Happy belated father's day to all the dads out there. I hope you spent some time with your kids and enjoyed a relaxing weekend.
I spent my time out on lake travis guiding. (Don't worry, I made sure to give my dad a call after fishing and my brother and I split a good gift!) The lake was super busy, but the fish didn't seem to care.
I'm not one who believes that apps or websites can predict when the fish will bite or the fishing will be best. They are wild animals and their behavior is very unpredictable. With that said, there is an app that I downloaded a while back just to check out and see if I noticed any patterns of when the fish bite in correlation to the lunar phases and the "score" this app assigns each day. (I used this more for Striper fishing than bass fishing.) I can tell you that I rarely saw a correlation between good/ slow fishing and the app. Sunday however they nailed it! They have the day a 96% rating and the fish sure were biting.
I mention this because I get clients who ask me my thoughts on these new fishing apps some of the pro's you see on TV and YouTube endorsing. I'm sure there is some science behind it, but I have never been sold on it.
I had three gentleman in my boat who were here in Texas on work building a pipeline. They drove down to Lake Travis for the day to get on some largemouth bass. We started the day out around 7AM trying for some schooling fish. First marina I pulled up to show promising signs, you could visibly see bass hitting the surface chasing threadfin shad. When I see fish behaving this way one of my go to baits is a small Keitech easy shiner with a quarter ounce Dobyn's lead head. I especially like this brand of lead head since the barbs on the shank of the leadhead do not allow the bait to slip off. The bait will get torn apart well before it won't stay on the hook. Link to Leadhead I recommend the light wire model since I get better hook penetration when throwing these light baits on spinning gear.
During the summer months this pattern is fairly predictable and you can often find fish behaving this way around deep water marinas. I recommend getting on the lake as early as possible and checking those big marinas that sit in 80 foot deep of water or greater. Put your graphs on standby and be as quiet as possible and just watch for bass hitting the surface. Whenever you see them jump be quick and make a cast as close to the fish as possible.
We started out fishing this way and while giving them instructions on how to cast and work the bait I caught two fish. Making long casts whenever the schools of jumping bass are far away is key to getting bit. For the very first part of the morning we struggled a bit only catching a few more fish, and getting far enough casts to have a chance at getting bit was a problem, so eventually we gave up on this pattern and moved on. We tried a few other marinas picking off a couple more fish before moving on
The rest of the trip was spend jumping around to high percentage areas fishing Texas rigs, drop shots, ned rigs, and other finesse baits. The bass were on the chew and I spend more time putting on new baits and netting fish than I did running the trolling motor. It was awesome!
If you are looking for an Austin fishing guide for Lake Travis, Lake Decker, or Lake LBJ please give me a call or feel free to book online. The bite is good and if you get out on the lake during the week when there is little boat traffic, its extremely enjoyable out.
Tight Lines!