FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

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Just my usual Saturday morning watching fishing and waxing poetic.  The last few weeks has been an awesome run.  This year started off slow thanks to the creeping crud, but has taken off from there.  I caught my first trout on a fly rod on a beautiful mountain stream in Colorado, fished the Nueces and will be fishing Lake Travis a couple of days this week, knocking them both off my Texas bucket list.  It would be impossible to count how many bass have come over the side of the boat this month.  And the clock is ticking down on Australia, a true bucket list destination.  Though I have somewhat neglected my Gulf fishing, with the new Controlled Descent Lure to explore, I will be back to the salt with a vengeance starting next week. What is not to like about all that?

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We are lucky to have Rusty, the Fayette/Bastrop guru, share his reports.

Doug,
Bastrop and Fayette are fishing well. 2-8′ water on swim jigs, senkos, and chatterbaits have been very productive. California craw color leading in plastics. LOTS of boats during the week can’t image how many on the weekend. I’m in the middle of remodeling a portion of our home, so I have been very busy.
Tight lines,
Rusty

As usual your reports give us plenty to think about when fishing either lake.  And I have been surprised at the number of folks fishing most places, I guess it is a product of our almost complete lack of winter this year.  Thanks and good luck on the remodel.  It often ends up being just like a B.O.A.T.! (Break Out Another Thousand.)

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I got this tip on Lake Travis from Lee, and it is right on point.

Hey Doug,
While on Travis you should Fish the Pedernales or up the Colorado arm up by the Narrows for some white bass. It is about to bust open on the Pedernales river and I think you’d said that was a bucket list thing in a recent post.

You are correct on the bucket list thing.  I have heard and read about he Pedernales River white bass run since I have been in Texas and have always wanted to fish it, and will absolutely be doing that Monday and Tuesday.  And if it all works out I might even box a striper or two, the Boss loves to eat them. I have been doing my map study, and I have a pretty good idea where to look this time of year for white bass in those areas you mentioned.  Additionally that particular pattern and locations for the early white bass run tends to be the same no matter what body of water they are on.  And one word on map study, I have to have the paper map in hand, not sure how to navigate all that internet/GPS hookup thing.   There are paper maps in my collection that span Florida to Canada, and they are invaluable.  (And a pretty good indicator of how much $$$ I have spent traveling and fishing.)  But heck, I always have a plan of some sort, but as we all know the best laid plans………  Thanks for the giving me the starting point.

Tip of the Day

On the subject of white bass I learned something last year that put some serious numbers, along with some real big ones, in the boat.  It would not have automatically come to mind that this lure would be something to throw on every white bass trip – The Alabama Rig.  Intuitively it seems to big to be effective, but it is absolutely not.  Thinking about it now I wish I had remembered to throw it on the Nueces, it would have smoked them.  Dang it! And with a crappie size umbrella rig made by several companies you can downsize the plastics and it is not as big a deal as throwing the full size, though the big rig catches whites.   It has an additional side bonus, like we found on Lake Norfork last spring, stripers and hybrids love it and knock the snot out of it.  So not only effective at catching whites up creeks and rivers, it is a great search bait that on lakes like Travis can get you some nice stripers.  So give it a go during the run and you might be pleasantly surprised.  And after all that pontificating I guess we will find out in a couple of days when I take my own advice.  Hope they are starting up there.

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A Rant

Sometimes I get worked up with the hypocrisy I see coming from the fishing world.  A top bass pro was on TV this morning imploring all of us not to keep and eat spawning bass so we have more babies for the future.  Do not get me wrong, I have no problem with those of you that like to fish for bedding bass.  It is not my cup of tea, but as I constantly state on this blog, if it is legal it is no one else’s business.  But what he fails to mention, the big time tournament season occurs during the spawn all over this country.  So here is the rub.

Apparently you think it is ok for you to catch big fish on the beds, tote them around in the live well all day, then transport them miles from their bed to be weighed.  Of course great care is taken to keep them alive, no complaints there.  But do not patronize the rest of us.  What it comes down to is the unsaid – It is ok for me because I am a big shot, but not for you.  Nobody can tell me that a big girl can go through all of that and then swim back 20 miles and finish her spawn.  I call BS, what is the difference between someone legally catching and eating a bedding bass and you taking one off the bed thereby ending her spawn, other than one may live to tell about it?  There is no difference to the effect on that spawn whichever way they are taken as the end result is the same, they don’t finish spawning.   Now if someone can cite me a real study where they have been removed from the bed for multiple hours, then released at some distant point, and returned to the bed and finished their spawn I would love to hear it.  When you fish a bunch it can get easy to forget we are all created equal under the law and what we all do under the law is our business.  His comment kinda reminded me of the prototypical politician – Do as I say and not as I do.

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I enjoyed this mornings fishing tip from Bill Dance on the Fishing Channel.  He said he sees many anglers breaking the tips off rods in doors and windows.  His advice – “Don’t do that.”  Well said Bill and we love your blooper videos.  And Timmy Horton has a new buzzbait out that looks like a real killer.  Of course all that did was get me starting to count the weeks until Coleto’s bass start in on the buzzbait.

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One thing that has proven itself time and time again to me while wading the bay is the value of gluing the plastics to the jig head.  After catching a bunch or reds big and small the other day I only used 2 pieces of plastic.   Normally who know how many they would have destroyed, but it would have been a bunch.  Of course once you do that the ones you pre-glue are that size only, so I usually do several of the ones I plan to use in a couple different jig weights so I can adapt to conditions.

What got me to thinking about that was the ability, on and in the water, to change the Controlled Descent Lures characteristics quickly to the conditions faced that day.  Man I love experimenting with new stuff.  After fishing most of the day I cleaned fish, cooked and cleaned up, then sat on the couch with a cold one and played with the new baits and thought about the various applications.  Kind of says it all about my addiction.  Finish a day of fishing by writing about it and playing with baits, then getting up this morning and watching fishing and writing about fishing some more.  Next it is cleaning the boat and preparing tackle for more fishing on Lake Travis.  Thank God there is no cure for what ails me!

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Now that I have blown off the morning with all things fishing time to accomplish something  today.  I hope you all are getting some fishing in and we would love to hear about it.  And if you get a chance, take a kid.  The time to take a kid is when they are biting. So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines