Local tax collector

Yepper. I like that one, local tax collector. I always thought owls were a night creature, heck we still had good light when it saw the opportunity to get a free meal. I guess winter has been tuff and a freebie is what it is, a freebie.
Heck if I had seen this owl and knew it would grab a live fish then I would have made sure to offer it some.
I feed live fish to raccoons when I'm out in my boat and I see one on the shoreline forging. They can grab up a three pound bass like it was nothing. I'm sure several feed off it through the night. I've heard them fighting over it before, so I hope they all get a little.

Three of us went back to Newmans yesterday afternoon and we had about 1-1/2 hours to fish. Talking to others we were told that the fish were gone. They never got a bite. One person told us a guy was doing great on crappie but we never saw a stringer with them on it. Any how, we made the 20 minute walk in and fished since we were there.
The water continues to every so slowly drop and it is clear. We all struggled to catch the few that we did. I know I caught more small fish than I did nice size keepers. Long story short, we took home 15 nice fish.
Today we are going back around 2 pm so we will have more hours to fish, plus we are going upstream to see if we can find a honey hole full of fish. This may be my last trip to Newmans Bottom this year, the drive is pretty long. But I will finish out the year fishing the steps on the San Gabriel River. There is about two more weeks of this spawn left to go. Some of the females I cleaned the other day had eggs that were still undeveloped. But as soon as we have a few back to back nights with 60 degree weather followed by days reaching into the 70's, the spawning action will pick up and the fish will become very active again.

Oh yea, J-Moe was on em pretty good with his magical closure he ties. He went upstream and did good in this one hole he continues to go to. Don't tell anyone, but he has been holding out on me and Carlos, he has a honey hole up there. But it won't be a secret to long because today we are going up there with him. I'll be watching you J-Moe. LOL

Well, I've dang near missed the whole white bass spawn this year. Been spending too much time at work and not enough time fishing. I need to get my priorities straight. Looks like y'all are doing a good job of catching them though.

So we go again yesterday. We arrived about 2 pm allowing ourselves a little more time to search for a honey hole. We found one, but what a hike it was. We took out 14 real nice crappie and 18 nice size whites. We caught all kind of stuff, black bass, perch, small crappie and whites. We did catch more small fish than nice fat fish, but we only kept fish that were long, fat and very healthy looking. If there was no girth on a fish no matter what lengthy it was, it went back in, we only kept the best looking fish. Like I said, we threw back twice as many as we kept.
I had fun and I'm sure the other two did too. When fishing amongst good friends, being outdoors catching a few fish while shoot the breeze makes for a great day no matter what. Carlos and I were laughing our selves crazy in this one spot. We were hooking up on a fish almost every cast, but getting your catch over this log was the funny part. We had more fun with that challenge than anything else. Also when your out searching holes you will also find all the sticks on the bottom. I lost a lot of jigs and so did Carlos. But who cares, we normally keep several packs on us at all times because we know we are going lose some. I also keep a spool of line in my back pack if I lose very much of it. Four pound test line really does snap when you hang up and pull on it.

Yesterdays weather was perfect for scouting out the creek. No wind what so ever. We were able to cast from six foot high banks into holes and work our bait so fish would bite at it if they were in there. We could cast under tree limbs and all that good stuff. There are still a lot of fish in this creek, but the water has gotten so clear that they swim up to the bait and turn away from it at the last part their approach to strike at it. I saw so many swim towards my bait and then turn away. Live bait should be the best thing to use right now, but I am not a live bait type guy, so I'll stick to trying to trick them into biting my jig. Today the wind is blowing so hard that any time you try to fish from up top from those tall banks the wind will catch your line and really mess up your presentation. So I'll probably stay home today. But who knows, I might go as well. We will see, it's a kind of a toss up right now. All the whites we caught yesterday were males. I didn't clean the crappie but I am almost positive they were all females. Boy did they have a belly on them.

last year about this time..

Fishing the spawn in March is all good, or should I say the best. It's water clarity, flow and temp that regulates the difference between fair, good and best bite. The creek is loaded with fish, getting them to strike at your bait is the key factor.

I went to Newmans yesterday and didn't catch a single white bass. I talked to 4 other groups and no one had caught any fish, with the exception of one gentlemen who ended the day with 4. I did manage to catch a handful of crappie, but that was it. Tough fishing for sure.

What is the biggest largemouth bass size have you guys caught at Somerville in the creeks? I caught one 18 1/2 in length Tuesday. He was probably 8 pounds. I was pretty happy since I'm a beginner fisherman and I don't fish much. I wanted to have him mounted but I did not know if this was a big or average size. I instead put him in the pan but I'm now having some regrets.

You might have had a hybrid. The state record for a white is five pounds something, so it probably wasn't a white.

I�m sorry it is a largemouth bass.

Oh my gosh, I totally missed that. Thanks for setting the story straight on my end. Two pound LMB is the largest I've pulled out of there. I also catch what is known as spotted black bass. But those are in the one pound and under size.
Congrats on your catch, that's a monster fish for that creek way up there.

Check out this web site that has a quick weight chart for black bass.
https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/recreational/catchrelease/bass_length_weight.phtml