Fish Catching Travel
5/9/2012
There is a gentleman, fishytx on the Austin bass fishing board, that has been reporting great fishing on Fayette County Lake. Some days he has caught over 100 bass a day. Now my brother and I have fished Fayette quite a few times, and have been fortunate enough to have several days like that, so off to Fayette we went.
You know how some days you just have a good feeling about things, like this might be the day? Well in this case it was. On arriving I thought I was in the Twilight Zone, there was not one car at the ramp. It had been drizzling all the way there, enough to put on the rain suit when I got there. When Jeff arrived, we loaded the stuff and in the water we went.
The wind was blowing a little, and just lightly misting. We stopped at one of the bigger coves and out came the shallow running Shad Rap for him, the small Rapala Husky Jerk for me, both in silver with a black back. We started near the back of the cove and went to jerking, and the fish went to biting. In the first hour alone we boated over 20, and it kept up all day.
It stayed cloudy until after noon, and the fish still kept cooperating. We were just jerking it along, jerk, jerk/jerk, jerk. jerk/jerk. Some were barely ticking it, some were just on there, and some tried to jerk the rod out of your hand. As the day progressed it just kept going. After the sun came out, it slicked off and got hot and humid, it seemed the fish moved a little bit deeper, off of the edge of grass in about 5 feet of water.
Jeff switched to the big Husky Jerk, which I thought was not that great an idea as they were feeding on small shad. I was so wrong. That little larger bait went a little deeper and they continued to eat it. I switched to a Smithwick Rogue Jr. in a sexy shad color, and the catching continued. The next picture gives you a good example of how our day went.
Here is my brother Jeff, alias Shoe Dog. First time he ever caught 2 on one bait. Kind of hard to tell who was going to eat who. And there is his favorite bait to jerk on Fayette, the shallow running Shad Rap. That thing catches Fayette bass!
So here is the pattern. Almost every fish we caught came starting about a 1/4 of the way in the cove, any cove. They would be from there until the back end. The best banks had the tall reeds, with grass in about 3 – 5 foot of water. We stayed off the bank until we could just reach it, any closer and you caught to much grass as the bait got down there, any further out and it just did not work. One quick tip, if you get grass on the bait a couple of casts in a row, jerk the rod tip up when you jerk it, it keeps the bait a little shallower right over the grass, they can’t stand it. But what really made the difference? Shad. Where ever we found the shad flipping, we got bit. And many times it was multiple fish, it was awesome.
Obviously clear line was important, and the smaller light baits like the small Husky Jerk and Shad Rap work much better on 10lb. line, with the bigger baits we were able to get away with 15, though I stayed with 10 all day. And when we jerked it, it was not a real hard jerk, just a pulling jerk and letting it set for a second.
We caught quite a few like this, especially in the morning while it was still cloudy.
This fish made the picture cut because of how he had that bait. That is the big Husky Jerk, he hit it from the front like a ton of bricks, and if you notice, he had the head of the bait down in his throat.
So now to the video. The fishing was so good that I did not even get the video camera out until 3:30. At this point the sun was out and the wind had died. It really got hot and sticky. The fish were still biting, so I figured since we were not staying until dark, it was time to shoot a little video.
I turned the camera on at 3:30, and shot for 93 minutes. When I edited it I only removed the no fish moments, everything else is in the exact order it happened. I had to make 2 as I can only download 10 minutes at a time to utube, plus it takes about 6 hours to do each one. So why do you care? We figured we had caught well over 50 by then, and that was being way conservative, it was a heck of a lot more than that. So we wanted to see how many we were catching in the middle of the day, no wind and no clouds. Well folks see for your self. If we caught this many then, we really whacked the snot out of them when they were biting, and I use the term in jest, all morning while it was cloudy. Now they did not average the size we caught in the morning when it was perfect, but at that point we were in a catching frenzy and did not give one hoot. There is Part 1 and Part 2, in the order it happened.
And now for more……………….
So there you have it. Did we catch a 100? Maybe. Did we care at that point? No. It was just one of those days that happens when it all works. Now we never caught that big fish, which kind of surprised me when you catch that many. I am sure if we had fished plastics and jigs we could have caught some bigger ones, but I never look a gift fish in the mouth! I did catch 2 on a swim jig, both good ones. One I even caught with the jig hanging over the side while we cut across the back end of a cove. It was just one of those days. For shear numbers it is hard to find another lake like Fayette County.
Fishing is a wonderful thing. Those of us who love it get something out of it that is often hard to explain to others, but we know the feeling it gives us. So make time when you can, and take a kid, or someone who does not get out much. Share that feeling.
Good Luck and Tight Lines.
