As usual Sunday morning I got up at 4:45 and headed to Lady Bird Lake, thirty miles away. Thought it was odd, the Lake Austin Blvd. exit was closed. Got off at Ceasar Chavez, all routes to the Lady Bird Lake were blocked. Realized a bit late, Sunday was the Austin Marathon and all access to the lake from the north side was shut down. I had three rods, tackle, kayak, and no place to fish. Headed home, then realized that a mere 9 miles from my house is the new Lakeshore Park. The lake in question is Soil Conservation Service Site 3 Reservoir. It's only about 250 acres. I fished the entire perimeter, put in at about 7 and got off the water at 9:30. A lot of cover in the lake, including reeds, laydowns, and some whole trees. Only caught one sunfish on the park side of the lake. Fishing the far side (the private dock and shoreline side) I caught a total of 13 fish, mostly blue gill, on a Gizzard Shad colored Bitsy Minnow and Gulp Alive 1" minnows in Smelt Color on Trout Magnet 1/32d Oz jig heads.

The first fish of the day came on the Bitsy Minnow in about 4' of water at a private ramp. She broke one of my rods (an Ultra Light/Fast Field and Stream store brand), but I got her into the net. Not sure of the species, I think it was a "Yellow Barbed Sunfish" or it could have been a "Grey Whiskered Sunfish", but she was about 14" or so.


Next fish on the bitsy minnow was this monster, caught in about 6' of water and a downed tree limb.


Got into a pretty good nest of bluegill between a private dock and the dam, caught five or six, around the size of these two, on Gulp Alive Minnows.



Besides the broken rod, was a nice morning of fishing, and saved me from NOT fishing at all on Sunday. Air Temp was 62 at 7am, was bout 75 when I finished. Water temp was 68 per my fish finder. Nice little lake. The park shoreline had a lot of bank fishermen by the time I left, so I'm guessing the fish on that side of the lake are pretty heavily pressured. Will probably head back sometime during the evening on a weeknight with some baitcasters and drag some soft plastic around the bottom for some bass.

Great post and pics John thanks for sharing your trip with us

Great post with a lot of detail...thanks for sharing.

I actually had plans to fish LBL on Sunday morning but they got changed. I'm glad I didn't drive up there.

Excellent report. The water looks clear for a soil conservation lake.

Chuck will have all the records on that lake within a month. And Osborn is trying to figure out how to set a state record for Yellow barbed sunfish

Truth!

Nice post and nice fish. Good job.

Looks like you had a good Sunday, thanks for sharing

Rick aka Catyakker has submitted a record for a new water body. It is loaded with some very fat Green Hybrids. Rick sent in a 9" Redbreast that just barley went over .50. The Green Hybrids will easily go over a half pound. We both also caught bass just about every time we fished there that are between 3 and 5 pounds. I told Rick that I was not going to submit any records off of his newly found water body. I also told Rick that I was not going to tell you-Jamie the location of said water body. Besides I see you have been very, very busy stacking up the water body records. You even broke several of mine! That is OK. There are more records to be set !


Side Note: It would not surprise me one bit if Barry has already got that tattooed Yellow barbed Catfish figured out for waterbody record purposes.

Nice post and fish. Love that Austin area fishing.

Nice post and fish. As always super job. Thanks for sharing.