Week of November 13, 2016

Only my second trip of the year and a short one, too.  Rhandy was booked so Dale fished me Sunday evening and all day Monday and Tuesday.  Pippin joined us on Monday. 

Sunday evening we decided to go for a big fish and spent the evening pitching jigs at stumps.  I caught a couple of small ones and jumped off a few more.  No big bites.  Monday we left out at sunrise and stayed out til sunset.  We pretty much threw the tackle box at them and boated 28 small bass and a few bar fish.  We tried Carolina rigs, shakey heads, split shot flukes, tail kickers, jiggin spoons, and a few other techniques but never caught a fish over 3 pounds.  We had some fun though.  I think Pippin caught the most this trip.  I did hook what I thought was a very nice fish.  It wrapped me up so it felt even bigger than the 7 pounds or so it weighed.  Unfortunately, it was a drum.  Darn.  Got me excited for a minute there.

As usual we saw a lot of wildlife.  We found a herd of deer on the bank and saw several bald eagles flying around.  The weather was beautiful if a bit warm for November.  The wind slicked off a few times but other than that it was very nice.

The so called "super moon" was out but it didn't seem to help the fishing!

Pippin went home Monday night so Dale and I played Captain Ahab and hunted Moby Bass again all day Tuesday.  I fished a jig for 6 and a half hours with only 2 bites.  One broke me off and the second was just a small fish.  After that we switched to shakey heads and caught a few small fish before the sun set.  Dale did catch one that went about 5 lbs but that was the biggest fish this trip.  Hopefully I can get back out again before the end of the year for some bigger bass and maybe some crappie.

Week of June 5, 2016

I went out this week not really expecting to do well.  Every bad juju the guides seem to complain about was in full effect.  The week before had seen heavy rains and the water was stained.  The lake was over pool and the gates were open.  There was a light north wind.  There was a new moon.  You name it, every sign pointed to a poor week of fishing.  However we actually did pretty well.  We never saw any big fish, but we caught lots of little ones in the morning and late afternoon.  In between it was mostly hot, especially when the wind laid down, which it did too often.  I jumped off one about 6 lbs and Rhandy caught one about that.  Those were the two biggest fish we saw.

I fished 3 full days with Dale, 4 half day evenings with Rhandy, plus a half day morning crappie trip with Rhandy.  Dale counted 66 bass combined for our 3 days and I think we were close to that with Rhandy.  My buddy David came along on Monday and he caught a few, too.  David also caught the biggest drum and the biggest catfish when he forgot we were fishing for bass.  My biggest bass this trip was about 5.5 lbs.  We could usually catch some fish between sunrise and 9 am and again after 5 pm.  In between it was very slow going and often very hot.

This was Rhandy's last trip for his Bee Line boat and he'll have a new center console boat on my next trip.  I'm not sure if he'll still have "sponsor" stickers from the Banjo Minnow, Popeil Pocket Fisherman, Helicopter Lure, Flying Lure or Snoopy Catch 'Em kit.  Not so serious, indeed.

Thursday morning I went out with Rhandy and we hit 5 or 6 of his brush piles before we had to go in at 11.  We ended up with 21 crappie keepers which I can testify are very tasty.

If I head back out anytime soon I will definitely be doing split days.  The summertime switch has definitely been flipped.

That ain't no bass!

Texas Parks and Wildlife stocks many small ponds and a few streams with rainbow trout every winter.  They are fun to catch and even more fun to eat.  I found these at a small pond in Irving today (1/28).  Caught both casting some crappie jigs.  I would rather been after some big bass, but this was just 10 minutes from my house on a beautiful 70 degree day in January.  Made a nice addition to dinner, too!

week of November 2, 2015

A short trip this week with Rhandy Monday afternoon and Tuesday and Dale on Wednesday.  I got out there about 2 pm Monday and Rhandy and I ran around catching lots of small bass on Carolina rigs.  I don't think we ever saw one over 2 pounds.  We planned to spend half a day crappie and half a day bass on Tuesday but it took us a little longer to limit out than we thought.  Rhandy has put out a bunch of new crappie piles and we moved around a lot as the action slowed.  For every keeper we weeded out a lot of little ones.  I ended up with a full limit by the end of the day and Rhandy fileted them up for me.  The four crappie in the photo above were around 2 pounds each.  We have some nice eatin' ahead!

I went out at 6:30 am with Dale on Wednesday and we hit a number of spots with jigging spoons, crank baits, and Carolina rigs.  We finally found one point where they were stacked up and biting almost every cast, but they were all dinks.  Still fun to catch though.  We had hopes maybe a good 'un would show up in the mix but it never happened.  Dale somehow arranged to have an awesome bald eagle do some fishing about 100 yards from his boat.  That was quite a sight.  We went in a little early so I could miss the traffic back in Dallas.

My camera battery was mysteriously dead this trip so thanks to Rhandy for the snap above.

Week of September 13, 2015

Back again this week for 3 days and 4 evenings with Dale and Rhandy.  I spent 12 hours a day on the water on Monday-Wednesday and 4 hours on Sunday.  The word this week was DINKS.  We caught a few fish but the big fish must have left for vacation.  The biggest we saw all week was a 6 pounder Rhandy caught, a 5 something Dale caught, and a big drum I caught.  The biggest bass I hooked was about 3 pounds but I even caught a sand bass that big.  Both guides worked very hard to find us some bigger fish but it was just not happening.    We did have beautiful weather every day and even my usual rain attraction lasted just a few minutes on Tuesday.

