Fish Catching Travel
I had the real pleasure of fishing with Jonathan today. I met him at Dick’s in Corpus while perusing the tackle section seeing if there was anything I could not live without. Jonathan is in his final year of college in Corpus, finishing his business degree. We struck up a conversation about fishing and I found out he fished the College Bass Fishing tournaments, and had just fished Falcon. We hit it off and made a date to fish, and 2 weeks later got it done.
I see a lot of me in him, or him in me, whatever. He loves to fish, fresh and salt, and is actually fishing tournaments occasionally. It reminds me of my younger days, I was eat up with it. Fishing every chance I got, fishing a tournament or two a month, oh to be young again. But all that aside, what a nice young man to spend the day with.
Of course our first trip had to be the second day of a pretty significant cold front. There was ice on my windshield, my wipers were froze to the windshield when I headed to the lake, and of course it was clear with an East wind. Not perfect conditions by any stretch.
Our first stop was a spawning cove and it yielded 1 to me on a Strike King Swim Jig. The water temp had dropped 8 degrees from Monday in the back end so we headed out to try the crappies in the place I caught them with Chris Monday. And we immediately caught 2, and then you can guess the rest, not another crappie all day.
From then on it was one or two bass here or there. About half came on points, the rest on flats, but all in the grass. I basically stayed with the Swim Jig all day, it is a good bait when they are not active. Several of the ones I caught today came when I just let it fall halfway back to the boat, and I also saw 2 hit it. They were clearly tracking it, but it took a little something to trigger them. But not matter what they wanted it slow.
(I interrupt this blog for the following. – NEW FLASH – My beloved Razorbacks just beat those snotty Kentucky B ballers in their house! Woooo Pig Soeeee!)
The best fish of the day. And of course I caught it on a crappie jig when we checked to see if they were biting later. They weren’t.
Mid-afternoon we stopped back and checked to see if the crappies were there, but they were gone. I have a feeling they have gone to the beds, to bad I am not sure where. One interesting note, where Monday we caught lots of little bass on the crappie jig, today it was just a couple. Late in the afternoon, when the water finally started to warm up some, we headed all the way back in a flat spawning cove, and it was full of beds. And though there was a few, and I mean a few, small males close, the beds were basically empty, that front clearly moved them off. We did see several Tilapia today, but they were not in the back ends on the beds either. But do not despair, it will be back to normal tomorrow. The fishing never stays to slow, no matter what the conditions, this time of year.
Before the day was over we ended up catching around 17 or 18, and I actually felt a little bad, as I caught 16 of them. Jonathan had one of those days we all have occasionally, they just kept coming off. He had them come off a swim jig, a rattle bait, and a worm. Some of them smacked the snot out of the rattle bait, and actually came off close to the boat. Sometimes it just happened, and today it was his turn. It may be mine tomorrow.
A little about the Swim Jig post front. It is a subtle presentation, and is effective when they are not chasing. Today they were not chasing, which accounted for how many barely hooked up on the rattle bait though they were swatting at it. But no matter what we had a great day. It finally started warming up around 3, and like all days like this, we saw a few alligators.
Best friends.
Just a cool pic.
This was a pretty good gator. To bad the stick in the water messed up his reflection.
So there you have it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But in spite of it all Jonathan kept plugging along and never lost his good humor. Of course we are making plans to do it again. His school has easy access to the Laguna and he has promised me we will knock the crap out of some trout in his wading spot. I will hold him to that.
I just got off the phone with my buddy Todd, and will be meeting 9 of the boys from Austin tomorrow morning in POC for a day of wading. They are hard core waders, and actually a few of them caught a nice bunch of reds today, so I am looking forward to that. So keep stopping in, and I will keep telling it like it is. Thanks for reading my stuff.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
