Eagle Mountain 3-26-11

Fished with repeat customers Marcus and family.  Started out the morning fishing a slope from 7-24ft and the fish were hanging right at 14-16ft most of the morning while were were on that spot.  They wanted a chartreuse and white Ol' Ugly and chrtreuse Flies By Night fly above.  The women and kids on my boat catch more fish and today was another perfect example.  She put a hurt on those fish and the guys on the boat!

This was Joe's first experience slabbing for sand bass and he got the hang of it really quick.\

 We stayed in that area until they had their fill of sand bass and left to hunt a few catfish.  We only managed to cats and a gar.  The wind changed directions from the south to north and as soon as the shallow cat bite started it died for us.  Pulled anchor and decided to catch more sand bass.  Looked at a few spots and marked fish, but not active so we headed to a different area of the lake and found them on a slope from 3-17ft deep with the wind going across it.  Fished here for a few minutes picking up another twenty fish and decided to call it a day.   Had a great time with good people.  Thanks guys see you in May

After I dropped them off and cleaned fish, I went to the last spot we fished to play a little myself picking up about 60 more, but they were mainly squirrely little males.  Love this time of year.

Eagle Mountain 3-19-11

Took second time guest Larry out for a sand bass trip this morning.  Larry had never been sand bass fishing and I believe he is now ruined on the catching side.  We boated well over 200 fish today in two locations.  Both spots were in 6-25 ft of water focusing on the drop offs.  The fish are really liking the wind blown areas.  Larry kept a dozen for his family a dinner and released the rest for next time. Ol' Ugly slabs in both white/chartreuse and my OSU orange/white that Johnny makes for me.  Flies By Night flies were the ticket in chartreuse color.  Fished 7 til noon with 25-30 mph south wind, 64 degree water temp and high 70's outside.  Good times Larry, thanks!

Eagle Mountain 3-17-11

Took repeat customer Clay out for a catfish and sand bass trip.  We started the day fishing in 3 ft of water and got some action quick and boated two blues missing a few also.  Then the bite just stopped.  Tried another location and gar were biting our floats and taking off.  Got to see one up close, but luckily he opened his jaw and let loose before I had to take him off.  The wind kept getting stronger so we decided to try some sand bass on a wind blown ridge from 8-26ft.  Marked the fish on side image, pulled out into the deeper water, set the I-pilot on anchor mode and tossed our Ol' Ugly slabs with Flies-By-Night flies up on the shallow flat and worked it down the ridge.  The fish seemed to want the white and chartreuse slab and chartreuse fly more than others today.  We caught 100ish fish, keeping around 20 good one's, and left them biting.  It was a good catching trip with great conversation.  Looking forward to the next one Clay.  Thanks

Ray Roberts 3-16-11

Took repeat customers Dwight and Tim out today and they brought first time guests Katie and Gary to do a mixed trip sand bass and catfish. First stop was on a hump close to the mouth of a creek in 26-36 ft of water.  We caught fish consistently for a couple of hours.  The girls always make the guys look bad and Katie was no exception.  She caught more and bigger fish.
This was nice surprise and gave Katie a good fight, but she is a good angler and won the battle.  This is her biggest fish ever!  This fish hit a white and chartreuse Ol' Ugly slab.

Next we went out on some humps in 28-33ft and Tim and Gary finally got woken up and their line began to get tugged on more frequently, but Katie didn't let up either.

I think Dwight was taken it easy eating most of this trip watching everybody else because I didn't have to take too many off his line :)
Next stop we saw Boston Bob and his clients having a good time.  We enjoyed watching the kids catch as much or more as catching ourselves. 
We ended the day with an ice chest full of sand bass and catfish releasing many also.  Looking forward to the next one with this group.

Eagle Mountain 3-15-11

Catching shad for tomorrows trip was tough today.  The bait that was keep was in small balls and was hard to hit with the net and I never found anything but one inch shad in the shallows.  Got a call from Johnny that he was having trouble locating some sand bass so I told him I would try an area I was close to.  Drove along the ridge on the deep side shooting a side image with the Humminbird at the drop off and found what looked like scattered out sand bass.  Tossed a marker out, dropped a slab, and bam, fish on!  Called Johnny and told him I was on fish.  I caught 42 in about an hour and then had to go throw for some more bait for Wednesdays trip. 

Tawakoni Cabelas Tournament 3-5-11

Ben and I decided to give the Cabelas tournament a try again with 30+ mph winds.  We started out up north and only caught on channel in 4 ft of water on our first spot.  Next spot in 3 ft we caught a 10 pounder and five other box fish to get our 5 fish weigh in limit, but we didn't have the size of fish we needed.  Time to head out in the wind and try some deeper water.  Hit the area I caught the 34 pounder the weekend before and caught a handful of good 3-6 pounders...not going to help in this tournament.  I looked at Ben and asked him if he was up to going to the opposite end of the lake in the wind and he said, "sure, why not" so off we went.  Wasn't a bad drive down riding with the waves, but we knew it was going to be ROUGH on the way back.  Started out shallow again and caught a dozen good fish, but not what we were after.  Went out to try some deeper water in the mouth of a creek and bam another dozen good fish, but not the big one's.  Time was running out so we decided to try a cove and see if a big one was lurking but only caught another handful of eaters.  Time to make the trek back north against the 5 to 6 footers.  Everything on the boat got wet and I got to test out the new boat in some great waves.
Ben and I had a great time and had a great day of catching, but not the one's we needed to win the tournament.  We placed 13th out of 37 teams.