Fish Catching Travel
Making chicken salad out of chicken poop. A stringer of fish to be proud of.
This picture says it all about day 2.
This was the calmest bank in the Velano on day 2.
One of the real pains when you do a little Fish Catching Travel is the weather. You can control many things when you prepare for a trip, but you can not control the weather. And today was one of those days.
I can never sleep in on a fishing trip, my internal fishing clock says get up, it may be daylight in 2 or 3 hours, so you better get ready. Now there was a front coming, the first cold front of the year in south Texas. When I went out to disconnect the charger there as a light breeze blowing. The weatherman had estimated winds up to 25 mph, with gusts up to 35. Well he turned out to be a little off, on the low side. 30 minutes later I could hear it howling in the motel room, looked out, and knew it was going to be tough.
Luckily, I was staying at the Lakefront Resort in the back of the Velano. So in spite of my better judgement, I went. I hit a rock channel bank right next to the ramp and was able to fish it one pass, with no bites, then here it really came. The wind was howling, and I mean, there was no getting away from it.
There were a few boats out, many headed back to where I was, but it did not take long to run everyone off the lake. Of course did I quit? No. There was one bank running to the bridge that only had whitecaps on it, the rest of the creek, much less the main lake, was not fish-able. Fortunately I did not even have to put the boat on plane to fish that one bank, and could easily idle back to the ramp.
So for the next 5 0r 6 hours I ground it out. There may be some who could throw a jig or a worm in that wind, but not me. So out came the Rapala Rattlin’ Rap again. Of all things, I was able to fish that bank over and over, catching 1 or 2 a pass. Did they amount to much? No. But I did end up catching a dozen or more by slow rolling that Rapala. Nothing was over 3 lbs, in fact I did not take a picture of one fish that day. But I did learn one thing, that I combined with what I learned on day 1, the bigger fish came outside the edge of the brush, and wanted it steady and slow.
When confronted with adverse weather you have to make do. The weather does what it wants, and you have to live with it. I was lucky, I was at a place where I could fish and not have to run, so it was not a bad or dangerous decision to stay as long as I did. No fishing trip is worth risking life or limb, you have to be smart and luckily I was in a position to stay out, but it was probably the only scenario that I could have fished that day, in that wind. But finally I succumbed and quit about 2pm after beating that poor bank to death.
Tomorrow is another day. I am still committed to the jig, but the wind will be the deciding factor on that. So we will see.
Good Luck and Tight Lines!
