This first day of Spring Break 2013 I was joined by “Grandma” Joyce W. and 2 of her grandsons, C.J. (age 13), and Nate (age 9).

C.J. was all about the fishing. He really focused on his technique today and was rewarded with the lion’s share of the catch

Nate was all about enjoying the whole experience and only occasionally allowed himself to be sidetracked by the catching of fish.

For several years now Joyce has left the demands of her job at Dallas Baptist University behind to treat C.J. and Nate to a taste of the outdoors over their Spring Break.

Given the cold conditions we faced and a slight drop in water temperature overnight in the wake of Sunday morning’s cold front passage, I planned on primarily vertical jigging today and, as it turned out, that is exactly what was required for success this morning.

We wound up making stops at five distinct areas today, and then “short hopping” at each one in order to stay on top of the fish. We located biting fish at Areas 334, 720, 372, 1178, and 1179. Each place yielded about the same sort of action. Multiple small packs of fish (9-12 individuals) would be patrolling in these areas and would circulate to beneath the boat. We’d catch 3-4 then have a little lag, then catch another 3 or 4, and then have another lag, and so on.

When all was said and done, we’d boated 46 white bass, 3 largemouth bass, and 1 drum. Every single fish came on either a TNT180 in 3/4 oz. white, or a Johnson Splinter Spoon in shad/silver pattern, 3/4oz.

I’ve learned through the years to expect a high quality of improvisational entertainment from young Nate, and this year was no exception. While C.J. was the model of concentration and was independently catching and taking fish off the hook by himself after one or two quick demonstrations early in the morning, Nate lagged behind a bit in the “lengthy attention span category”. With these cold water fish, technique is very important. So, when I was giving Nate the very same prompting and coaching in our fourth hour that I had given him in hours 1-3, I finally stopped and looked at him and asked with a bit of a smirk, “Nate, haven’t we been going over this same technique for the last four hours?” He contemplated that for a moment as only a 9 year old can do and said, “Well, that’s debatable.” Grandma Joyce and I just had to laugh!!

TALLY = 50 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 12:05p

Air Temp: 38F at trip’s start

Water Surface Temp: ~57F

Wind: Winds were NNW9-14

Skies: Skies were bluebird and clear.

This afternoon I fished with Sam R. and Shawna B., both U.S. Army lieutenants serving with the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood.

As sometimes inexplicably happens, one person seemed to be the “quantity” person, and the other the “quality” person. I’ll let you check with them yourselves to see who was who on this particular trip.

Sam is a Transportation officer originally from Mobile, AL, and graduated from Auburn University; and Shawna serves as an Ordnance officer originally from Arizona, and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. These two were real troopers. They showed up prepared with rain gear and then endured drizzle, rain, wind, and spray, and (for a while) some uncooperative fish, all in the pursuit of white bass. We linked up at 2:30, went over some basics necessary to consistently boat fish at this point in the season, and then headed out in search of fish.

Right up front I told Sam and Shawna, as I tell many folks — fish aren’t that hard to catch, but they can be terribly hard to find. We struggled for the first 2 1/2 hours as I looked over many areas of many different depths and in different parts of the lake looking for fish. We managed 2 fish, a short white and a crappie, just off the river channel at the 3rd or 4th stop we made, but there was no consistency here. That short white, I should note, was landed independently by Shawna, making that the official first fish caught of her lifetime!!

This Spring has been odd thus far with wildly varying weather, colder than normal water, and many days of high winds. All of these factors combine together to keep fish from turning on and staying turned on; instead they are on one day and off the next or feeding for only short periods, or both.

Regardless, we persisted and, taking advantage of a break in the clouds allowing for some deeper water areas to be well-illuminated, we checked out a few areas in 50+ feet of water. One of these, Area 946, was loaded down with fish.

After having “practiced” our vertical jigging at a number of areas, coming up with only 2 fish thus far, Sam and Shawna were ready to go when this big school of fish holding below us decided to cooperate. From the first slab we dropped into the fray to the last time we reeled up as darkness crept up on us, we caught fish after fish, taking our tally from an austere count of 2, up to an above-average catch of 73 fish. All of these fish came on the TNT180 slab in white, 3/4oz.