On Wednesday Dale finally found a spot where we caught some fish that were bigger than bait.  I had the last fluke of a color that was working and something took a chomp out of it.  Sort of like the amazing Mighty Bite lure!  I decided to heck with it and kept throwing the chomped on fluke and caught 2 fish with it.  The fluke inspector would not have approved, but the fish did!

Even though we didn't get a big fish all week, we did have fun and caught fish every outing.  Next time out those big fish better watch out.

Week of September 6, 2015

A quick 2 day trip this week with Dale during the day and Rhandy in the evening.  Tuesday was toasty and we had a tough time finding fish that would bite during the day. There was enough of a breeze that the temps in the upper 90's were bearable most of the day.  We went through the tackle box throwing carolina rigs, wacky worms, and crank baits with little success.  We had just a handful of bites and I think we boated 3 fish, not counting sandbass and a 7 pound drum.  I only hooked one small one but he jumped off.  Rhandy found a few more fish but nothing of any size until just before sunset when he found an 8 pounder on a small crank bait.  I caught a few small bass and a bar fish.

Wednesday dawned with some heavy rain (I AM the Lake Fork Rain God!) and postponed our start to about 8 pm.  I still got in 6 and a half hours with Dale and we had better luck.  My biggest was about a 5 pounder but it was still raining so I left my camera in the bag.  The rain quit around noon and we were finally able to get our rain gear off, but eventually some more thunder approached and we went in about 2:30 pm, just to stay on the safe side.

After a short siesta I met up with Rhandy at 4 pm and we hightailed it to a spot that was occupied the previous day.  We found a bunch of small bass on a shelf edge and I found a bunch of hang ups which let Rhandy show how good he was at re-tying carolina rigs.  Thanks Rhandy!  Eventually we wore them all out and we went off to another favorite spot where we continued to find small bass and those stinking sandies.  Right before we quit I hooked a big fish on a crank bait but he twisted off while I tried to hang on.  We never saw the fish but it left a big swirl.  Rhandy is convinced it was a big bass.  I prefer to think it was a big drum or carp.  Next time we will find out!

Week of August 3, 2015

In the midst of the Summer heat, night fishing is the way to go.  I got in 3 evenings this week with Rhandy Simmons and my buddy David joined us on Monday night.

We headed out Monday about 6:30 pm and it was still pretty steamy.  Fortunately there was a light breeze that kept it from being too awful.  We hit a couple of good spots with no success.  I think we had maybe one bite.  Maybe.  Around 8 pm the sandbass started schooling nearby so we headed over there to get some "eating fish" for Pippin.  We caught fish almost every cast for about 30 minutes.  We had to cull through a bunch of small ones to gather 18 good ones for Rhandy to clean.  That was still a pretty good mess.

After the sandies quit playing with us we went back to bass fishing.  They just were not playing our game.  Rhandy moved us around to a number of great spots, but we just couldn't get bit.  On a few he found lots of fish on his graph, they just ignored us.  We finally gave up about midnight and went in to drink much beer.

After a lazy day on Tuesday I joined Rhandy about 6:30 pm.  David had to head back to town but I knew once he left the fishing would improve.  Little did I know how much!  Thanks for only messing up the fishing for one night, Pippin!

We headed to a spot we had not hit the previous night and started out throwing crank baits around a hump.  No sale.  So we moved up on the hump to throw at a great little timber pile that had produced many times for us before.  No one home.  So I started fan casting out towards a shelf break and some timber away from where we usually fish.  Then Rhandy snagged one up on the hump.  It was a nice fish around 4 pounds.  Next as I was coming up through some submerged timber my line felt spongy so I whanged on it.  Nothing there.  The first bite I had this trip and I wasn't even positive it was a bite.  The second was a little easier.  I threw back past the same spot and found I had somehow gotten a loop in my spool.  It hanged up and dropped short.  Well I started to pick out the loop when a good fish picked up my fluke and tried to leave with it.  I set the hook and started reeling but after a short fight it broke me off.  It was a pretty good fish.  My rod was bowed over enough Rhandy was grabbing the net for me.  Never saw it.

The next 45 minutes were very fun.  Rhandy handed me his Carolina rig and started retying mine.  I quickly hooked a 3 pound bass and interrupted his work.  The next cast he was further interrupted as I snagged a 7 pound 8 oz good 'un.

I caught fish or had a good bite every cast for the next 5 or 6 casts.  As it got darker I added a couple of 6 pounders to the list.  We stayed tied up to the same tree until 11 pm and totaled 17 bass, none under 3 pounds. Rhandy got 6 and I got 11.

The bugs were buzzing pretty good (if you look closely in the photos you can see them) so we didn't weigh any more fish, but I had several in the 5.5-6 pound range.  It was a lot of fun.  This time of year 17 bass would be a good full day trip.  For a 4 hour night trip it is pretty awesome. Thanks for going home, Pippin!

Wednesday evening we had high hopes of a repeat, though I know from experience that is pretty tough to do.  We high tailed it to the same spot as there were several boats nosing around us the previous evening.  We found it unoccupied.  After a little drifting around nearby, we tied up and locked down and waited for dusk to approach.  We had a few bites, I caught 2 small bass under 3 pounds, and had 1 small fish that broke me off in timber.  That was it.  I guess we put holes in all their mouths the night before.  We finally gave it up about 9 pm and headed for a few other good spots.  Not a bite.  I guess every fish in the lake was on that one spot and we caught them all.  We gave it up about 11 pm and went in to drink much beer.

Rhandy is a talented guy.  Not only does he like bass but he also loves bass.  I don't know what lure he used to catch this one but it's a beauty.  Good thing it's not a slot bass.