Fished the north front Sunday. Conditions were tough but we managed to catch a handful of decent fish. We started our live stream with Mad Katz rods going down and before I could get the fish in we had 4 fish on. We managed to get all 4 fish in the boat, 6 20 20 32.

Fish and bait were stacked into very specific areas 8 ft thick in 27-40 ft. Precision dragging was critical and if we weren’t hitting our targets perfectly the graph looked like the moon. We went big on half of our baits with stinger rigged hand sized baits or a little bigger. We ran half our rods with medium sized baits as well since it was the day the front was hitting but those just caught eater sized fish. Jaxon lost a 40 right at the boat that was skin hooked and I lost a tank of a fish as well that had the rod tip almost touching the water. We ended up with a handful of 20s, a 32, and some teeners in a little under 3 hrs. Should have fished more favorable conditions Saturday but we’ll count it as a victory considering the north front was hitting. All fish CPRed to fight another day.

We’ll be travel fishing next weekend with some friends from out of town so hopefully we’ll get into some bigger fish.

Looks like a great day to me.

Interesting the smaller baits caught the smaller fish. I had been thinking about that lately. Did the bigger fish come on shad or trash fish/other? I haven't managed to get a bite on fresh shad last two trips, which was disappointing given how hard I had to work to get it.

Love the new wrap/graphics on the boat, Chris.

Solid post, solid fish, life is good, and some Lifetime Memories. Good job.

Thanks guys. Our bigger baits are what catch our big fish 90% of the time this time of year and that is especially the case when we are dragging. I like my baits to have a natural presentation of an injured fish passing by rather than a chunk of bait when dragging. I believe it is this natural presentation of an injured or dying fish swimming by that triggers a reaction bite of some fish that might not bite otherwise. On anchor I don’t think bait size is as important but when dragging, our big fish numbers dramatically increase when we go big. There are days where the smaller baits are preferred but you guys that have fished with me know I go big and we have a ton of success doing that. We went with smaller baits than usual on half our rigs Sunday as i was expecting the fish might want a smaller bait due to the front hitting but that wasn’t the case at all. As far as Shad go, I think a lot of guys think Shad is the end all be all catfish bait and it is a great bait no doubt but I can tell you with 1000% certainty that big fish will often prefer a different bait. How do I know this? Because I always run Gizzard Shad along with at least 1 or 2 other baits and very often the Shad gets bit the least especially by big fish. Why that is the case is pure speculation but Big Catfish are Apex predators which means that any fish that can fit in their mouth is prey to them. I certainly don’t want to eat the same thing for every meal and I imagine Blue Cats are the same.

Nice work and post as always !

Good to see you got into some Chris. I agree Saturday would have been the pick day. Wish I could have gotten out but at least I get to see your fish porn! Thanks for that.

Sweet pics and for posting the details on the bait.
One question:
You mention this below, are you trimming the fins for the
Injured fish presentation or are you hooking them thru the tail
So they swim down.
" natural presentation of an injured fish "

El Gato, travel fishing is always cool fine and dandy, but you mentioned "bigger fish"!!! Really these pix above are big fish, if you have not looked close at the size. Just look at them beside action Jaxon lol...

All kidding aside, man these pix are awesome, thanks for sharing

Thanks guys. I trim the fins Gus so that they are less likely to foul the hook. I hook them through the bottom jaw and through the nose so that the bait comes through the water as if it were swimming by. I don’t like them helicoptering. I also use big filets and those will often get bit the most. The waves pulling it along create the action and make it dance. If the baits are really big I trim my filets to look similar to a fish shape. My big baits I put a 12/0 hook in the nose and a 10/0 stinger hook behind the dorsal fin. The stinger rig is not used to catch smaller fish. This helps to eliminate fish under 10 lbs but we still catch some 5 lb fish on our big baits most trips. This time of year we are targeting fish that are 15 lbs and up. I’m not telling you guys this is how you should do it. It’s just what works good for us.

Thanks Rowdy. I’m not complaining about those fish one bit. I’m always happy to get one over 20lbs. Those fish are about what I expect to catch on an average trip this time of year on Lewisville. Had we landed our 2 best fish it would have been a great trip. There is a fine line between victory and defeat in trophy Catfishing and especially on Lewisville which is notoriously tough for big fish. You’ll see a lot more guys catching big fish on other fisheries than you will on Lewisville. Even though there are a ton of guys that catfish my lake there are very few that catch big fish. Go look at the guide pages that fish Lewisville and you won’t see very many big fish being caught. This isn’t a strike against anyone, Lewisville is just a tough lake for trophy fishing. If conditions are good this weekend we’ll go fish a better lake and I will post a trip report and show you the difference.

We’ve had one of the warmest winters here on record which makes things much more difficult for us big fish guys. We’ve caught big fish every trip since October but it’s just been a strange year for Trophy Blues. We’ve been fishing terrible conditions last 3 trips with no wind, then 30 mph wind and rollers out of the south, then 15 mph north front hitting last trip. Each of the last 3 trips has been about the same production as the last. If I could fish favorable conditions i could change that but I gotta fish when I can instead of when I should. This cooler weather that’s hitting this week should dramatically improve our fishing this weekend as long as the wind doesn’t blow us off the water or rain hard all day.

Chris,

Nice notes and nice pictures as always. Fun watching Jax grow up the last few years. He is definitely still a kid, but has a ton more experience already than most adults.

Hope to see you soon.

Ken

Chris, it's so good to have your input again. I love the bait presentation theory that you have. I shouldn't say theory because you've done your research with multiple controls, using numerous baits/sizes/species all at the same time, which makes it more than a theory. I think you've fine tuned the bait presentation and it sheds light on my own mistakes like not trimming the fins and making sure that I'm not just slapping a big chunk of something on a hook. You said blue cats are apex predators and because of that, they are really tuned into their environment and surroundings. They're way smarter than we sometimes give them credit for. A naturally moving or more enticing bait makes a lot of sense.

Also, you are spot on when it comes to precision dragging. I noticed on my last trip that one of my drifts took me about 20 yards further north of the line I was wanting to drift and I got a lot fewer bites on that drift. I turned around, went back and got on the line I wanted with my trolling motor and got back into the fish. Any of you guys that just drift with the wind need to take heed on trolling motor control. Maybe we can get El Gato to do a video lesson for us! It will absolutely up your game and there's some fine points to be learned about how the wind affects your boat and drag line with respect to your trolling motor.