Thank you, Sam and Shawna, for your service to the nation. I enjoyed fishing with you today and, Shawna, aiding you in landing your first fish. Very fun!!

TALLY = 73 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 2:30p

End Time: 6:30p

Air Temp: 67F at trip’s start

Water Surface Temp: ~57F

Wind: Winds were SSE12-17

Skies: Skies were heavy grey, slowly clearing to 60% cloudy.

This morning I fished with retired University of Texas history professor Dr. George W. of Austin.

Around 11am, under heavy grey skies, a SE wind, and light rain, George landed this 7.00 pound largemouth from out of a school of mixed year-class white bass.



George and I first met several weekends ago when I presented a seminar about sonar use and interpretation at the Cabela’s store in Buda, TX. We agreed then and there to do a trip that included both catching fish and practical sonar interpretation and adjustment.

As we got going this morning we encountered several brief episodes wherein birds (mainly terns) would feed over both loons and gamefish. Since we found this action mainly in water less than 15 feet deep, we cast horizontally with bladebaits or worked light slabs on mono for these fish. By 10:30 we’d put together a catch of 24 white bass, all of which were solid, thick 13-14″ fish. These came off of Areas 116/407 (7:15-7:45), Area 1176 via vertical jigging (8:30-9:00), and off Area 741 (9:30-10:00).

As the bird and fish action slowly died, I headed out to search deeper areas with sonar. We found a solid school of bottom-hugging white bass at Area 074 around 10:30 and went to work vertically jigging slabs on braid. We doubled our catch to 48 fish in ~35 minutes, and, by the time the school dissipated around 12:15, we’d nearly tripled our shallow water catch, taking our tally up to 69.

Satisfied with our results, we turned our focus to sonar use. Actually, we payed close attention to sonar all morning which served as a bit of “OJT” for George, however, there were some specific skills that he wanted to be sure to have nailed down before hopping back in his own boat on Lake LBJ. We worked on waypoint creation and management originating from the chart screen, the sonar screen, and the StructureScan screen, and then how to access these in the files section under the Waypoints tab. George was a pretty quick study (hey, what do you expect from a professor?), so, when I turned the unit over to him, he did all the right button pushes showing he’d understood the rationale for doing as we did.

George is a well-traveled fisherman with a lot of experience in the big tidal rivers of the Northeast. Comparing notes with him was very enjoyable for me — he may have even convinced me to try a “wacky worm” this year!!

TALLY = 69 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 12:30p

Air Temp: 56F at trip’s start

Water Surface Temp: ~57F

Wind: Winds were ESE most of the morning, ranging from 7-11 mph.

Skies: Skies were heavy grey with occasional drizzle and light rain.

This (cold) morning I met brothers Mike and Bob H. of the Wassau, Wisconsin, area for a bit of white bass and hybrid fishing on Belton Lake.

Brothers Mike and Bob with two “white icicles” on a tough, post-frontal fishing day.

Mike has transplanted himself to Morgan’s Point, TX, and Bob was just down for a quick visit, so, we were limited to choosing Tuesday (29 mph straight-line winds and falling temperatures as a cold front arrived) or Wednesday (clear, cold, post-frontal high pressure). So, it was “pick the lesser of two evils” and we went with today.

On my traditional check-in call the night before I told Mike two things: dress warm and be prepared to work for every fish we catch. Well, they dressed well and worked hard!!

It seemed everywhere we went (and we covered from west of BLORA to just shy of the Hwy. 36 bridge) was the same story — very few birds, what birds there were were resting, and bait (if if could be found) up high in the water column. When we did happen upon schooled gamefish, they just refused to come off bottom and give us a look. By 11:00am (with a 6:45am start), we’d only boated 2 fish (at Area 1001) in about 24 feet of water.

As we cruised to yet another area around 11:00am, we began to see nature come to life — some terns began to fly and search for food, buzzards began to soar, and we saw deer moving around the lake edge (very unusual for 11am). I felt a window was beginning to open as the stiff NW breeze relented and the sky began to get a bit hazy.

As we idled over Area 1077, for the first time all day I saw schooled gamefish near bottom in a feeding posture, about 5 inches up off the bottom and tightly clustered in 20-22 feet of water. We got on these fish and boated 11 white bass in short order before the small school disbanded and we had to go looking again. These fish came on TNT180’s in white, 3/4 oz.

