I expected Bastrop to be an easy day yesterday. Conditions virtually identical to last weekend with one exception. Wind was about 10MPH lighter. Apparently that made all the difference because unlike last weekend where it was easy I managed only TWO fish, both under a pound. I tried it all when the shad cranks weren't doing it, but the only thing I found was a baby bass senko in 2' for those dinks.

Fayette today began ad the intake on the rocks where my partner picked up a quick 3#er on red shad ribbon T rigged in 7'. I continued to toss the shad square bill as I was unimpressed with his quick success. We moved to the other side of the channel nearest the dam and tossed at those rocks where I picked up a 4#er. He picked up a crank and missed a couple of short strikes. We moved to some grass near the area and two more 3#ers choked on my shad while my partner went back to the red shad for some reason. 1 catch is nice. two is a trend and three is a pattern right? We stayed for another 20 minutes around this patch, but no more catches so we went in search of an analog that didn't already have a boat on it. We found a secondary point with some grass that I thought was too shallow, but he grabbed two with his red shad while I got shut out here with my crank and a watermelon/red brush hog. We moved again to the discharge because I don't usually fish there and wanted to check it out. He finally picked up a shad square bill and hooked two that got away. I was shut out again, but I was more messing with the trolling motor and watching the charts. There was a guy in the channel who got one on a dark colored plastic, but couldn't tell if drop shotting or what. He also missed one, but that's not surprising. He was setting the hook so hard that he was either ripping the lips off the poor fish or yanking it out of their mouth. He literally reeled down a tad and yanked so hard that he had to take 3-4 steps back. Watched him do this several times and come up empty. Had a really pretty navy blue skeeter that would look great on the back of my navy gmc. far be it from me to tell someone else how to fish, but dang, man. I guess if it works for you do it, but I've never had to set a hook like that!

Anyway, we finished with a handful of fish each and had a lot of fun.

All fish were healthy and all but one were fat!

Water temp near intake was 58, other side of the lake was 60 and discharge was 80!
Water was lower by about 2' than just a week ago, but not horribly low.

Hey Lieber - We went to Bastrop today. Cloudy, wintry skies with almost zero wind. I bet there wasn't 6 boats on the lake all day. Only managed 7 (very healthy) fish in 4 hours. Water was a whopping high of 59 degrees, even at the discharge.

And no invite for your best friend? Shameful! LOL!

My best friend (and PB) was on the boat with me. LOL!

Dad...great report...I catch a ton of fish at Fayette on those "ribbon" worms in the tequila shad color (Culprit). Have also had a lot of success the past few years on 2-3" soft swimbaits...they are very versatile...bounce them off the bottom...swim s l o w just above the rocks etc.

back seat REALLY wanted to go to Bastrop, but after being basically shut down yesterday there I was in a different mood! Glad y'all enjoyed

I came real close to tying one on at one point, just never did. appreciate the advice!

Awesome post and some nice fish. Thanks for sharing.