Its all about the fishin’ and yakkin’
Is the 2nd ACK fishing tournament, this year on TL(LBL), estimates are about 30-40 competitive anglers launching around 6am and getting their camera cards to the checkin for 1:30pm. This should be a good competition, with lots of prizes to go around. I’ve got my strategy set, and plan on getting a pre-fish in on wednesday evening. Then an early start Sat. Will post up results sometime over the weekend.
Friday was too breezy and cold to get out on the water, but we did some bank fishing at a few spots around P.A., caught a few piggy perch, and an eel! all thrown back/cut loose. I believe mike picked up a hard head or two.
Saturday did the same during the day, same place, picked up a bunch more perch and tossed a bunch to the pelicans, a few to some other fishers for cut bait, and tossed the rest back. 
Saturday evening, hit up a super secret special place (don’t ask me where it is cos I was blind folded on the way there), launched just before dusk, and stayed fishing til about 2 - 3am, it was freaking awesome! must have boated between 150 and 200 trout and redfish, but most undersized (10-14″ trout and 12-18″ reds), kept one 15.5″ trout, and that was it, but can’t beat pulling in 1 - 2 fish on almost every cast!
Sunday, still didn’t look appealing to brave lhl or b&r, so headed home.
Took the boys out camping at Turkey Bend yeterday/last night and brought the yaks along.
Ian spent most of his time doing this -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jG5mj9_i7k
Of course managed to get the car stuck in the sand when trying to get off the beach this afternoon, but with the help of a couple other campers and a 50ft tow rope/chain combo, and burning through about half my clutch, managed to get out .
(Sorry, no pics, will fix later)
Met up with GRR at chandler park around 5:15 or so this evening and lugged the boats down to the water (level is still about 1.5 ft below normal).
Ran into masses of jellyfish at the launch, must have been a good 70-100+ of them all popping up here and there…
Anyways, there was a nice breeze blowing giving us a good drift up the river. Took quite a few casts, but hooked into my first fish in a pile of brush in the middle of the river, and it managed to wrap itself up in the branches, thought it was off the line went I went to untangle it, but to my surprise (and GRR’s too), the fish was still on - 20.75″
Hooked into a five more bass, and landed another two as the evening progressed… (better of those going about 15″ or so)
Time went on and I tossed my GB BabyRattlesnake to the edge of the water, and a few moments later the line moved, gave it a second and striked, the line took off with a huge line of splashes along the shoreline and the reel screaming off line.
I tighten down the drag, and the fish pulls me along and runs into a pile of submerged branches, and I’m like curses, not again!
I reel in some line, and the fish takes off again, dragging me and a branch with it, a few strategic manouvers with the rod and a few seconds later I free the line from the branch and the fish continues pulling me for a ride into the middle of the river, and then up the river another 40ft or so, I get the fish close to the boat and see what I thought, Carp!, it takes another run, but shorter, and I pull it to the boat, then a few patterns of trying to get my arm under it and it taking off, and back to the boat…
Eventually succeed and pull this fishy into the tray -
That was my most thrilling catch since the RedFish roundup two years ago! Sooo looking forward to this years, hopefully get some more of the same action going on.
— If you’re wondering about the bait bucket, it was so that I could bring home some of these chappies :
Definitely a good evening out on the Gabe…
GRR with his freedomhalk 14 -
Approaching sun-set
Good to meet you GRR, we’ll definitely have to hit some more water again
launched from my fav local spot, wanting revenge for the dinkfest of last time, and boy was it a slow days fishing… But a good days evening.
Launched about 4:30 and off the water about 7:30 pm.
Started off with a spinner, then switched to finess.
Hooked and landed first fish about 30 mins into fishing, and it came in at a very modest 13″
over the next hour hooked into several other fish, Played with a couple monsters that decided to early release themselves - one got wrapped up in brush and the other gave air.
Anyways, front was moving in and bite continued on and off. On the home stretch ran out of the cuttails that I was using and switched over to my favourite berkley worm, and boy did that make things happen! First cast and I landed this hawg -
Close to, if not my PB at 21.5″!
Anyways, continued fishing on, tried to pick up the fish I lost earlier, but they were down for the count.
Ended up with another nice fish @19.25 straight across from the launch -
Definitely a good day to get out on the H2O!
(Sorry no photos, will fix in future…)
No electronics, not even a camera this afternoon, just a nice pleasant paddle and fish from the U12
Launched AHS about 5pm to relatively calm waters, managed to get my line caught in the rudder right off the bat, but then as I was spinning around it freed itself, I was starting to think this might not be a good day to get out on the water.
Anyways, headed up to the BC area on the south shore, and picked up a 16″ bass just before BC, headed into BC to see what it was like right now, very clear water as usual and a ton of carp everywhere, as well as the usual monster bass on display, and a heck of a lot of weed growth everywhere. Picked up a 14″ at the bass motel, and hooked into another fish that early released itself across from there. Was surprised to hook anything up there given the clarity.
Anyways, headed out of BC, and up towards the rail bridge. Hooked into two nice fish that despite my efforts to get a good hookset eventually threw the hook.
Finally landed a 19.5″ bass on a very light bite, and did get a solid hook set on that, had some good fight in her too.
Headed across to the other side and started drifting back to the launch, picked up one more fish at 18.5″ at a regular spot, and eventually pulled off the water at around 8pm.
So overall a good relaxing evenings fishing.
Day, overcast, windy, with patches of Rain.
My plan was to head over to the warm water side of the lake, into the coves where I’d picked up fish in prefish, throwing a few baits on the way. Well, threw a few baits on the way, didn’t pick up anything, was throwing a white chartreuse spinner that had luck in prefish. Anyways, conditions were different, cloudy and darker, so switched baits to what I felt more appropriate (silver blades and a clear/flash skirted spinner) and started picking up fish, first was a 14, followed, 30 mins later by an 18 (my best of the day) and then another keeper, that was the end of my drift, headed into some major waves to drift the far side of the inlet I was in and picked up another keeper, then things went a bit south for me for a while… It was about 11am, and I didn’t pick up another keeper after several more drifts. headed around the point to the cold water side, to see if that was fishable, didn’t pick up anything there - though I did hook into one early-releaser on the way. Headed back around the corner and fished that weedbed for 20 mins. Conditions had brightened and I changed back to my prefish spinner, decided to head back to where I was catching fish in the AM and finally picked up my 5th at about 1:30p, fished on for another 40 mins, but with nothing. All fish taken on spinners for me today.
Overall placed 5th out of the 31 anglers.
KATS Fishers getting ready to launch -
Decided to treat myself, given the fiasco at Travis to a boat that will handle those kinds of waters a lot better, and here she is, cashed in my winnings from last years KATS to finance this sweetie -
Here’s the now rigged Trident 13 I picked up from MUD a couple weeks ago -
3 RAM mounts, SI Transducer, GPS & Weather sense.
You’ll notice that I didn’t use the Sonar Shield for the Fish Finder itself, this is because I prefer to have the fishfinder a bit more closer to me and that I don’t have to learn to become a contorsionist in order to press the button .
Here’s what’s under the Sonar Shield -
I didn’t know if the SI TD would fit in the specially designed transducer scupper, but to my surprise it was a really nice fit, with a bit of custom rigging, I’m using a rod to hold it in place clamped to above the scupper -
Transducer clearance is perfect, on the water test showed no reflection from the hull at all, just have to be carefully in the shallows and launching & landing.
So far its been all good, this is one comfortable, stable, and relatively fast boat.
See you on the water!
So I got to decker around 11am or so this am, maybe a little later, and the park was quite packed… Didn’t know it was a tradition or something for half of Austin to go there on Easter, by the time I left (5pm, it was even more full… never seen all the grass covered with cars). Anyways, all besides the point.
Fishing for me was Slow-ish, Wind was 5 to 15mph, and chop calm to 2ft. Pressure rising throughout the day, started with a few clouds, clearning to blue skies. Water Moderatly clear to about 5ft. Water Temps 63 to 68.
Picked up a few keepers, need to hammer out a new ruler, so no measurements, but definite solid fish -
Did find the gar starting to roll around in the shallows, lots of them surfacing all over the lake too -
Anyways, successful prefish, only one bait out of about 20 picked up fish for me, did get lots of little nibbles on a few others, but nothing solid.
