Last weeks temperatures made for some absolutely beautiful days to be on the water, even though it was just a tad bit breezy. I had trips on Eagle Mountain, Lake Lewisville and the Brazos river, each of which presented it's own rewards and challenges. Here is what we found and how we caught them:
Eagle Mountain, Wednesday the 22nd.
My morning trip saw overcast skies and low winds. We headed south to hit the humps, and instead of joining in on the boat show, we found fish in 16-20 ft of water on a flat and decided to see how they would bite. We left spot one with 37 fish, mostly 11-13" males. We headed north to spot number two and polished off our 50, with these fish being much larger females in the 14-17" range.
My afternoon trip saw sunny skies and we picked up where the morning trip left off. The first spot yielded 68 keepers, as schools of fish kept moving through. These fish were extremely aggressive and would have the hook in their mouth before the bait ever touched bottom. We went to spot number two, a windblown point towards the south end, finding our fish much shallower this time (10-14ft) and had our 125 keepers after fishing for 2.5 hours. That was a great afternoon! The technique was simple; find the bottom, lift the bait 1-3ft, set the hook and reel in the fish.
For both trips, we used White Hot Thump Buddies rigged on 1/4 ounce unpainted heads with #2 hooks all of which came from
www.constantpursuitoutfitters.com. Our gear consisted of 6ft Ugly Stik rods fixed up with Shimano Sienna reels that were spooled with 8lb Wally Marshall Hi-Vis line.
Brazos River, Thursday the 23rd and Friday the 24th.
These wade fishing trips have been perfect for the high wind days. As long as the customer is physically able and desires an adventure, I can show them some remote areas of central Texas that offer very high quality fishing. I generally keep these trips to only 2 man trips, because I want it to be a personal experience and I want to teach them what I know.
Our technique has consisted of finding pools and slack water areas next to high current parts of the river. We then cast into those pools with a jig and float set up. I'll have the customer cast to the top of the pool (I call the top the most upriver part of the pool) and then let the current to the work. Depending on the time of day, we're running our jigs 18-36" under a cigar float. Once the bait hits the water, we pause for 2-3 seconds, and then use a twitch and pause method to retrieve the bait back. If there is enough current, we just hold the rod tip still and let Mother Nature do the work.
Right now out of every two man limit we catch, I'm only seeing 4-5 females on the cleaning table. Looks like a few more weeks of fun are in store for us
I like a longer rod for this style of fishing, as it allows for more control. I'm using an 8ft casting rod from
www.g-rods.com, fixed with a Pflueger President and spooled with 8lb Wally Marshall hi-vis line. The jig of choice is the Midnight Special Thump Buddy rigged on an 1/8 ounce unpainted head with a #4 sickle hook from Constant Pursuit Outfitters.
Lake Lewisville, Saturday the 25th.
Kevin McCollough, owner of Downwind Guide Service needed help running a 14 person party so I wanted to help the best I could. We hit the lake at 1:30 and did all we could to put fish in the boat. We found our sandbass and our hybrids in 19-24ft, but I will admit, it wasn't easy and the numbers weren't great. I assume the small front that pushed through didn't help our cause much, but I don't like to make excuses. Kevin killed the fish on Friday and on Sunday, but for whatever reason, Saturday afternoon was just plain tough.
We found our fish on humps, dropping down tandem rigged 1 ounce slabs with a Thump Buddy teaser on top. We also dropped down some live shad, but even that didn't seem to change much. I liked how hard Kevin worked for his customers, and was happy to see the smiles on their faces when all was said and done. I like working alongside other guides who don't take "no" for an answer when fishing is fishing.
Good luck and take care, TFF!
