. Well done!!

Glenn delivers portable storage building all over the state of Texas for a living, and Miss JJ hails from Prescott, AZ, where she serves as a school nurse, an emergency room nurse, an ambulance nurse, and somehow finds time to go calf roping on a regular basis! Oh, and did I mention she also runs half-marathons and mud-runs? She claimed that’s just to work off the Dairy Queen habit, though!!

We had some wild weather this morning, but, the fish didn’t seem bothered at all, as is often the case this time of year when warming water gets their metabolism on the rise.

As we got going, the surface was glass calm under heavy grey skies. I decided to try shallow early so we headed to troll a “circuit” with flatlined crankbaits from Area 324 to Area 103. We picked up 6 fish in this stretch of water as well a 2 other fish at adjacent areas 055 and 701. 6 of these fish came on white or white/chartreuse Rapala Shad Raps, and the other 2 came on Reef Runner Rip Shad 200’s. As we trolled along, the already dark skies got darker and we were treated to a light rainshower lasting about 15 minutes or so. A stiff N. breeze cleared out the rain and we suddenly had enough wind to get a deepwater bite going.

We left the shallows and headed deep. I looked over 4 areas before locating fish at a fifth area, Area 176/254. I found fish along the face of the breakline here in 15 to 22 feet, as well as at the top of the breakline at 15 feet. I buoyed the shallowest fish on the flattest terrain and we began fishing with 3/4 oz. TNT180 slabs. We began pulling fish right away, with Glenn and JJ boating 14 before the school drifted away.

We then moved a short hop in this same general area and found abundant suspended fish here from 17 to 22 feet deep over a 26 foot bottom. We changed out rods and used a slow smoking tactic for these fish, adding 8 more to the count before these fish wised up.

Finally, still in this vicinity, we moved back to the breakline, a little further W. than we had been earlier, encountered fish on the breakline’s face at 20-22 feet, and used slabs and horizontally worked Cicadas to boat another 9 fish before finally leaving this area.

This mid-depth bite died just as the last remnant of the N. breeze that cleared out the rain was about to die. The surface calmed, the clouds began to thin, and the atmosphere now warmed rapidly. This was a bad combination for white bass, but, we persisted. We had to look over 8 different deepwater location to find just a scant school of semi-interested fish, but, find them we did and, after “short-hopping” several times on top of Area 925/1041, we managed to tease up another 24 fish using a combination of jigging and easing over the course of our final 90 minutes.

By 12:30 we’d seen the best of it and headed back in, but not before snapping a few photos of our best fish of the day. As we got the fish out of the livewell, our largest white bass just would not cooperate. It kept squirming and shaking at inopportune moments as we were trying to get our shots lined up. Finally, after 3 attempts at getting her thumb to stay put in the fish’s mouth, JJ shouts, “STOP!!” at the top of her lungs, and lo and behold, the fish never moved another muscle. It makes me wish she would have shouted “BITE!!” around 8 o’clock this morning. Hindsight is always 20/20.

TALLY = 55 FISH, all caught and released, including 3 largemouth, and 52 white bass.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 12:30p

Air Temp: 66F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 56.1F

Wind: Winds were calm at (obscured) sunrise, turning N8 during and following a brief rain shower, then going slack once again.

Skies: Skies were overcast until approx. 10:40a, then cleared to 20% cloudy and fair.

This morning I welcomed back John and Kelly M. and their 14 year old son, Matthew, all of Troy, TX. With snowsuits donned and earmuffs on, we braved the chill and it paid off handsomely!

Matthew was beyond excited about landing this 3.25 pound, 20″ largemouth after boating several white bass just minutes earlier. When I asked if he knew he had a big fish on, he said, “Well, I did notice it was pulling a lot harder.”

(L to R) Matthew, Kelly, and John with 6 of the 67 fish we caught today — these were the best of the batch of the white bass we landed today. Only 3 of our whites were “shorts” – falling under 10″.

This family and I had fished together on Belton Lake back in the early fall primarily using downrigging and smoking techniques targeting white bass and hybrid. This morning we fished Stillhouse, primarily due to the great volume of fresh water that flooded into Belton since last Saturday’s rains causing a 4+ foot rise there. Such a rise typically scatters the fish and slows the bite for a while, so, we played it safe on Stillhouse where the rain’s impact was not so great.

As we got going, I was about to stop the boat over open water for the sake of doing a little jigging demo to show everyone the necessary tactics required for our cold water fish, but, as I was about to do so, I noted a bit of bird activity at Area 1043. Our forecast for this morning could have been better — light N winds due to turn S by midday. The question was how much wind would get going and how quickly? White bass just get very, very hard to catch in windless conditions. So, with a light W breeze blowing since around sunrise and a nice layer of cloud cover to boot, I wanted to make hay while the sun shone not knowing what the mid-morning was going to bring.

We got to where the birds were working, and, fortunately, they kept on working and pointed the way to bottom-hugging white bass on this main lake flat. I halted us over a solid congregation of fish showing on sonar, dropped a slab down to test the waters, immediately came up with a keeper white, and then got a rod in everyone’s hands along with quick but exact guidance on how to work their slabs effectively. Immediately everyone was catching fish. After 5 or 6 white bass were boated, Matthew hooted and hollered from the starboard rear corner that he had a big one on. I got the net and got back to him just in time to dip a nice 3.25 pound, 20 inch largemouth out of the water! We all ooh’ed and aah’ed for a bit, but went right back to jigging so as not to let the bite go cold on us. By the time things in this area settled down (which coincided with the calming of light W. breeze) we had boated 19 fish including Matthew’s largemouth, one drum, and 17 white bass, all of which were in the 11-12 inch range.

