Hey All,

A buddy has talked me into a trip down the Brazos an saturday below the Lake Whitney dam. The current game plan is get there by 8, paddle the 3 to 4 miles down below the dam and back working sinking line with clousers and streamers. Any advice would be welcome. Thanks!

I've fished that stretch quite a few times and honestly I don't think you will need a sinking line if you are using a clouser. There aren't very many stretch's where the water is more then 3 feet deep. It's a great area to fish and you may very well get some nice small mouth's. Let us know how it goes.

Oh great, perfect. All I have is sinking tip. Was about to bite the bullet on full sink. Are there stripers in this stretch?

#1 http://waterdata.usgs.gov/tx/nwis/uv/?site_no=08093100&agency_cd=USGS
#2 have a really lite small clouser/popper set up handy as there are tons of smaller fish in the knee deep water, sometimes catching them is more fun than not catching zilch
#3 Yep x 100 on the stripers question. Goto the Kayak Forum and page thru the last 4 months, reading everything that says Brazos in it. Lots of info on below Whitney.
#4 Also, this guy Sane Davies, a guide, posts some pretty good striper pics
https://www.facebook.com/YaknYota?fref=ts

Got down there around 7AM and in the water by 7:15. Very pretty spot. I see why some would prefer the Brazos below PK for scenery, but I really enjoyed the scenery and the water was quite clear. Duck hunters were out in force and seem to be slaying the ducks. We saw one flight of over 200 birds taking off.

The rain didn't seem to silt up the water. It didn't appear to be any muddier below the creek than up by the dam. We paddled down about 2.5 miles and then back fishing the whole way.

Zero luck with flyrods or casting flukes. Very little action on the surface. A few carp jumping and one large gar seen broaching. Decided to get out the cast net and rigged up some live minnows we caught. Wind was blowing 10-15 mph. Used a large bobber with the minnow about 2 ft down we drifted the live minnows through some of the deeper holes in between the dam and about river mile 2. Had two take. More of a fish grabbing it and running with it more than it diving and taking the bobber under. We let them have it for less than 30 seconds before setting the hook, but only had one hook up and that only lasted thatn a minute of so before whatever it was got off. Felt like a solid fish and was taking out drag. I'm guessing it was gar.

Around mid-day we climbed up one of the taller bluffs to look down and see what we could see. Spotted a large school (15-20) of what my buddy and I estimated were 15-25 lb fish about 3 feet down holding just above the bottom. Just deep enough to not show much detail except their shadow at mid-day. We did occasionally see a bright flash when they caught the sun. At first we though they were big buffalo from the silt they were kicking up. However, the more we watched them the more we started thinking they might have been striper. 90% of the time they faced into the current and just sat there, no bubbles, the only silt they kicked up was from darting off this way or that on occassion. They seemed to be able to move very fast when they wanted to. Most of the time they just sat there facing into the current slowly moving around as a group. We watched them for probably close to half an hour trying to figure out what they were. I've chased a lot of buffalo and carp on fly and these didn't seem to behave like buffalo. Seemed to be more schooling behavior and they would always return to the exact same spot.

Overall, they really appeared to be very large fish. I know water plays tricks on you, but my buddy did eventually paddle up to them while I was still watching and based on the size of his kayak some of these fish were every bit of 40" long. It was hard to make out their exact shape, but they seemed to have a bas profile more than anything. Large head tapering gently towards the tail. Buffalo usually appear more like a football. I would almost say they were catfish except that bright flash in the sun. My buddy casted at them a bunch, but they seemed very skittish and would dart away from the lure or the minnow he casted as soon as it hit the water. Anyhow, it was kind of mystery to us. Will have to return early AM one day with some dough bait and live minnows to try and solve the mystery.

could have been grass carp

Yeah, that's about the right size and profile. All the grass carp I have seen have been feeding right on the shoreline in the spring or summer. If that's what they were, definitely first ones I have seen on the Brazos.