We connected with one more white bass at Area 327 in 27 feet of water.

Then we got into one final patch of fish which were spread more horizontally at ~27-29 feet deep at Area 1177. We worked our slabs vertically as we had elsewhere, only this time something a bit unusual happened. Bob felt an odd sensation as he jigged and began to reel in his slab. As it reached the surface, I saw it was caught on heavy monofilament line (we were all using braid). So, I reached down to untangle his hook from the line and then began winding the line around my hand when suddenly, IT PULLED BACK!. I kept on winding and it kept on pulling, and, in about 35 seconds we saw a live ~14″ hybrid come to the surface. It was hooked with a large, ~3/0 galvanized hook with a 2 oz. sinker threaded onto the line about 18 inches up. The hook was way down in the fish’s gullet, so, I used diagonal cutting pliers to cut the hook off without causing further harm and we released the hybrid, now free of the extra baggage he’d been towing around for who knows how long. The fish looked plenty healthy enough — I guess he adapted. We picked up 5 more white bass here and that was all she wrote. 6 1/2 hours for 19 fish — (not including the hybrid) — ouch!!

TALLY = 19 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 1:10p

Air Temp: 32F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~53F

Wind: Winds were NNW11, tapering to light and variable by noon.

Skies: Skies were bluebird slowly changing to fair by mid-day.

This morning I fished with Pat W. of Austin who was once again given a fishing gift certificate by his in-laws this past Christmas. This was Pat’s second trip out with me.

Fishing was tough today, but, persistence paid off and we were able to string together a catch of 34 fish for our efforts.

The very first thing Pat said when we shook hands this morning was, “Well, I’m a dad now.” He was obviously very proud of baby George, now just 20 weeks young. Did I mention that Pat looked sleep-deprived?

Well, the fishing was tough today. We had what the weatherman calls pre-frontal compressional warming which means that the atmosphere gets “squeezed” by the weather we are experiencing now and a cold front on it’s way in. This results in warm, windy days and typically tough conditions. In a normal 4.5 to 5 hour trip, I expect about 90 minutes of really solid fishing with a ramp up to that and a ramp down from that. Today, our window was compressed into about 50 minutes of fishing, between 8:30 and 9:20pm. We caught two-thirds of our catch during this time. We noted that this was the only time we witnessed birds (terns and gulls) flying and feeding today, as well.

This bit of success came at Area 1174 in only 14-16 feet of water (the shallowest I’ve fished so far this year) and via a horizontal approach as we used bladebaits to work out away from the boat.

After this, we dropped back into deeper water and just “pecked” a few fish here and a few fish there. Everything we found was within a few yards of the Lampasas River channel. It is interesting to note that today’s take of 34 fish included 5 crappie and 1 largemouth bass, which is an unusually high percentage of crappie.

For me, coming off of two 100+ fish days at the end of last week, I was really hoping to put together some better numbers for Pat. I was really working to find fish, studying sonar closely, trying different areas, and put about 2 extra hours into the trip. Pat, on the other hand was enjoying a gift, nowhere near his barking dog or crying baby son, and certainly not at the office. While I had my face anxiously buried in the sonar screens, Pat had his head rested back on the console and his feet up as I slowly idled over potential fish holding bottom features — truly two very different perspectives.

Well, I just hate to send anyone home on a “dry spell”, meaning have them leave after not catching many fish toward the end of the trip so their final impression not as good as it could be, so, we scrubbed 3 different areas in the last 45 minutes on the water until we found one small pack of white bass near Area 401 and we worked those fish over until we nearly “willed” one to strike Pat’s slab so he could drive back to Austin with a good final memory from our day’s adventure. With that fish added to the tally, we closed out our trip with 34 fish boated today.

TALLY = 34 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 1:30p

Air Temp: 57F at trip’s start

Water Surface Temp: ~56F

Wind: Winds were SSW17 at trip’s start slowly tapering off to SSW11. Today’s weather was due to pre-frontal compressional warming.

Skies: Skies were light grey with high, thin clouds .

This afternoon I fished with lifelong buddies Jack S. and Tim V., both originally from the Waco area.

Tim landed this 7.25 pound yellow catfish (a.k.a. flathead catfish) on a 3/4 oz. slab from out of a large school of bottom-hugging white bass.