Alright, so what a day, started off windy and cold, and didn’t get a whole lot better than that. Headed to my primo pre-fish spot off the bat, into heavy winds, and high waves, was fighting the paddle at some times, so hugged close to the north shore and shallows as much as I could until I had to cross the main body of the lake. Used the GPS and targetted the inlet and cut straight across at about 3 knots. But just as I was making the turn into the cove, my hat blew off, and was lost to the lake, wasn’t turning around in that water to go get it…
Anyways, headed into the cove and anchored up where I’d pulled out a few prior, not even a nibble… Pulled up anchor and tried a few other moorings, pulled out a 12″ on a spinner, but nothing else. Went around a few corners deeper into the cove and pulled out a few more 11-13″‘ers on cranks and spinners, still no keepers. Went back out and found a relatively quiet spot, pulled in another 11″, and finally hooked into something decent, but it rushed the surface, gave some air and threw my worm, was in the 15-16″ range. Cursed that and continued on, saw a massive bass suck in the surface, take a look at me, laugh and swim away.
Was now approaching 11 or so and I decided to head to another spot, but on the north shore… Came out of the little bay I was in, and the wind was huffing, could see the sand dune on the other side kicking up a sand storm.
Nosed into the wind and starting making my way across, with some massive waves breaking the hull, about 30 minutes later I was halfway across the lake and decided to change my strategy… head with the wind and waves, and turn the corner hoping for an easier crossing elsewhere…
5 minutes in, with waves breaking over my stern, one wave threw the boat about 90 degrees, and the next one flipped me over… I think this was half due to my hull taking on water throughout the day too…
So taking a second to realize what’s going on, I hear 3 pops of the pfd’s hydrostatic valve inflating the vest - at least that worked… So floated around for a few minutes to put a game plan together, headed round to the nose of the boat and flipped it back over. Strapped the paddle onto the side (still hung onto that), and tried pulling the boat under me several times, but with no luck, hull was just too full of water at this point, so just stuck with the boat, slowly drifting towards the shore. 40 to 50 mins later and several waves breaking over my head, I was getting pretty close to the shore, but I guess the steep sides and perhaps a bit of current was pulling me now more parallel to the shore rather than towards it, so with a bit of effort I slowly swam the boat to the shore, and found a place where I could at least get a hand hold of some rocks. Edged along the rocks until I could find somewhere with a footholding too, and something I could pull myself up on. Found one, and tried to pull the boat up, was impossilbe to get it all the way up, I was hanging onto the stern, and the bow was in the water up to the foot rests! After several fruitless efforts to get the boat out of the water, I took a break, still hanging on and just letting the boat bounce in the waves a bit. Gave it some thought, and noticed there was a drainage plug close to where I was hanging on, thought this could go one of two ways, I can unplug this and try and rotate the boat and slowly lift it out of the water as it drains, or I’ll slip and the boat will just sink, either way I won’t be much worse off than I am now. So, pulled the plug out, slowly manouvered my way down to a ledge just above the water, and grabbed onto the backrest straps, inbetween waves I then grabbed onto the side handle, pulled that as best I could, then grabbed onto one of the foot braces, slowly turning the boat around, then hatch bungees, and finally the bow handle. Was in luck at this point. climbed back up to a safer ledge, and slowly lifted the boat, letting it drain out bit by bit. about 10 minutes later I got the boat all the way out of the water, and just layed in the sun, trying to warm up and get some energy back. Must have sat there for close to an hour and a half, watched the regatta go by, but just totally exhausted. All my tackle had either sank or drifted away. Only one rod holder remained on the boat, guess the other ones must have lifted/rotated and fell out at some point, anyways, that’s all beside the point, material and replaceable.
It was about 2:45 or so at this point, and I felt I needed to get back one way or another, nosed the kayak down, and used the FF battery box to empty as much remaining water as I could. Sealed it all back up and dropped the boat in the water, edged along a bit, and waited for some reasonable water to get back in the boat, that went smoothly, and I started paddling slowly along the shore. Regained some confidence, and turned the boat to cross, nosed into the wind, and started paddling. Took me a good 45+ mins to cross, but made it safely, turned and headed back along the north shore to the launch, landed, packed up and drove up to weigh in, at about 4pm. A bit late, quite wet, exhausted, but in one piece.