We searched over a few areas with sonar and found little, so we moved on. As we moved, a transition in the weather occurred in that we went from overcast with a W. breeze to bright with calm conditions. Bright, calm conditions are, in my opinion, the toughest conditions under which to catch white bass — and we were there! We found a few fish in around 34 feet just east of Area 1030 and, despite seeing them on sonar, got only 2 white bass and 1 drum to perk up and bite.

When conditions are tough, I often head to deep water. In times of environmental change (like the 2+ feet of new water coming into Stillhouse) and in times of tough environmental conditions (like calm, bright conditions), depth seems to have a buffering effect on these factors allowing for some fish to still be caught. So, we headed to deep water (40 to 50 feet) and looked hard with sonar. I say “looked hard” because even with the best sonar equipment, a white bass shows up as an image of precious few pixels in deep water. We looked over 4 areas before finding any fish at all, and, once we found some, the results were much the same as before … few fish showing and even fewer biting. We boated one white bass and one drum at Area 935.

As we went to search out additional deepwater areas, a light SSE ripple began to develop. It was slight, but it was better than calm. As we approached the area I was hoping to find fish on (Area 1042), the sonar lit up with fish — most right on or just off the bottom. This was good! I got the boat positioned over these fish and they stayed right there under us. We got slabs down and stared to work them and the fish responded. As the winds picked up from the SSE to perhaps 7 mph, the fish began to feed even harder. We’d all stripped out of part of our winter clothing by now, but, with that breeze coming up, we started putting it right back on again. Over the last 70 minutes of the trip we took our tally from 24 fish up to our final total of 67 fish boated using a combination of jigging and easing tactics on the trusty white TNT180’s in 3/4 oz.

TALLY = 67 FISH, all caught and released, including 2 largemouth, 2 drum, 1 crappie, and 62 white bass.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 8:00a

End Time: 12:45p

Air Temp: 42F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 55.5F

Wind: Winds were W4 at sunrise, then calmed from 9:45 until around 11:00a, then came around SSE7-8 to trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were overcast until approx. 9:45a, then cleared to fair.

This afternoon I welcomed back youth anglers Lauren and Zach V. of Ft. Hood. The kids’ dad, Major Craig V., is serving in Afghanistan right now so, through the Ft. Hood SKIES program, their mom, Charlotte, signed them up to fish with me today.

Although the lion’s share of our catch today consisted of white bass, we had other species mixed in with our catch, as commonly happens in the Spring when the water first begins to warm. Here Zach shows us a nice crappie he boated.

Lauren caught this drum that moved in along the bottom to vacuum up the leftovers after a heavy white bass feed left baitfish parts scattered here and there.

Less than 30 minutes had passed from the end of my morning trip with a wonderful family from Troy, TX, to the start of this trip with Lauren and Zach. I knew we could return to the areas that produced for us this morning, but, they had just “turned off” and it would be later in the afternoon that they’d “turn on” again, so, we still needed to find some fish in the meantime.

I headed for deep water, given the bright but windy conditions we now had. My first stop was at Area 1041. This is in about 40 feet of water. As I scanned slowly with sonar, I saw a tight cluster of fish holding on a little irregularity in the bottom. I buoyed the spot and returned to fish it. I explained carefully to the kids how to work their slabs effectively and immediately Lauren caught a fish, then another, then another before I could even have my hands free long enough to tutor Zach a little. Once Zach got the hang of things, he joined in the party, too, and the fishing stayed solid for about 45 minutes during which time the kids boated 14 fish including 1 drum and 13 white bass (all keeper size and then some). Once this played out we looked over 3 more similar areas to no avail.

I then headed for Area 1042 where we had done well in the morning. By now the wind had reached a peak of about 15 mph, the sun was getting low and the shadows long, and things felt fishy — I don’t know how else to describe that 6th sense. As we moved up on this area, fish in prime feeding posture, just 6-9 inches off bottom were there in great numbers. I got us set up over these fish and we went to work. In came fish after fish for 30 minutes straight — 22 of them to be exact, all right at 11 to 12 inches, and all on white TNT180 slabs in 3/4 oz. By 4:00 pm the kids’ hands hurt from reeling in the fish and using the little hand muscles they don’t normally use, and the cold from the strong wind was beginning to sink in a bit. The fish were still raring to go, but the kids — not so much!! So, as much as I hated to do it, we left those fish still biting to go and search for fish in a more wind-protected area.

We did find a few cooperative fish off the slope at Area 1044 in about 32 feet, and fished them a short while, boating 5 more fish. I kept the kids engaged as we set a group goal of breaking the 40 fish mark, but, soon after that goal was met the attention spans ran out.

I knew their mom needed a break having been a deployment-induced single mom for almost a year now, so, we did some “exploring” on one of the protected shorelines collecting aluminum cans so the kids could warm up a bit as we waited the 25 minutes or so for mom’s return. I should report that in addition to the 41 fish we caught, we also collected a full 5 gallon bucket of crushed aluminum cans!! What a bonus!



The kids did a great job today and Lauren, especially, made laugh out loud a number of times with her quirky sense of humor. I’d embarrass her too much if I included the funniest thing she said, but her #2 statement that, “I fell asleep one time in math class and found inner peace” ranked right up there!! This was a fun trip!

TALLY = 41 FISH, all caught and released, including 1 largemouth, 1 drum, 1 crappie, and 38 white bass.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 1:30p

End Time: 5:30p

Air Temp: 63F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 55.6F

Wind: Winds were S14.

Skies: Skies were fair.