Get To The Point

The point? The point of what, so-called "LSP"? The point of the marina where I like to fish, and it may seem counter-intuitive to go fishing in the heat of a noonday Texan sun in August because, wisdom says, the fish have got heat stroke and aren't biting. That's right, they're lying low in the depths like some vast silent majority. But not today.

I got to the water only to see my usual spot at the cleaning station taken by a guide cleaning striper, so I drove down to the point looking for piscine adventure. Would there be fish, against all the heated Augustan odds? 

There were. Within seconds of setting up you could hear the crackle of ferocious young bass blitzing on shad and minnows. Quick, rig up! Get on it fella, and I went topwater with an oversized something or other, thinking "big lure = big fish." 

Sound logic but the trebles were too large for the voracious sandies, who swarmed the lure, snapping, thrashing and carrying on like the fierce beasts they are. Still, I closed the deal on a few and what a lot of fun, first time I'd fished topwater in a while. Twitch the fakey, rattling, floating, silvery plastic fish and then boom! down it goes. Great result.

Topwater blitz over, it was time to go to the cleaning station for some shady fishing in the furnacelike heat of the day. Would there be action? There was.

Black drum and untold blue gill hit my worms like they were going out of style and I lost count. Good sized fish too, which put up a lot of fight. Perhaps I should've kept a few but, to be honest, I wasn't in the mood to eat them and didn't want the hassle of filleting. So these fellas lived again to fight another day. Well done, fish.

So there you have it. Point being, try not to sit staring at your computer screen in slack-jawed consternation as Marxist Gibbsmedat goons rampage, loot and burn; get outside instead, even if it is 100* in the shade.

Tight lines,

LSP

Breakfast And Fish

One of the things I like to do is go to the local Cowboy Church's men's breakfast. They're good guys who aren't afraid of their faith and I always leave uplifted in spirit. Speaking of which, one of the cowboys had lifted up his Jeep, it's called Bad Santa.

After a frugal meal of scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, I went fishing with a couple of the breakfasteers on Lake Whitney, on a boat. It was neat to scud over the choppy water at speed, with the spray and the wind whipping past. Similar, in a way, to an all out run on a horse; a whole lot of speed. I like that.

We cast about in coves, inlets and along sand bars and banks but the going was slow. Then Seagulls appeared, feasting on baitfish and sure enough, a school of Sand Bass wasn't far behind. There they were, churning up the water in a ferocious feeding frenzy.

Brisk action and it was catch as fast you could cast and then the Sandies were gone, surging after their prey. We got on them, along with a few Stripers, two more times before they disappeared into the depths. Big fun.

Then it was time to head back to the Compound, mission accomplished.

Thanks, JH and SO. Great result.

Fish on,

LSP

Spillway Action

I had two objectives, apart from seeing Hillary behind bars, the first being to show my Wittgensteinian pal, GWB, the sheer value and power of the weightless worm rig (WWR). The second, obviously, was to make up for Sunday's washout and catch a lot of fish.

Things got off to a slow start. AT&T came over and gave the Compound a new internet called "Uverse." The tech who installed the Internet was alright, friendly, competent, and good with dogs. I was taken aback by all these things. Well done, AT&T guy. Then we noticed that GWB's rig had a flat tire, as flat as Hillary's bogus "woman who cares for the people" act. So that had to be fixed.

In the end, a couple of hours late and in the heat of the day, we got to the dam. Sure enough, there were lots of fish, especially great hunter-killer packs of Gar, suspended in search of prey. And plenty of other fish too, just like in Seaworld. So we cast off with the worms and I have to say the action was sluggish. 

I hauled in a Black Drum and a couple of Hybrids but that was it, GWB wasn't getting anything either. "The fish hate your useless worm rig, so-called LSP," he chided, and swapped out to lures and plastics. I liked that, work out what artificials the fish like and report back. Then things changed.

Ho, Ho! A Bass. Boom.

Casting downstream off the end of the pier, I noticed a lot of Bass in the water, flashing in their quest to get upstream, into the pool and into the jaws of the waiting Gar. Twitch, tap, Boom. A Bass was on and fighting ferociously, and in he came. Good work, WWR. I alerted GWB to the spot and before long he was reeling in a Bass with every cast, all on a Texas rigged green ribbontail. Nice action.

