Texoma Sunday 1/30 new PB back to back!

It was another epic Sunday. I deadsticked from 1030 to 330pm with a 5th grader and his dad at the same area as last week. Its incredible that i got lucky again and topped my last week's 14.5 lb fish with another super-sized whopper this time, a 16.09 lber fat girl who lightly thumped my pink fluke like an average fish. Then a few seconds later she intensely let me know she is not your average fish cuz she was pulling drag!! 5 minutes later, Wooohooo another new PB on back to back trip!

We boated 40 fish with 7 overs. Biggest three were 7#, 8.23# and new Lake Texoma's pb 16.09# measured 33.5". Big fishes were safely CPR'ed (catch photo release). We missed probably 50 bites which is typical DSing. 

Pink and chartreuse flukes worked well. Fish were in 60ft suspended in 45fow and below with more hugging at 50ft and below. Water temp 46 to 49f. Wind was variable and very light that i used the TM to assist the drift to dot 5mph.

5th grader Austin can deadstick well, he caught 5 fish on his own and reeled in 5 more of Dad's fish. He also netted a few of my fish.


Good luck guys! 

Good job!

nice! i had my pb yesterday as well. have no idea on weight. Fish stacked up from 53 - 13 ft of water

Texoma? Great graph and fish!

yup

Wow! Congrats on the PB! That's enough to make you want to fish Texoma all the time!

Solid post, solid fish, and some lifetime memories. Good job and congratulations on the PB!

Awesome, two PB's .Notaguide that fish looks to be over 33 inches and with that girth 15 lbs may be conservative ! Any reason the fish were in areas taken, creeks running north , road beds, flats with bait etc ... ?

right out front of highport

Nice!!!

Great fish Todd. You and Guy are on a roll.

OK, Todd - what are you doing differently now compared with my dead-sticking trips with you? Is it the location, the technique, or just that this year is different? Oh, BTW, congratulations on your new PB's. As Gene said, you're on a roll!

You always ask the good and tough questions, Harry DC. I learned DS from JV, JD, Matt Cartwright , and Joe Read a dozen years ago using mallet or cane. Back then DS was very consistent at catching good size and numbers on most trips, with a few pesky sandies mixed in LOL. We had trips catching 100, 200, and even 300 big fish doing only couple of long drifts. But in the past 6, 7 years it has been inconsistent.

DS is only effective and crazy good when high concentration of fish follow under your boat. From my experience only 2 to 5% of them will bite for the most part. So you need to find areas with higher concentration. You will also need great patience as you drift and allow time for fish to follow.

DS is absolutely boring and sucks when there are no fish or very few fish follow especially during the riped time of DS season and you can't find them shallow or structures. Or when fish follow in good numbers and won't bite!

I tried my best to show DC DSing on lake CC, Tawakoni, and Texoma the past 3 years but the fish never gathered up good under the boat on those trips. We got skunked on one trip and caught a few on other trips but it were never good like the old days. My goal was always to get good fish under the boat in deeper water and see DC do his catching magic, but the fish hadn't showed up when DC was with me DSing. We just need to keep trying, DC! Lol. Hubbard and BigT are good right now DSing. 

Sea Pro Todd---- You are absolutely spot on about Deadsticking, drifting long areas, not catching, boring at times, thumping and the big one to me is the fish hanging with you and following you as you do your long drift. We had an Epic weekend of Hybrid fishing at CCL last weekend (40 + fish) and ironically enough we were doing and talking about the exact same things you were mentioning in your post. Thanks for sharing and keep a tight line!

Glad to know you are a seasoned DSer, CCL. Different groups follow the drift. If you get manny misses, most likely those are smaller fish or sandies which mostly occurs earlier in the DS season. There will be more hookups when bigger fish are group up. Spotlock works also where fish move in under the boat in waves with intervals of blank screens but I had better luck with drifting where fish stayed with me longer, like four many hours. Also with drifting, your lures are more horizontal and in motion by the drift.

Getting them to bite requires another skillset Lol. Can i ask you to take Dennis Christian one day DSing at CC in the deeper areas? To me DC is the master of getting the fish to bite and we all can benefit from this. I am curious to know what DC does when good concentration of fish are suspended under the boat for a long period. Thanks in advance, CCL.

Great job Sea Pro Todd! Wow! You have inspired me to consider giving dead-sticking another try. I’ve tried a couple of times in the past with no success.

I would love to take Dennis out. I have met him several times. One time he helped me when my battery was dead . Lucky for me he had an extra to loan me to get home! If you would like to come out as well that would be great!

Deadsticking is very frustrating to me because the fishing varies in some cases hour by hour not to mention day by day. Ed from Ed’s Guide Service fishes every day and loves deadsticking. He uses a thumper, a two jig combo with flukes and garlic and tries to drift at .7 MPH. Yesterday he found a school, drifted across them and caught nothing even though the fish piled under his boat. He tried a different spot for an hour, came back, repeated his drift and caught these including a 34” fish…

Thank you, CCL. This cold snap may keep em in the deep longer

I know Dennis is a "shallow" guy

Ha ha! Well, I tried drifting in deep water a couple of days this week on CC. I tried various thumper speeds and it seemed about 2 beats a second or a little faster attracted the most fish. I hung out a 3 inch blue and white soft plastic on a jig head, and dropped a #4 Mepps down to where I saw fish and worked it like I do fishing vertically on deeper structure. The second day I caught 4 sandies in 1 1/2 hours on the Mepps and not a bite that I could tell on the jig. After that, I tried a couple of humps and caught 12 whites and a short hybrid in another 1 1/2 hours. I left still catching fish - they were all over Dam Ridge in 20 to 28 fow. Water temp was 51 degrees.

Good Dennis. You are more than ready to go DS with CCL on CC. Once the fish group up good, then you can see what CCL is doing differently than you. With DS you pretty much have to hold your rod still as the word dead stick implies, and "patiently" wait for the soft crappie bite. The boat's drift will create enough action on your lure. The bite will be more frequent if the fish groups are hibbies or magnums. I prefer sunny day cuz the fish are deep.

I know both splasher and thumper work. My past 3 trips I only used splasher cuz of light winds calm sea. On choppy days I got the thumper ready.

Congratulations Todd! Those are some awesome stripers. Austin is a striper catching young man also. Good report too. Thanks

When deadsticking I find the most success happens when my line is straight up and down. I am constantly working the trolling motor between speeds most days to keep the line vertical.

Mr. C.
I’ve noticed that the bigger fish during winter months in our area generally like a much slower speed when thumping. Even as slow as 50 to 60 thumps per minute unless they are very actively feeding already. At times faster works better for smaller species like sandbass. Others may have a different opinion.

Thanks, Jeff.