Bass of the Colorado River in Texas.....
Oh the trail of pain suffered by a humble RAD (= rent a dentist….I work doing fill ins for offices that need wonderfully qualified, older….uh, I mean, seasoned dentists). Financial issues dictated (as well as her royal wifeness) I actually worked nearly 7 months in a row this year until the last day of November…….oh how the mighty (the lazy mighty) have fallen. My last 3 months was working for a federally funded community clinic which would have been very interesting if I had not had to fight their management for every little thing. Man, stuff funded by the feds can be really screwed up. Had to spend a day in the ER near the end of my stay due to my blood pressure trying to parboil me……doctor said I needed a vacation, so hey, who am I to argue with an ER doc? The day I finished the job I was on my way to Texas for a short respite.
Had never fished the Colorado River (“no” not that one…..the one in Texas) for bass this late in season but figured my buddy Shea could find them anytime. First day we fished a section known for numbers. Weather turned out nice….about 80 degrees. Unfortunately the fish had other things on their little pea brains than eating. Only caught around 20 bass and there was very little size to them. Heck we threw everything at them….Luckycrafts, Megabass, Rapalas, Bombers……stickbaits of varying sizes, umpteen number of different persuasions of crankbaits, deep divers, shallow divers and even the king of them all on these river…the deadly bubble gum fluke. Heck half the bass were barely bigger than the lures. Caught one white bass that was a whopping 5 inches. Only managed a couple of somewhat picture worthy fish. First was this very nice 2 ½ lbs Guadalupe bass:
Then 3 or 4 hours later I had a tremendous strike and some weird looking fish rockets into the air. Turns out, after a protracted battle, Shea netted my very rare blue sucker. Well, they are rare on the Colorado, until a few years ago they were thought extinct in this river but this is the 3rd one caught since their rediscovery…..prehistoric kind of looking creature:
These guys give up quite a fight as they generally reside in heavy, riffles……wow I am now a blue sucker sucker-upper, or something like that. Anyway that was all the excitement for day one….at least it helped the old blood pressure relax.
Next morning it was even nicer and weather got up into the low 80’s. So this should really turn those bass on…..right? WRONG! I have never had such slow luck in 10 years of fishing with Shea….again nothing wanted to hit, and when they did it was so sluggish you thought a piece of moss had latched onto a hook. This was particularly upsetting to me as I had actually turned out in a very fashionable outfit (rare for me)….black hat, black and yellow top and swim trunks and even matching black Nike shoes….I was a piscatorial fashion plate. The fish should have been beating themselves to death to hit whatever I threw………………..not. Again, we numbered about 20 fish but most of the length challenged variety. Managed to get one nice guaddie:
Then sometime later got one decent bit of a largemouth…….the largemouth had been virtually non existent to this point:
Now come on….you have to admit that is one of my better fishing outfits. Then we finished the day with 3 hours of NOTHIN……ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN!!!! Never had this experience before on these waters and I was getting really pissed off (carry over from my bad job the previous 3 months). I got so negative Shea nearly had to put my head in the cooler so my blood pressure didn’t kill me. AAAHHHHHHH. Was so frustrated I told Shea maybe we shouldn’t go out the next day (my last) besides the weather was suppose to turn to crapola. So I headed back to my hotel and sat down to a dinner of beta blockers, diuretics, alpha blockers, maybe even some gamma, delta and omega blockers (or maybe that was a fraternity I use to be in……)
In the morning Shea called and said it was pouring rain at his place…..there wasn’t a drop at mine. I think he just wanted some early morning nooky. About 10:30 am he calls and says it’s kind of cleared but the temp has dropped to 50 degrees (oh yeah…that should really help the bite…..sarcasm dripping from my lips). But hey, I got nothing to do but watch my BP rise so what the heck. We met at noon and decided to float a short section with the single best fishing spot in the river….the diversion dam (don’t tell anyone Shea will kill me)…..we have always hammered the bass at this spot and a Shea had a guy with him a few years ago who caught the WR Guadalupe in this spot (you absolutely did not hear this come out of my lips….or rather fingers). So I have a tiny modicum of hope for maybe one decent fish before I have to leave.
