This past Sunday December 9th I fished Lake Travis with some really fun clients from New York. Hank and his son were in Austin for a bachelor party/ visiting UT's Law School/ business. They had a day free and wanted to get out on the lake for some Largemouth Bass action.
Both of my clients had quite a bit of angling experience, however neither of them ever really used a bait caster. One of the highlights of the trip for them was learning how to cast a bait caster and get good with it! By the end of the trip I had both of them casting right up next to the shoreline! I started them with a Curado DC but after thirty minutes they were good to go with any of my reels... not just the digital control ones!
We started off about mid way up the lake off some points that have been producing. We started with a drop shot since we hadn't started messing with baitcasters yet. (I throw my A rigs on 30# Sunline Shooter Flouro, and spinning rods just don't handle that well) We quickly picked up a few fish and lost one after fighting it for a while. Eventually we wore that spot out and kept heading up the lake.
Next I put my clients on a secondary point that had some rock piles out deep. This also put a couple fish in the boat. By this time I started to feel my face again.... It was super cold out that day. If you saw how many layers I had on you would have laughed... did I mention how much I hate the cold?
After this spot we headed up towards Lakeway, lately I have been finding some great fish in flooded brush near deep water. This has been key, it doesn't necessarily have to be main lake, but close to a deep creek channel or drop off seems to be best. It was at this point we started learning how to throw swimjigs on conventional gear.
Shortly after this things went south and I had to salvage the trip. Long story short my engine started throwing an alarm and limiting power... fast forward to today at the mechanic. I blew the powerhead... but to those reading, don't worry! I should be back up and running in about a week when we get a new block in from Yamaha. I can't say enough about the customer service at Parker Marine in Marble Falls. If you want a Skeeter, Phoenix, or need your Yamaha repaired give Brian Booker a call and have Rooster turn a wrench on it.
At this point we were close to Hurst Creek and I was still able to move around at idle so we finished up the day there. We fished a few more secondary points, brushpiles, and flooded brush. We ended up pulling a bunch of fish out of Hurst on the A rig and a Texas rig around dropoffs. The little island in the back of Hurst was a very productive spot we pulled some fish off of.
We ended the day in an Uber back to Mansfield Dam with my clients to their rental car and my trailer! haha I drove my trailer around to Hurst and loaded the boat on it there.
If you are looking to get out on the lake give me a shout! I will not be fishing for the next week, but after that I will be good as new with a new powerhead ready to go. Lake Travis is still fishing really well and is a lot of fun throwing that Alabama rig!