Jack and Tim put together a nice bag of 110 white bass today on a variety of tactics as the fishes’ activity level dictated.

These two fellows, now in their early 50’s, originally became friends in gym class one day when they stood by one another while lining up in alphabetical order.

Jack was the serious fisherman of the two, very keen on techniques and curious about why the fish were caught were where they were and why they did what they did. Tim, on the other hand, was more of a “tourist” fisherman. He enjoyed being outdoors and being with his buddy and doing something out of the ordinary, only occasionally allowing a fish to interrupt his good times.

As has been the case over my past 2 trips (both afternoon trips), the bite began pretty soft, then built later into the afternoon on today’s trip as well.

We caught fish today on Area 074, beginning around 2:25pm. These fish were pretty tentative, rarely pulling very far off bottom. We did one “short hop” in this same general area and, by the time we departed, had boated 28 fish from here, mostly 1 year old fish.

Next, we headed for Area 1039. There were a lot more fish here, and, as we prepared to hover over these fish and slab for them, they began to pull up off bottom out of curiosity. We caught fish here by jigging, easing, and slow-smoking. We also caught a variety of fish here including 5 largemouth bass up to 2.75 pounds, a 7.25 pound flathead catfish, and 42 white bass. The average white bass here was a solid 3 year old fish.

As Jack and I kept a steady stream of fish coming aboard, Tim kept a steady stream of Snickers, Mike & Ike’s, Dagwood sandwiches, and Dr. Pepper going down his hatch. Were he to have “seriously” fished, it would no doubt have hindered his ability to recount such interesting current news stories such as those about jewelry-eating-barracuda in Florida, a man rising to over 30,000 feet in a lawnchair-turned-hot-air-balloon, and the complexity of calculating precise angles of re-entry necessary to have space junk to hit private homes in Wisconsin.

By 5:50p, our fish count stood at 76. I told the fellows that the magical 100 mark was within grasp IF we all participated (Jack and I stared directly at Tim as I said this!), and if we all focused on our technique. I moved us back to Area 074 and the fish were there! We got our slabs down and had a double on in no time. In the next 20 minutes we all did our best to convert every strike we got into a boated fish and, by the time the sun set and the fish quit, we’d boated a total of 110 fish. Every last fish today came on a TNT180 slab in 3/4 oz. fished either by vertical jigging, easing, or slow smoking.

TALLY = 110 fish

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 2:00p

End Time: 6:25p

Air Temp: 57F at trip’s start

Water Surface Temp: ~55-56F

Wind: Winds were NNW17 at trip’s start slowly tapering off to NNW7.

Skies: Skies were fair on the NNW wind.

This afternoon I fished with Ransom and Phyllis O. of the Austin area. The couple celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary this week. Phyllis took Ransom to a show in Austin on Thursday, and Ransom brought Phyllis out fishing today!

Phyllis caught the trip lunker today — this 2.25 pound fish was mixed in with a school of white bass down around 55 feet.

Still dating after 43+ years!!.

Weather played a huge role in our trip today. As we began, it was nearly 63F, windless, bright, and sunny (all bad for fishing, but nice to be outdoors in). By the end of the trip, it was 5 degrees cooler, blowing a near-gale, and cloudy grey (with the fish in overdrive!). We caught our fish in the happy medium between the two extremes.

Fishing was pretty straightforward this afternoon — we found fish near the old river channel, vertical jigged to check their interest level, stayed if the fish warranted, or departed to find greener pastures if the fish were lazy.

We found fish at two distinct areas today. We found our first patch of fish right on Area 074 in ~27 feet of water. We made 3 “short hops” in this area to try to stir up some fish. Each time we let our slabs down we’d catch 3-5 fish, then they’d shut down on us indicating very passive fish not really in the eating mood. We boated 13 fish here in about 40 minutes and decided to keep searching.

Our next stop came in ~55 feet of water at Area 946. The fish were oriented to the windward side of this feature. I dropped a buoy right on them, circled back and hovered atop these fish for nearly 2 solid hours. The fishing started a big sluggishly, but, as the wind increased and as the cloud cover increased, the fish continued to turn on more and more. We boated a total of 44 fish off of this one area. Around 4:30, the wind shifted due N. and increased sharply by ~6 mph. This caused the fish to back off their intense feed a bit, but, the fishing was still better than when the calmer, bright conditioned had prevailed.

