I've been very busy guiding lately and haven't had a ton of time to write reports, but I wanted to give y'all an update. Yesterday I had a full day trip in the morning and a half day trip in the evening. Today I had a half day trip in the morning, so I have been on Lake Travis a lot!
The fishing has been very good overall. The first thing in the morning and right before dark have been the best. The evening bite has been better in my opinion too. I have been finding schools of fish all over the lake right now. I've even found some randomly as I idle out of a cove. My advice to you is find those transition spots and graph the ledges nearby .
Here is a new tip for you that I have not covered. If you have ever fished with me you know I love to use my sonar to locate fish. This time of year the bass will get up under docks seeking shade and places to conceal themselves in order to ambush bait. Throwing swimbaits along side the docks can be very effective when it comes to catching these bass. However, not all docks are created equal and some will hold fish one day and be empty the next. In order to save time and put my clients on as many fish during a trip as possible I like to use my side scan sonar to shoot under docks to see where the fish are. There are a couple things I change when I do this.
Distance: Adjust how far out your screen shows the side scan. There is no reason to keep your screen set to 100+ feet away when you are idling along side a dock that might only be 30 feet away. When doing this, try to keep your boat around 30-40 feet away from the docks. Far enough away to not spook the fish, but close enough that your sonar will give you a strong return. I also like to turn the frequency as high as it will go, in my case 1.2 Megahertz. I don't care about seeing the edges of my screen, I just want a crisp and clear image of the dock.
You will know you have a good image if you can clearly see the edge of the dock and the cables holding it down in the water. If need be play with the contrast and sensitivity until you have a clean picture.
What you are looking for are very small individual dots next to the dock or up underneath it. If you book a fishing trip with me this is something I can teach you to look for. With this technique you can really cut down on how much empty water you fish.
Take a look at this double my clients caught! I was especially proud of this one as I called the shot! I saw these fish sitting off the corner of the dock with the sonar. I told my clients where to cast and bam double! We ended up catching four fish off this one dock.
I encourage you to get out there and mess around with the equipment you have. You don't need a $4,000 fish finder to do this, any decent graph with side scan and downscan capabilities can be set up to do this.
Flukes as well as Keitech's have also been working well on windy banks. Find as windy of a rocky shoreline as you can and cast that bait up shallow!
There are also a couple strangler spawning fish up shallow... that very first picture was a spawning fish my client caught off a bed.
If you would like to learn some of these techniqes book a trip and let's get out there!