Posted By: PKfishin
Couple PK Keepers - 04/25/16 01:17 PM
I decided to try my luck at PK Saturday despite the full moon and a plethora of bass Boats on Neely Slough Saturday. Water was still fairly clear in Neely Slough down by the dam with really clear water running in from the creeks feeding it. Big change from the Brazos at I-20 where I crossed. The Brazos heading into Lake Granbury is out of its banks and running high and very muddy. I figure the Brazos up at South bend below Graham looks similar.
Haven't had much luck with stripers with lures since the lake filled, so I decided to catch some of the spawning shad that are showing up in big numbers in the coves and creeks. This proved to be a tough task as every school I found was being constantly harassed by schools of 8-12 LM Bass in the 8-16 inch range. I did see some bigger 5-6 LB LM up in the creeks real shallow but PK is just over run with under size LM bass. Shad must be the only fish in the world that can spawn while running from fish trying to eat them.
After some poor attempts to catch fast moving shad I finally figured out the shad just run back and forth along the bank and you could follow their movement by the swirls of the constant LM bass attacks. Since swearing at those LM didn't help, I I parked the boat and just waited for the big school to swim by and got a net full. catching shad was a lot easier last year when I could just ease up on them in shallow water and drop a net over them.
Caught these two 20 inch stripers on the shad along with numerous sandies and LM bass. Both fish where males. I figure this is the size all those 15 inch fish we were catching last year have grown to. I finally figured out how to keep the sandies and small LM bass from bait stealing my shad. I switched to a number 8 Gamakatsu octopus hook and set the drag real lose so my spinning real would peel line out like a bait caster. Works real good on the little guys, as they struggle to get those big shad down. I had one little 8 inch LM bass I caught that had a 5 inch shad in his mouth. Kinda looked like my 4 year old nephew with that big whataburger. With the drag lose like that the stripers peel a lot of line out before you can get to the pole and tighten it up. Stripers seem to have two speeds: Really fast and faster.
PK seems to be fishing decent these days. I'm sure the guides are all catching limits.
Haven't had much luck with stripers with lures since the lake filled, so I decided to catch some of the spawning shad that are showing up in big numbers in the coves and creeks. This proved to be a tough task as every school I found was being constantly harassed by schools of 8-12 LM Bass in the 8-16 inch range. I did see some bigger 5-6 LB LM up in the creeks real shallow but PK is just over run with under size LM bass. Shad must be the only fish in the world that can spawn while running from fish trying to eat them.
After some poor attempts to catch fast moving shad I finally figured out the shad just run back and forth along the bank and you could follow their movement by the swirls of the constant LM bass attacks. Since swearing at those LM didn't help, I I parked the boat and just waited for the big school to swim by and got a net full. catching shad was a lot easier last year when I could just ease up on them in shallow water and drop a net over them.
Caught these two 20 inch stripers on the shad along with numerous sandies and LM bass. Both fish where males. I figure this is the size all those 15 inch fish we were catching last year have grown to. I finally figured out how to keep the sandies and small LM bass from bait stealing my shad. I switched to a number 8 Gamakatsu octopus hook and set the drag real lose so my spinning real would peel line out like a bait caster. Works real good on the little guys, as they struggle to get those big shad down. I had one little 8 inch LM bass I caught that had a 5 inch shad in his mouth. Kinda looked like my 4 year old nephew with that big whataburger. With the drag lose like that the stripers peel a lot of line out before you can get to the pole and tighten it up. Stripers seem to have two speeds: Really fast and faster.
PK seems to be fishing decent these days. I'm sure the guides are all catching limits.