Now you gotta understand Texans and “cold” weather. Shea shows up in his Orvis gortex waders with boots, he has on 3 shirts a sweater and then his Simms hoodie and he is cold.
As you view these pictures you will understand how cold 50 degrees is for an expat Alaskan….beside my short socks, shorts and shirt, I did put on a light pullover long sleeve shirt. Shea kept trying to get me to put something else on but I it was perfect for me. I was going for a big largemouth or die trying today. I had one rig up with a big jerkbait, two others with smaller jerkbaits, one shallow running and one deep running and the fourth rod with the ubiquitous crawdad crankbait. Shea hooked his leftover rod up with the dreaded pink fluke. Managed to tag a nice largemouth with the big jerkbait in the first hour:
So we were feeling pretty good when we got to the diversion dam. Last time I was here a few years ago I tagged 5 largemouth in here between 3 and 5 lbs. We got into the good water at the base of the dam and WHAM……not one blinkin, single bump from any fish whatsoever. This was a bit devastating as we had invested a good deal of what hope I had in this spot. We beat it to death and nothin’. So, crestfallen, we aimlessly floated down the river. Managed a nice quaddie finally, on the small jerkbait……
We managed to get an occasional smaller bass as we continued and then banged into a few white bass:
Then we got into a pretty logged in stretch and I started throwing the pink fluke since I’d barely used it, plus we could chuck the weedless sucker way back into the crap. Was bouncing it unweighted over a couple of logs when it disappeared like it had been transported. Banged the hook home as hard as I could and all hell broke loose. Big bass under two pieces of wood……and I love that Shea is so excited he’s yelling at me what to do, that’s what I like about him, he gets so excited just like me after eons of fishing this lovely creatures. Anyway, I’ve got the rod buried in the water to the reel to attempt to pull this marvelous green monster out from under her trees and after a few minutes of frantic fury (which would have been hysterical on video) we manage to coax her out into relatively open water. Of course, now she was jumping and we could see the hook was just barely in the corner of her mouth but after a bit more coaxing, yelling, dancing and great netting by Shea we had the little beast in the net. An absolutely beautiful largemouth that was completely unmarked…don’t think it had ever been hooked. Weighed in at 6lbs 3 ozs…….
So, although in the short term my BP was up…..it definitely helped me relax. Yeah the trip is saved by this beautiful mossback I kiss and return to the water. We were high fiving, knuckling, bumping chests……pretty much acting like idiots….happy idiots.
We continued on catching the occasional decent fish. We had this osprey that kept following us for half the trip…..I think he’s mooched released fish before. Finally got a good pic of him:
It’s finally starting to get a bit dark so we hurry down towards our get out spot and are about a quarter mile above it when we just have to hit one last beautiful log fall down spot. Shea pops a nice guaddie in there and then on my small, deeper diving jerkbait my rod just stops….crap….a log. Then the log bolts like a bat out of hell for the real logs and bushes. It jumps twice back in the crap and Shea can’t see it well….I swear it’s green. He’s onto the oars and stroking me out of the bushes as I hang onto the fish applying as much pressure as I dare (thank you 15 lbs power pro and my 13 lbs fluorocarbon leader). We get it into some relatively crap free water and Shea gets all twitterpated when he see’s it’s a giant largemouth. Very tense playing moments and it hits the net, instantly the hook pops out….what a beautiful fish to end the trip. Hit 7 lbs. 13 oz on the scale :
Shea says it’s the biggest largemouth he’s had in the boat for more than a year on the Colorado. I practically French kissed the beauty before she swam off. No point in doing anything else. Shea stroked us the last bit to get out and I broke down the rods for my trip home. THE SHEA comes through again. Somebody is going to have to accompany me on one of these trips sometime. Be doing it again in March or early April sometime.
Brian
