FISH CATCHING TRAVEL
Though I am taking an internet break, mostly from Facebook, of course I will be fishing and writing. But chasing the big one, or the big string, just for the sake of the blog is off the table for the time being. I have caught lots of fish the last 50 years, and really have nothing to prove, except to myself. And I want to spend more time multi-species fishing. There are plenty of one trick ponies out there and I will leave that to them. Time to do a little fishing because I love it.
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The Wade Right Fishing Belt and the new Madre Sling.
For all your wading needs.
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Tuesday
It does not get any better than this.
After a weekend out of town wedding it was good to be back on the water. It was dead calm, the water temp was in the low to mid 70’s, and the color is still suspect in some areas. As the Boss was coming home around noon, she has been gone for 6 days doing the wedding thing, it was going to be a short morning. When I quit at 11:30 it was 7 on crankbait and 3 on spoon and Knockin Tail.
As I said before they are not in grass like they have been, but the water is slowly going down. And the shad have moved off the bank and you can now see big schools on the locator as they are in the main river arm.
The 2 best for the morning. The spoon and Pearl Knockin Tail still getting it done.
No matter how hard I try I can not make them eat a buzzbait. It was perfect for it at daylight, and I stayed with it to long. The 2 above came out of isolated bushes out off the bank, and I missed a couple more. A couple of smalls jumped on the crankbait, and about 10:00 the wind finally came up so I headed down lake to crank deep windy banks, and ended up catching 5 pretty quickly. They still prefer the shallow running shad crankbaits with a wide wobble. Tomorrow I will add a couple of different colors which may help in those off color spots. But the wind is still the key. So called it a successful short morning and looking forward to the rest of the week.
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Wednesday
The best I could manage, came on the crankbait.
If you fish enough occasionally something will happen that you have never seen before, and after 50 years there is not much I have not seen. Well today it happened. As I have said it has been almost impossible to get them to eat a buzzbait, but today I did manage to catch 4.
The plan was to fish crankbait, shad color and chartreuse, which I stuck with way to long. It had been flat calm until about 10;00 when it started out of the south.
Another crankbait fish and I finally caught 3 on buzzbait.
I was down lake on deeper banks throwing the crankbait on the windiest banks. As I came around a point to where it was protected from the wind my crankbait hooked itself. It was flopping on top as I reeled in and one tried to eat it. Ahhh….time to throw a buzzbait, and 2 ended up jumping on in that spot. I hopped over to the next bank andafter getting to the end of it there was calm water so again time for the buzzbait.
First cast one absolutely smoked it. When it got to boat side and went to boat flip it there was 2 bass on it. So they had managed to get hooked on a single hook. Of course the one flopped off, but he was on. That all happened on the last bank, and bodes well for the next month.
Other than that it was slow, it was 5 on crankbait and 4 on buzzbait. Absolutely no wind until after 10:00 did not help anything. And the lake is on the slow decline, maybe a foot, but at least some of the color is not to bad depending on where you were. The water temp is still in the low 70’s but with the weather change coming it should see a sizeable drop. We just might have a little winter fishing yet.
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The Bassmaster Redfish Championship was live on TV this weekend from Port Aransas. If I was 20 years younger would love to have done some of that. My only comment, on the second day one of the Bass Pros who was fishing had his wife fishing with a partner. She and her partner struck out on day 1, and day 2 they put a camera in her boat. Why? (Might be her husband is sponsored by Skeeter, who is sponsoring the tournament, and her partner is a Skeeter redfish guide.) Nothing like playing favorites with their bass guys.
Rick Murphy was commenting and he seemed like he was surprised how much redfish like wake baits, which for me is nothing new, have caught lots on the Mann’s Waker the last 10 years. He said it might be the next big thing, but on the Texas coast it is nothing new. One of those things if you have not tried it do so, it is a cool bite.
A 2017 Louisiana redfish with a face full of Mann’s Waker.
Murphy had one more comment on regular fishermen out for the weekend. He wondered if they were “getting in the way.” That is so elitist, how about the tournament fishermen “getting in the way” of the folks who live and fish here? It is not incumbent on non-tournament fishermen to do anything special when there is a tournament going on. The water belongs to all of us, often times pros and guides forget that.
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This good news from TPWD.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s (TPWD) Inland Fisheries Division has selected 21 projects to be supported by the new Habitat and Angler Access Program (HAAP). The program, which launched in June 2021, is primarily funded by the purchase of freshwater fishing licenses.
They have each project listed and this is the kind of thing that should happen way more often. In my mind access is the number one issue statewide. As more and more people use the water more points of access should be at the top of the list. The list is long so if you are interested here is the link.
On a side note starting to see some of the pens place in the lake by TPWD. With lakes like Coleto and Fayetter slated for closing at some point it is the hope for Coleto. Once the power plants close, and they will, the grass is the future for Coleto Creek so will keep watching to see how it goes.
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It has been almost 2 weeks since I quit Facebook. Not saying it is permanent, but it goes along with a little change in the way I am approaching the blog. I have been at this for almost 12 years, and while it was a labor of love it definitely is work. At times it led me to fish in ways other than what I would have preferred to do. My fault for making the blog’s needs the reason I was out there. It may seem funny but this blog is not why I fish. So for the time being it will go like this. No Facebook, and random posts. But I will keep fishing, that will never change. So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
