Texas Bassin.....
Well the little woman released me from the penalty box for a few days to go fishing….bless her heart. Had enough air miles to wangle me a ticket to Austin to fish bass with my buddy Shea. Just so happened to get said mileage ticket I had to fly overnight and arrive in Texas at around 5 am. From there I waited at the Hertz counter for about 35 minutes till they came at 6 am. Got my little economy car just in time to meet Shea at a mall at 6:30 am……who needs sleep anyway. Left my car in the mall parking lot and we took off to fish the Llano River, putting in at Castell.
Beautiful, wild river up there in the middle of Texas and the middle of nowhere. Took 3 rigs with me…..one set up with a D4 rapala crawdad crankbait. Another with a LuckyCraft pointer jerkbait in “baby bass” and finally, a non weighted 4” fluke in bubble gum color (these are always my standard rigs on Texas rivers). We hit the river and it didn’t take long to catch my first Guadalupe bass:
Used the jerkbait for the first hour or so. Managed a nice largemouth:
Caught many smaller bass and even a few redbreasted sunfish. Switched over to the crankbait and it just a few casts nailed one of our biggest bass of the day:
Didn’t get much more action on the crankbait so I switched to the old standby fluke which immediately produced a nice, kissable guaddie:
Finished the day with a nice largemouth and a total of 42 fish:
Afterwards I finally got to head for a nice hotel room and blessed sleep. Next morning it was really foggy and difficult to find the river. We hit a section of the Colorado several miles south of Austin….kind of errie when we set out:
Due to the fog we worked some surface lures for about an hour but with no success. Spent the rest of the day switching primarily from the jerkbait to the fluke with a little crank worked in there. Caught some nice largies:
Got out occasionally to work some small splits in the river:
This was a nice fluke fish…..my offhand is using half the hand sign for my daughters’ sorority…Alpha Chi Omega……
The next few largemouth were caught directly in the background of the pictures:
Numbers for the day was in the 20’s. Got some rest and the last morning we headed out to float the Colorado immediately below Austin….generally a place with lower numbers but some very nice largemouth. We were greeted by a couple of friendly pitbulls and after checking out my junk this one was pretty sweet:
Nice one early on the jerkbait:
This section just wasn’t producing much most of the day and many of the fish were smaller. Only caught 5 by lunchtime, which is always great with Shea:
Fished this small backwater braid for a few fish after lunch and then I lost a monster in this little pool:
After catching a few more dinkers we headed back up to the boat and Shea tagged a nice one (with my new rod….the Yellow Jacket) right in front of the sticks over his right shoulder:
We hit a mini-flurry of non noteworthy fish in the afternoon. Just a bit before ending the day I tagged a beautifully colored guaddie on the fluke:
Markings on this fish were fantastic:
We hit the ramp and called it a day. 3 days of bass fishing and 101 fish…darn good fishing as the river has been high so much of the year. The next day I wasn’t leaving until late afternoon so I hit the river for a few hours near my hotel and managed a couple of little guaddies:
Decided this would be a good end to a nice Texas vacation and I think this little guy agreed as I hoofed it back to the car:
Have some great fishing……
Brian
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