Rachel's Sight Fishing Bass

I took Rachel out on Saturday with the intention doing some sight fishing. She caught one small keeper male right off the bat near Quinlan, then we worked our way south looking for a bigger one. We rolled up on this one locked on a bed with a male in about 3ft. Rachel worked her for about 30 minutes, despite the wakeboard traffic, and finally bumped her in the head enough times with a pink Buggs rabbit fur jig to get her interested. Didn't have my scale on me, but I figure this one was at least 6+lbs, maybe 7+...

Bass Karma on LA

Yesterday was a wild afternoon on Lake Austin. I started off trying to sight fish on the only little slick spot I could find. It was windy and overcast, but I managed to catch a couple of small males on beds. As I was looking for bed fish, I heard a splash toward the middle of the lake, and found these two keeper fish locked up and floating on the surface!

Here's the video of what happened next:

From there, I decided to give up on the sight fishing for a while and get to fishing in the wind. I set up on the same stretch of water that Trey caught his 9lbr on last week, and started throwing the bone Strike Pro Baby Buster. I caught one about 4lbs on it and had a couple of big followers, so I just stuck with it, trying to find the right cadence to make them bite. I was running the bait about 3-4" under the surface when it got blown up in a huge swirl and splash. I set the hook and the fish started jumping. I could tell immediately that it was huge, and I about had a heart attack as it jumped about 4 times completely out of the water. I was pleading with it and sweet talking it and praying as it slowly came up and I was able to get the net under it. My first thought was Sharelunker (13+lbs). It was certainly long enough to be a teener, and it had the head for it, but I wasn't sure if it had enough gut. I weighed it on a fellow angler's Berkley scale and it said 11lbs 15oz. I went back to the ramp and got my new scale out of the truck and it showed 11.75lbs, so that's what I'm calling it. She was 27.5" long and 19" girth. This was the biggest bass I've ever caught blind casting, and my 2nd biggest overall. I guess I got a little lucky karma for saving the two floaters! Here she is:

TTZ Lake Austin

I fished the TTZ tournament with Trey Epich on March 16th. We had a bit of a slow day, and only had 3 keepers in the box by 3:00. We had weigh-in at 3:30. At about 3:10, I caught 2 keepers back to back to fill out our limit, then on the last cast of the day, Trey caught this 9.21 on his favorite bait, the dirty sanchez Kinky Beaver (yes, that's really the name). We finished 19th out of 128 teams, and we were the bubble boys. They paid 18 places. I was just happy to come in with a respectable limit, and bump up in the AOY standings a bit. Next TTZ tournament is on Travis...

Lake Austin Early Spring

I fished the Big Sandy Creek club tournament today on Lake Austin. It was a tough bite for everyone, but I managed to catch a limit for about 10.6 lbs...

Here's some shots of some of the fish I have picked up on LA so far this spring: