Bass fishing....Texas....

[DocSpotty]

Finally I was able to briefly escape the prison of my rapidly degenerating shoulders and got away to fish in Texas for 4 days. Lovely flight from Anchorage, AK to San Francisco, CA to Phoeniz, AZ and finally to Austin, TX. Took a short drive to Bastrop and hit the sack. An hour later I woke up and instantly realized it would probably be good to have a Texas fishing license……thank goodness there was a Walmart right around the corner.

First morning fishing the Colorado was overcast and a pleasant low 70’s….definitely naked leg wading when you live in Alaska. Before anyone comments I know my outfit was…..well……interesting. The Colorado River around Austin is chuck full of largemouth bass, Guadalupe bass, some white bass…..and other various fishes. Started using a small, shallow running crawdad crankbait….we hadn’t been floating 5 minutes and I had my first bucketmouth…..not a big one but a promising start. Awhile later I got nailed by this nice white bass….



After a small dead patch I switched to the ubiquitous pink fluke rigged with no added weight. It quickly produced some nice largemouth….





Not sure what I was thinking with the facial expression….



Briefly switched to a LuckyCraft jerkbait and landed a couple of nice fish but they really didn’t seem to be wanting this….although I love using them…..





Seem to be squinty eyed in many of these pictures…..guess I wasn’t used to having so much sunlight even if it was indirect. Switched to the crawdad cranker as we were finding many of the fish had attennas hanging out of their stomachs. Immediately caught my favorite bass in these waters….a nice Guadalupe…..or simply “guad”……



Love their wild diamond spotting pattern….red eyes too. The guide I always fish with, Shea McClanahan (great guy to be with), had a customer of his catch a potential new world record Guadalupe last month. Texas has recognized it as the new state record they are just waiting for the IGFA for WR acknowledgement. Interesting enough…Texas F&G genetic test it to make sure it was a pure guad. They don’t hybridize with largemouth but can with smallmouth which were inadvisably stocked upstream 40 years ago. BTW the fish was 3.71 lbs and is still swimming around in a breeding tank…..here’s a pic of the little beast….



Anyway guads are why I first started fishing central Texas waters….they may be small but they fight like the dickens. Through about noon I kept switching back and forth between the fluke and little crankbait….





This one was a chunk……slammed the cranker and promptly spit up a couple of crawdads while being released….



We stopped for lunch…..chicken burritos with fixins….very yummy. Funny but while conversing around the food I mentioned fishing seemed a bit more erratic than normal……wrong. Shea asked me what my best day was with him and I said probably 40-45…..I finished this day with 47 and many lost…..perception sometimes is just not accurate. We got out and waded this little side water you see behind me…..



This was the result of the first cast……lost another one…..caught two more then tagged another really good bigmouth….



So I caught 4 in that little pool behind me with the cranker…..moved down and Shea promptly pulled another 5 out of the same pool with his pink fluke. It was a great little side water. Followed up with a pretty guad then a nice sized one…..





So the fishing was simply great and continued nearly down to where we pulled out of the river……nice cranker largie here…..



My last bass looked really bizarre with the double bugeye look….probably some kind of infection……



As we pulled out the boat I looked at Shea and said, “Ya know…..50 fish would’ve been nice”…..fortunately I was fast enough to duck after the comment.

The next day we were going to fish a new stretch way farther down the river but later on Shea called and changed where we were headed as one of his friends had just fished that section and said it wasn’t fishing so well. Come morning the sun was out and I had the good sense, which is infrequent, to wear a long sleeve shirt. Ended up using the crawdad cranker most of the day but occasionally changed to the fluke. Fishing started right off the bat….



Unlike the day before there was a definite pattern of the fish crashing stuff thrown right up against the shore…..others were hanging around grass edges…



Nice fat largemouth were frequent….





This one gave real meaning to the term “black” bass…..



Ate lunch and then hit this long deep beautiful run of water with logs all over in it. The river was really clear here and I was using the small cranker…..as I came over a log about 3 feet down at the start of this run and was crushed by a bass in the 6-8 lbs class…..beautiful take to watch. Managed to work her away from the trees, she ran deep under the boat and “bop” the lure popped out of her mouth……ahhhhhh!!!! Oh well we continued down this run and I proceeded to hook two more largemouth of the same size only to have them come unbuttoned……very aggravating but what can you do when the hook pulls free. Was kind of down after 3 like that in a row. But there were still many quality fish to be had…..



Got into a nice patch of guadalupes…..





The color on these three were spectacular…..







Another nice largemouth…..



Shea had mentioned a little earlier in the day that snakes had just started appearing the week before and we saw several good sized diamond back water snakes…like this one…..



Not long after this I managed to shoot my crankbait right into a tree on shore at about eye level….I think it happened because Shea rocked the boat…yeah. As we pulled up to the bank to unhook it I looked about 6 feet to the left in the same dead tree branches and there is a very large, dark cottonmouth water moccasin sitting out sunning himself. After unhooking the lure I asked Shea for my camera just as the moccasin started moving….no pic….we got out of there. Those are the crankiest, ornery snakes on the planet. After that bit of excitement settled down and caught a few more nice largemouth….





…..and we were at the take out. I felt really parboiled by this time. “Only” caught 41 this day but I lost some beauties (yes, I know……if wishes were fishes….literally). It was a great couple of days fishing…..thanked Shea profusely and then the next morning headed down to Baffin Bay…..south of Corpus Christi…..for 2 days of fishing for trophy speckled trout.

The guide I have used for 25 years had something come up so I went with another outfit located right in Baffin Bay. They ran a sort of Bed and Breakfast service at their house that was absolutely fabulous. The meals were gourmet and the company was great. I knew this was not a numbers fishery but more of a trophy area with specks getting to 30+ inches and 10 lbs +.

The first morning fishing I had to repair the next to last guide on my favorite rod for this fishing. The threads had been cut and partially unraveled by a tangle of braided line. So…..yes…..I put a bandaid on it….worked fine.



First day we GPSed for 30 minutes into a foggy bay. Unfortunately when we arrived at the spot Capt Black wanted to fish it was already occupied. We seemed to scramble a bit to find another area and only managed to catch a few smaller specks and a few puppy redfish. We fished a few more spots with nothing to show for it. Near the end of the afternoon we fished a long sandbar which turned up a couple of more small trout. We watched two other waders about 70 yards in front of us coming towards the sandbar and they appeared to catch something big. As we motored back in the Capt found out this pair were friends of his and he invited them over to dinner. Shows you what being at the right place does but they only caught two trout while fishing by us…..but they were monstrous……





There were some big ones around we just didn’t find them. Next morning we headed out to the spot he wanted the day before and had it to ourselves.



Capt Black is married to another fish guide, Capt. Sally, and they generally fish near each other. This is what we’re doing most of the day….



Only managed one strike at this spot all morning…..but one of Capt Sally’s guests tagged a monster speck……





The guide said it measured 30” and scaled out at 10 lbs…..it was kept for a trophy…..I would have done the same myself. Anyway managed one small trout later in the day and that was it. Would have to say the catching was one of the worst I have ever had. These guides tactics seemed to be locating at a choice ambush area and wait to see if some fish show up. The other guy I fish with always goes looking for the fish…..we appear to catch many more that way. Have to say although the fishing wasn’t too hot the atmosphere and accomodations were excellent.

After that I headed back to Alaska to let my sunburn fester…….

Brian

[carpanglerdude]

Wow. Excellent, mouthwatering report(s).

Good luck with the shoulder, sorry to hear about it.

[Wingnut]

Wow Doc, those Sea Trout are spectacular!

[perch]

wow those are some great pictures of all those bass and the trout to BUT dam you can keep those snakes. I have bass fished 3 times in Florida and loved it. I didnt see any snakes but alot of gators down there. I havent thought much about going bass fishing in Texas before but wow I think you have changed my mind about bass fishing down there and would love to take a trip down there with a great guide like you had and start hooking into some bass action like you thanks for the reports and pictures :Cool