Oh, Well Done, LSP, You Caught a Fish

I joined in with live worms and got the same result, big fun, then moved off in search of Catfish. And they were biting; I reeled in a decent sized fighter and a couple of juniors, then returned to the Bass. They were still on; then, just as though a switch had been flicked, the feeding frenzy was over. Time to go.

And that, readers, was that. I find great satisfaction in fishing, in case you wondered. Anticipation and the excitement of the strike, the fight itself, and just being outside in the country. To say nothing of reeling in the fierce predators. 

Next stop? Get back on the horse and shoot some guns.

Your Friend,

LSP

Fishing Frenzy

It was like fishing for Hillary Clinton's lies, just throw a lure in the water and pull one out. Seriously, there were times this afternoon when I couldn't cast fast enough.

Lake Whitney dam was releasing water into the Brazos and the fishing pier was unexpectedly deserted, so I set up right at the side of the dam in the face of the churning current. That alone was exciting, watching the elemental force of the water, and then there were the fish.

Bass after Bass struck and struck hard at a small silver spoon. They were chasing shad and I fished with the current, which took the spoon and the baitfish to where the predators were waiting in ambush. The idea being to get your lure to where the fish were feeding.

That was the theory and it worked, though to be honest it was hard to miss, fishing science regardless. Anyway, I stopped counting after some 20 Hybrids/Sand Bass were reeled in, which is a lot of fish for me. But that wasn't all.

Black Drum?

Somewhere in midstream I got a fierce bite, it felt like something more than the ubiquitous Hybrids and sure enough it was. After about 5 minutes of aggressive to and fro, don't lose that fish LSP!, up came a very respectable Striper. A big fish, and then, right at the point of taking a trophy picture, I dropped the ferocious creature and off it swam into the surging depths.

A couple of Black Drum(?) came in too. Large fish with plenty of go and neat to catch on a light rod. Perhaps I should have kept them to eat, but they lived to fight again another day. And that, readers, was that.

There She Lies

As I write this deep-thinking philisophical fishing post, the fish are still there, and so are Hillary's lies. Rest assured that the fight isn't over.

Tight lines,

LSP

Holy Trinity Fishing

It's the Feast of the Holy Trinity today, so I decided to celebrate by fishing Lake Whitney's spillway after the second Mass. After clambering down the steep and treacherous rip rap, I set up on the shore of the fast moving Brazos and cast off with a striper lure. It seemed to be getting bites, very encouraging, and then it got snagged. Well done, striper lure, you caught a rock.

In the meanwhile, Gar, some of them large, were cruising the bank like submarines. Maybe the Gar will go for a crankbait shad, I thought decisively, and sure enough they did; before long it was ambushed by one of the prehistoric creatures. 

Great excitement! Get that fish! But don't rush, let the Gar take the bait and run with it, don't go for a premature hookset and lose it all, that's the method. But in this case, the ferocious looking monster, and it was, lifted the lure up out of the water, fixed me with its eye, shook the fakey little plastic shad about and then spat it out. You could almost hear the spit, I think I did hear it. Take that, LSP, spat the Gar.

Hunh. Back to the tackle box for another solution. Seeing as fishing is all about science, I relied on intuition and picked out a cheap silver spoon, the kind you buy at Walmart for $2.00. Throw that in the water and see what happens.

A small Hybrid Striper was what happened, who hit the spoon about 30 yards off the bank and fought all the way in. Fierce little fella. If it's not broken, don't fix it, says Fishing Wisdom, and I repeated the silver spoon trick, casting out to midstream, letting the current take it across the channel towards the bank and then reeling it in. The idea being to get opportunistic hits midstream and pick up fish waiting in ambush out of the current. Science.

7 or 8 Hybrids/Sandies and one baby Widemouth later I called it a day and clambered back up the treacherous rip rap to the rig. Don't fall off the rocks and break your neck, fool, I thought grimly to myself, rods in hand. Several carabiners, pitons and traverses later I was back at the truck, unscathed. Not only did I get some neat after Mass fishing in, but also a well-needed rock climbing refresher. Two birds, one stone, as it were. And here's the thing.

The fish weren't large but they were big fun, and that's what it's all about.

Fish On,

LSP