A good day on the Llano

In my last post I said we were going to Mason again to fish the Llano, however, as we drove, we saw storms building out that way.  So we stopped by our favorite lake on the Llano: The upper lake in the city of Llano.

Me paddling backwards to try to stay off the bank while fishing.

When we got there it was very breezy and the temptation was to stay in the calmer water on south side of the lake.  But after 15 minutes of fishing, I realized that the fish weren't going to be there because of the limited bait fish population.  I was not seeing any bait fish jumping when they saw my spinner bait coming. This is one way I tell where to fish.  No bait fish means no big fish. I have a little saying I tell my wife: Bait fish mean big fish and big fish bite!    Yeah, its lame... she usually smiles and agrees.  :-P

So, I switched course and barreled for the other side of the lake.
  Yes... barreled.  By this point the wind was beyond annoying. It was frustratingly high.  Once on the windward side it was so windy I couldn't stay off the weed bank. Was trying to fish a frog but could only get one cast in before I was back on the bank.  I finally gave up and just sat in the weeds along the bank and fished down the length of the bank as far as I could cast.

The frog didn't work at all. No bites. Nothing.  Tried my spinner bait that usually works on this lake.  One small strike from what was probably a sunfish.  Tried a wacky rig worm with no success either.  At this point I was getting frustrated. Sarah wasn't having any success either and she actually tried 4 different baits (a backstory here: I usually give her a hard time for fishing the same lure all day.)

We had moved up the lake to the lee side of the center island and the water was slightly calmer (and deeper than we were used to!).  I realized that a buzz bait might work along the edge of the weed bank. So I switched. Didn't have immediate success but I started to get real strikes.  Remember, I was still letting the boat drift into the weeds and was casting down the bank and retrieving as close to the weeds as possible.

First bass of the day.  Not huge but put up a good fight!

At thus point we started coming to an area where there was often a clear spot of water behind a line of weeds.  I cast the length of one of these and pulled the buzz bait along at a fairly quick pace. Just as I was about to lift it out of the spot, I had a blowup and it caught the bait for about 5 seconds. I was sure it had gotten metal based on the power I put into the strike.  I was so disappointed when my bait came flying into my face.  But, I've come to learn that you should always cast back to the scene of the crime just in case.  Well, this was one of those cases. When the lure came back through the spot I'd

lost the bass, he blew it up again with such vengeance it was unbelievable.  He wasn't a monster, but he sure was lively - he had swallowed the buzz bait all the way to the blade!

From that point on we started catching fish on buzz baits.  Sarah quickly switched and then she too started catching fish.  Through the rest of the evening we caught enough to lose track of the total number. Though legal fish were around 2-3, catching fish is better than nothing!

We ended the evening with a beautiful sunset and a reminder from God why we go fishing - to enjoy the beauty and see nature the way he intended us to enjoy it:  Outdoors.  For some reason the cool of the evening with the glow of the sunset reminds me of these things and why I fish.

On the way back in I picked up a final fish near the fishing pier on the park side.  Just the icing on the cake.  :-)

As we pulled out of the water we met up with a couple of fellows who asked about rod building and what a custom rod might cost.  Gave them some rough estimates and they took the number off the truck.

Was a good day.  After the frustrating experience at Chandler park, this was definitely a refreshing experience.

Tight lines!

Mike
HCFR