Fish Catching Travel
With a new graph to put on the boat, along with some other maintenance, I headed for College Station to do the work at my brother Jeff’s (alias Shoedog) house. He was going to meet me at Fayette, fish Tuesday afternoon, then head to his house to do the work on the boat Wednesday. As a side benefit I am going to be able to see my beloved Razorbacks spank the Aggies Wednesday night. And then when on my way home Thursday, hit Fayette again. And after today’s fishing I guarantee I will be on Fayette first thing Thursday morning, rain or shine.
When we met at the lake it must have been all of 32 degrees with the wind was blowing a good 15 mph out of the east. Real pleasant. Before the day was over it might have hit 38 degrees, if we were lucky. It was the kind of day where gloves were the order of the day. It reminded me of all those winter days in Arkansas, it was either fish or stay home. Not the kind of weather Texas is known for.
Like I said here yesterday, Fayette is one of my favorite bass lakes I have ever fished, it rarely treats me wrong. In fact, I can not think of one time where I have not had a good trip. So with real cold front conditions, in other words flat out ugly, we started fishing about 1:00.
Besides the fact that Fayette is a slot lake with lots of fish, it is a power plant lake. With that in mind you have to approach it from a little different perspective. Put aside the fact that you are freezing your ass off and fish it just like it is sunny and balmy. Now don’t get me wrong, a long hard cold front obviously affects the fishing, but get over it, it affects you more than the fish on power plant lakes. It is still early pre-spawn and the fish are starting to stage. So where do you look? Secondary points in spawning coves, and channel bends leading into the backs. And guess what? They were there.
Like I said yesterday, whether I am on Bull Shoals, Coleto, or any other lake during early pre-spawn, jerk bait and jigs are a good way to start your search. As we headed down the first bank, about halfway back in a cove, Shoedog missed one on a football jig. Then I missed one on a Strike King chrome/blue KVD Jerkbait. So we fished down the bank a little further, and then turned around. One thing to remember this time of year is that they are usually bunched up, and right now with the cold temperatures we are having, they have not yet spread out.
So we eased back through that area and I put 3 in the boat including this fattie.
I can not get enough of early spring jerk baiting.
Jeff had no other bites on the jig so he switched to to a Rogue Suspending Jerk Bait and we started to narrow them down. Now before I tell you the depth, make a guess? Have you done it? Except for a strike or two off the bank, our bites came in 3 foot of water or less! I am talking about in the throes of a massive front, freezing cold wind 20 mph out of the east, and super clear water. I often say listen to the fish, and we did. So after getting a few more bites we settled in to keeping the boat in 6 foot of water and throwing into 2 foot.
Shoedog gets in on the act with that ugly Rogue.
Now it was not fast by any means, but we got bites. Other than one or two, it was almost impossible to actually feel the bite itself. We would jerk it real easy, then let it set, then repeating, and they were just there. We missed several as you could not really feel them hit it. So to fix that problem, when you jerk it, pull it more than jerk it, and in that instant you will feel a slight weight, and that is a fish. Jerk it to hard and they were gone.
He was starting to catch up to me.
But I finished him off with this girl. That jerk bait is in her mouth!
I fished all afternoon with the chrome/blue Strike King and Shoedog fished that brown/striped thing that has been so successful on Fayette. Of course the day would not be complete without at least one fiasco.
Now that is an interesting way to bring one in.
That is one ugly Rogue, and the Duck Commander wanna be ain’t that pretty either.
Shoedog had a bite and when he set the hook his line broke, in the reel. I had a moment of clarity, cast across where I thought his line was, and hooked it. And Shoedog, with his superior skill, boated this one after an epic struggle.
So what did we learn today? The early pre-spawn bite is on. Often with a power plant lake you just have to ignore the weather above and think about what the fish are doing below. They may feel the pressure change, but you just do not get the wild water temperature fluctuations you get in a non-power plant lake, so fish accordingly. And if you get a bite, re-fish the area. We never had a single bite anywhere, if you got a bite, the fish were there.
When it was all said and done we put 12 in the boat for the 4 hours we fished, 6 each. It was just my day to catch the little bigger ones. It was clearly a success considering the conditions. With Shoedog in the first week of his retirement, there will be many more days like this to come. All I can say is those fish better watch out. So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
