Fish Catching Travel
I was lucky enough to fish with Todd (alias Tmart) on the Lavaca River yesterday. It was a beautiful day, calm and cool after our high winds that blew me off the lake at Fayette on Wednesday.
We got a nice early start and ended up fishing most of the day. I started with the D.O.A. Cal in the electric chicken in the 3″ paddle tail. Todd ended up fishing with a variety of plastics and he even threw the corky some. He had never caught one on it before, and he managed to catch 3 or 4 on it, so he was happy with his first attempt at fishing the corky. I on the other hand just never did try anything else other than that paddle tail. Why? Because I caught one on my second or third cast, and continued to catch on it all day. And here is the other reason.
That folks is the reason. This was my best for the day, nice trout. I added a couple of others that were close to this. I left the paddle tail in her mouth so you could see the exact one we used.
We fished both down and up river, with the best being down river. It was simply a matter of staying off the bank, casting to it, and then working it out with Texas two step. The most effective way was to hop it up quick, then letting it fall on a slack line until it hit bottom. They generally hit it on the fall. And as usual, jerking it up quickly also would hook those few that you did not feel hit it.
The fish seemed to be on the bends on the little deeper banks, but most still came on the first couple of drops. One thing that was apparent was they were definitely bunched by size. So if you caught a wad of small ones, that seemed to be all that was there. When we caught the good ones, those seemed to be bunched with other good ones.
This was our average for the day, and it was nice to not have to measure, it either made it easy or it went back in.
Over the course of the day I can not guess how many we caught, but it was a bunch. As those of you who read my stuff know, I don’t keep lots of fish, but today was different. I have been ordered by the boss to get enough fish for a Christmas fish fry for the Yankees in Iowa. Todd also was needing fish for his Christmas fry in Louisiana for his family so this was one of the few days I was on a meat hunt. And we both got it done.
We limited with our 20, and threw back a bunch. It was one of those perfect condition days where everything went right. The geese were flying all over the marsh, the wind was only a whisper, and it was all good. Fishing with Tmart is a pleasure. Since I first fished with him on his first real go at the salt he has really gotten a lot better. He has got the salt fever, an illness most of us are familiar with, and his desire to learn is infectious. Those of you that fish a lot need to remember to pass it on, it is not only a good thing to do, it actually helps make us better fishermen. So take someone new with you. Having done that on purpose this year has made it so much more fun.
So a great time was had by all. Families will be feed and it will add to everyone’s Christmas. Tomorrow it is off to the Shoalwater area with my friend Jeff Fish. He has not been able to fish much this fall, and I am looking forward to making his day.
Thanks for reading my stuff, be sure to stop in Monday for the last report before Christmas.
Good Luck and Tight Lines.