By 5:00p, we’d boated a total of 57 fish with willing fish beneath us still interested, but, with dropping temps, a setting sun, and increasing winds, the comfort level and fun factor was waning, and the couple made a good decision to be content with what they’d enjoyed catching and called it a day right then. So, in about 3 hours’ time, we’d managed 55 white bass and 2 largemouth for our efforts. Every last fish today came on a TNT180 slab in 3/4 oz. fished either by vertical jigging, easing, or slow smoking.

TALLY = 57 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 2:00p

End Time: 5:10p

Air Temp: 61F at trip’s start, further dropping to 57F.

Water Surface Temp: ~55-57F

Wind: Winds were NNW2 increasing to NNW12, then shifting to N18.

Skies: Skies were clear on the NNW wind, then grew cloudier on the winds shift around 4:30p

This afternoon I fished with Taylor and Carla Carmouche of Killeen.

Taylor and Carla with lagniappe!

Both are bona fide Cajuns from well south of New Orleans. I’ve never met a Cajun that didn’t fish well, and these two were no exceptions!! We specifically delayed the trip today so as to enjoy the benefit of the winds that were to peak at around 16 mph with some higher gusts. Cold, bright, still mornings seem to put a damper on the fishing, and, with the temperatures dropping to the low to mid-thirties overnight, it is much more comfortable for my guests to fish at this time.

We got on the water at 2:00p caught just one fish in our first 45 minutes on the water, then moved and found fish further downlake. Thanks to a couple of loons who had worked to find bait, I was able to find some fish near that same bait just off the river channel in about 35 feet of water, and that led us to fish. We found fish a big “cranky” at first, unwilling to go for anything not within a foot of the bottom. From Area 1172 we boated exactly 56 fish before the action faded out. Every one of these fish came on a vertically jigged TNT180 slab, ¾ oz. white.

Our next (and last) stop came at Area 981, again, right on the edge of the river channel. I eased into this area based on recent success enjoyed here during a scouting trip late last week. These fish were just a few yards upstream of where I’d last encountered them. At first, we attempted a slow “smoking” retrieve for these fish, but they seemed a bit reluctant to pull up off bottom despite a great number of fish initially showing on sonar in a very aggressive posture. So, after pulling fewer fish than I thought we might by smoking, we went back to vertical jigging, picked up a few more fish, but this time, as we reeled in those fish from bottom, the entire school lifted up into the water column. So now we had fish at 24 feet down to 32 feet over a 40 foot bottom. We wore these active, suspended fish out with a smoking retrieve, taking our count from 57 fish up to 133 fish by the time we’d thinned them out and they lost interest.

As we closed in on a 100 fish day, the excitement was building. Carla and Taylor had a little friendly competition going on over who was going to boat that 100th fish. I just put my rod up at around fish #95 and let the two of them “work that out” themselves.

After #100, then #101, then #102 and so on came over the side, Taylor said, “Now this is lagniappe!” – that’s Cajun for “a little something extra; a bonus”.

When all was said and done we had boated 131 white bass and 2 largemouth bass. Today, the big one really DID get away. Taylor had a largemouth that would have gone about 3 pounds do a classic boatside headshake and disappear for good before we got him in the boat.

I appreciate the Carmouche’s having faith in my call on the weather. When they saw such cool temperatures and higher than moderate wind speeds, they thought twice about coming, but, I assured them these were great conditions for this time of year – stable weather in an unstable season. They let the guide be the guide and were rewarded for it.

TALLY = 133 fish

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 2:00p

End Time: 6:25p

Air Temp: 57F at trip’s start

Water Surface Temp: ~55-56F

Wind: Winds were NNW16 at trip’s start slowly tapering off to NNW9.

Skies: Skies were fair on the NNW wind.

Despite the topsey-turvey weather and wind of late, I’ve made an attempt to stay on top of the fish movements. We had a net loss of 2 degrees F on our surface temperatures over this past week on Stillhouse, and the forecast seems to indicate we’ll likely just maintain or even lose slightly in the week coming up.

