What a nice day it was yesterday…. Here it is mid-December and we are on the lake. It is really our favorite time of the year. We just didn’t find any fish! Some of our biggest fish have been caught in the December- March time frame on Whitney. We are hoping that they will come back this year as well. So far, that hasn’t been the case… or maybe it is just that we are fishing in the wrong spots. We didn’t see very many birds working… I think The Boss saw one gull working down the lake along the bluffs…. that was it other than this buzzard that was getting a little sun. This one certainly wasn’t working… just sunning. I am guessing he was happy that the early December ice age had passed. The Boss, she will take a picture of most anything that moves outside….. buzzards and such. Actually, we didn’t get in any hurry yesterday, we were waiting for it to warm up a bit too. We arrived at McCown right at 11 a.m. It had warmed up to 55°. The sky was cloudless as you can tell from the picture. The wind was about 5 to 8 from the Southwest. The water temperature was 48°. The lake level remains about the same at 521.63 or about 11 feet 4 1/2 inches low. The ramp at McCown was still in good shape. There were other rigs on the ramp.. looked to be flat bottom aluminum boats judging from the trailers. I don’t know if they were hunting or fishing. We did see one flat bottom boat with 3 or 4 guys in it who looked to be white or striper fishing down near the end of Bee Bluffs. While the weather was nice, (we had to come out of our winter coats right off the bat), the fishing was tough. The moon is full now and the sky was clear. I think all the cows must have been laying down taking naps too. We didn’t find any concentrations of fish in any of our favorite spots. The Boss got the only bite of the day and she boated it.
The Boss was a happy camper…
She said I had skunked her the last couple of times out and that she was really happy to get a fish this time. I got nothing, nadda, zip. We fished crank baits, jerk baits and T-rigs. Her fish came on the usual T-Rig, Zoom Old Monster. We fished the bluff walls, humps, points, ledges and a stumpy flat. We just didn’t mark any fish on the finders. As I said, there were no birds working either. We did get a report that some nice bass were being taken up in the Brazos on jigs and tubes being pitched around Timber. Those boy were launching at Chisholm Trail Park. I would like to catch some good bass, and all the reports we have got of fish being caught have been up at White Bluff or north of there along the river channels and in the Brazos and the Nolan. I just don’t like running my boat up there when the water is this low. Condition Summary: Air Temperature: 40° early, 50s and 60s up in the day Wind: 5 to 8 mph Sky: Clear and sunny Water Temperature: 47° to 48° Water Clarity: Clear up in the creeks, murky on the main lake Lake Level: Steady at about 11 1/2 feet low The weather guessers say it is supposed to warm up now through the end of the week. The wind today is down. Would be some pretty good conditions if you can get to the lake… You will just have to find the fish…. wish I could help you with that one… well I can… I can tell you that they were not in mid-lake area where we usually find them. We fished for 3 hours yesterday in the middle of the day…. we didn’t find them.
Ray, we were on the river same day you were. We launched at the Red Bluff ramp about 8:30 am, we started in the White Bluff Coves, Fished Both of those pretty hard with Jigs, Tubes, and sq. lip crankbaits. “Nothing” Fished from there, all the way back up to the Mouth of the Nolan, Fishing both sides of the River. Got back to the Ramp about 3:30 pm. As far as I know we neither one ever had a bite. But it was sure a Beautiful day to be on the water. Lots of Bait in the Lakeside Village area, ad the gulls were getting fat on them, but we never saw a fish break the surface, nor did we mark any on our electronics, but there were some huge balls of shad out in the river channel. Water temp was 41 to 43. Talked to an old friend on the Ramp when we were loading the boat. Charlotte Shaftner, who I knew from my high school days, Her and her brother Jeff, owned Uncle Gusses Lodge after their parents passed. She said she caught one bass that day, so I told her she was the Champion. Lol, I guess it was a day for the Ladies, since Mary had one and Charlotte had one too. Keith