Posted By: Dennis Christian
Tawakoni Trip 1/9/2018 with Larry, Ed and JR - 01/10/18 02:34 PM
Larry invited me to join them for a dead-sticking trip to Tawakoni yesterday. It was supposed to get up to 60 degrees, but it stayed cloudy and cold the whole day. After a slow start we finally got into fish east of the Wolf Creek Humps in 45 fow. Managed 17 overs - a mixture of hybrids and stripers - with biggest going about 24 inches. Also caught about a dozen shorts and 2 nice cats. Larry was the man and caught about twice what the rest of us caught. Since you sit there and do nothing except wait for the bite, it was clearly his rig that was the difference.
I managed 5 fish four of which were keepers. We caught no white bass and have no particular explanation for that. We had one of SeaPro Todd's thumpers going augmented by Ed's manual knocking with a knocking stick. Fish were up from the bottom 2 1/2 turns of the reel in 45 fow. We had to wait a lot between bites even when we could see fish down there - leading me to believe we never found the perfect rig. We tried white, pink, yellow and silver. Larry's rig was a 3 oz (I think) dark silver jig head with a 3 inch clear/white fluke with a yellow tail. He was positioned on the trailing side of the boat as we drifted. I was on the lead side of the boat - not that that made any difference - just a fact.
My impression of deadsticking: The company is great, but the method reminds me of fishing with live bait - you just put it in the water, keep the rod still and wait. The trick to catching is 1st locating an area holding fish, use drift socks to manage the drift speed, experiment to find the right bait, position it just above the fish and patiently wait for the bite. If I had caught more - like Larry - I think I would have liked it better, but fishing all day and catching 5 fish is kind of why I don't fish for LMBs but go for whites where I can usually catch a lot of fish. But don't misunderstand - I enjoyed the trip, especially hearing someone say "Fish on" and watching the excitement of pulling in a big fish. I DO want to try it again - with folks who know how to do it like Ed and Larry. But, when I go out in my boat, Im probably gonna stick with structure fishing, which has been producing even in the cold waters.
Here are some pics from the trip:
Larry with nice striper
JR with nice striper
Ed, Larry and JR with the 19 big uns we kept
Yours truly with a keeper
I managed 5 fish four of which were keepers. We caught no white bass and have no particular explanation for that. We had one of SeaPro Todd's thumpers going augmented by Ed's manual knocking with a knocking stick. Fish were up from the bottom 2 1/2 turns of the reel in 45 fow. We had to wait a lot between bites even when we could see fish down there - leading me to believe we never found the perfect rig. We tried white, pink, yellow and silver. Larry's rig was a 3 oz (I think) dark silver jig head with a 3 inch clear/white fluke with a yellow tail. He was positioned on the trailing side of the boat as we drifted. I was on the lead side of the boat - not that that made any difference - just a fact.
My impression of deadsticking: The company is great, but the method reminds me of fishing with live bait - you just put it in the water, keep the rod still and wait. The trick to catching is 1st locating an area holding fish, use drift socks to manage the drift speed, experiment to find the right bait, position it just above the fish and patiently wait for the bite. If I had caught more - like Larry - I think I would have liked it better, but fishing all day and catching 5 fish is kind of why I don't fish for LMBs but go for whites where I can usually catch a lot of fish. But don't misunderstand - I enjoyed the trip, especially hearing someone say "Fish on" and watching the excitement of pulling in a big fish. I DO want to try it again - with folks who know how to do it like Ed and Larry. But, when I go out in my boat, Im probably gonna stick with structure fishing, which has been producing even in the cold waters.
Here are some pics from the trip:
Larry with nice striper
JR with nice striper
Ed, Larry and JR with the 19 big uns we kept
Yours truly with a keeper