I got out today in the face of a stiff NW breeze and heavy gray cloud cover. The air temperature actually fell 3 degrees after sunrise and a wind chill factor was kicking in. Bird activity early in the morning was scant (from 7:00 to 10:00a). I was able to find a few scattered schools of fish on a gentle slope near the old Lampasas River channel in about 27 feet and stayed on these fish from 7:30 to 9:45a between Areas 984 and 985. I was catching these fish slowly but steadily over this time. Each time I hooked a fish, one to three more would rise up just 2-3 feet off bottom to half-heartedly follow, but would not be any more aggressive by the time I got my slab back down to them.

Over the 7:30 to 9:45 time span I boated exactly 25 fish (all white bass). I was happy that I put together a limit on such a poor weather day, and decided to head back in, but kept an eye out for natural signs of activity as I went.

As good fortune would have it, I spotted about 4 terns looking “fishy” over a stretch of river channel bounded by Areas 1168, 1170,1169, and 432. Well, 4 terns turned to 8, and 8 to 20, and in just 8-10 minutes there was a full-blown feed going on with white bass littering the bottom third of the water column in about 40 feet over quite an expansive area. Because many of these fish were as much as 12 feet off bottom, indicating they were very active, I used a slow smoking approach to target the most active fish among this large shoal of fish. In 35 minutes time I was able to easily double my catch to 50. As that 50th fish came over the side, the birds began to do more flying than diving and I knew the best was now behind me.

I headed in to enjoy some Ford F-150 heat blowing on my now nearly numb hands.

TALLY = 50 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 10:50a

Air Temp: 41F at trip’s start, further dropping to 37F, then warming slowly.

Water Surface Temp: ~54F

Wind: Winds were NNW13.

Skies: Skies were 100% clouded and grey.

Go Army Families!! From L to R Front Row: Will M., Noah M., Reece M., and Austin B. From L to R Back Row: Stephanie M., Chloe B., and Jen B.

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, 18 Feb. 2013

Dear Friends of SKIFF,

This morning I fished on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with three boys from two families, all off from school for the Presidents’ Day holiday. Will and Reece Moore are the sons of U.S. Army Captain Ramey and Stephanie Moore, and Austin Bayless is the son of U.S. Army Captain Wyatt and Jennifer Bayless. CPT Moore is on his 3rd deployment and is currently with the 4th Brigade of 1/9 Cavalry in Afghanistan. CPT Bayless, also a combat veteran with several deployments under his belt, is on an extended Observer/Controller assignment in the Mojave Desert.

I was betwixt and between on running the trip due to the forecast for high winds, but knew there would be 3 very disappointed youngsters with not much else planned for the day and no corresponding break for their moms, so, with marginal fishing conditions but wind speeds still low enough to allow for a safe trip, we bucked the wind for 4 hours and came up with a respectable catch.

The boys’ time on the water was like a mini reunion, as they’d not seen one another since a friend they had in common moved on to Fort Bliss some time ago. So, despite the tough fishing, the boys enjoyed the catching up, kid jokes, an extended explanation of the difference between knots and lashes, and, of course, snacks (all of which were consumed within 35 minutes of launching).

We boated a total of 19 fish today, including 16 white bass taken in the vicinity of Area 1167 and Area 566 using white, 3/4 oz. slabs fished using an easing technique. Our last 3 fish, all nice 13.5″+ specimens, fell to trolled crankbaits used between Areas 105/352 once the winds got so high that boat control sufficient to use a vertical presentation was no longer possible.

As we approached the dock at trip’s end, it was like sailors returning to a home port homecoming. Moms and younger siblings were waving and the boys on the boat with me were waving back. I invited everyone on board to take photos — which is normally no big deal, however, with the lake low due to drought, the courtesy dock resembles a broad playground slide canted at a 45 degree angle. So, the moms and siblings had some “fun” sliding down to the end and just about tumbling into the boat!

CPT Moore and CPT Bayless, thank you men for serving.

Friends of SKIFF, thank you all for making a day like this for the captains’ sons possible!

–Bob Maindelle

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp: 68F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 56.2F

Wind: Winds were high from the S at 16-18 at trip’s start, ramping up to SW20-22 with higher gusts by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were murky until around 10am, then cleared to 20% partly cloudy.