2015 – Fishing Reports

9/7/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants a good time at the 9/7/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Bastrop on a partly cloudy and hot day.  Paul Irwin caught a 15″ bass on a brush hog and hooked another, but it wrapped around a tree.  Randy Rowley hooked two on a jerk bait and one on a crankbait, but they all got off on the way to the boat.  We chased schoolies for a couple hours but couldn’t entice them to hit anything.

8/29/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants had good fellowship on the 8/29/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Decker.  Will Voges lost a nice one and a small one that he hooked on a Fluke.  Randy Rowley missed a hook set on one that took his frog and had three short strike his frog.  He led a devotional called Duck Hunting with Mr. Murphy.

8/27/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Two participants had a good time at the 8/27/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lady Bird Lake.  Jim McGee caught a 17 1/2″ largemouth bass and a nice white bass, both on a bass colored rattletrap lipless crankbait.  Randy Rowley caught a 14 1/4″ largemouth bass on a chartreuse colored Red Eyed Shad lipless crankbait.  We had some schoolies right in front of us for about two seconds but they wouldn’t hit anything.  We saw shad once, but nothing was chasing it.

7/11/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants at good fellowship at the 7/11/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Bastrop on a cloudy and hot day.  Ryan Rowley hooked about a two pound bass on a brown and orange jig but it came off the hook about six feet from the boat.  Will Voges had a couple hits on plastic crawfish.

7/3/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants at a good time at the 7/3/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Fayette on a cloudy and hot day.  David Peterson caught at 19 3/4″ long bass on a tilapia/perch colored Norman DD22 deep diving crankbait at the dam.  A couple minutes earlier Randy Rowley caught an 18″ long bass on a shad colored River2Sea square bill crankbait, also at the dam.  Randy also had a bass take his frog under the water in the timber, but he didn’t let it eat it long enough and pulled it out of it’s mouth.  Jeff Peterson also had a couple hits on a frog spoon.

6/26/15 – 6/28/15 Self-chartered Bay Fishing Trip

A record fifteen participants had a good time at the 6/26/15 – 6/28/15 Self-chartered Bay Fishing Trip at Port O’Connor.  Although it was not the best fishing, due to a lot of fresh water that was dumped in the bay by Tropical Strom Bill, several fish were caught including three sharks (a scalloped hammerhead, a lemon and a black tip), two 36″ bull redfish, five black drum, four speckled trout, a ladyfish (baby tarpon), and several hardhead catfish.  Thanks to Daryl Shipper, Binh Chu, Randy Rowley and Tim Price for letting FCS members and guests use their boats.

6/19/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants had a good time at the 6/19/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Austin.  Randy Rowley had a bass knock his Sammie (dog walker) sidewise about a foot.  Other than that the bass were not interested in our lures.  We were driven off the lake early by a thunderstorm.

6/15/15 Chartered Striped Bass Fishing Trip

Nine participants went on the 6/15/15 Chartered Striped Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Buchanan with Ken Milam Guide Service.  It ended up being a tale of two boats.  The boat containing the old fogies fared well – catching 15 keepers and about that many that were not of legal length.  The boat containing the younger guys didn’t fare as well.  They only brought in one keeper.  It’s a mystery as to why this happened, as they fished for several minutes within casting distance of the old fogies boat, used the same bait (live shad), at the same distance from the bottom, and used the same techniques.  Jim McGee caught the largest hybrid bass – a 21 incher.  The guide service has offered a re-do for the second boat.

6/13/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants had a good time at the 6/13/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Bastrop.  Dustin Rhodes caught a 16 1/2″ bass on a white spinnerbait and Burl Fulenwider caught a 15″ bass on a grey and white spinnerbait.  Dustin also missed a bass that blew up on a frog, as did Randy Rowley.

5/30/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Two participants had a good time at the 5/30/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Bastrop.  Burl Fulenwider caught a 19 1/4″ bass on a green and white Excalibur Swim N Image shallow running crankbait.  Randy Rowley caught a 14″ long bass on a pumpkinseed creature bait.  Randy missed three others with the creature bait, three others with frogs, one with a square bill crankbait that was running whacky and one every bit as big as Burl’s 19 incher that hit the same square bill crankbait but got off at the boat while he was waiting for Burl to get the net.  Burl missed two others on frogs and one on a fluke.  They also spent well over an hour trying to catch three bass that were erupting in the reeds at the water’s edge or deeper into the weeds during the early morning.  They also saw a large alligator gar that was hitting the surface behind the boat.  It was a fun but frustrating day.

4/25/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants had a good time at the 4/25/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Travis.  The threesome caught 13 fish.  Randy Rowley caught five bass and one perch (three on a Foxy Shad color Xcalibur Xr50 lipless crankbait, two on a gold and white Yellow Magic popper and one on a white spinnerbait).  Will Voges caught five bass (four on XD6 crankbaits and one on a plastic worm).  Ryan Rowley caught two bass (one on a XD6 crankbait and one on a plastic fluke).   Randy had two other bass on and lost them and Ryan had a bass on and lost it.  We fished the docks and cliffs along the main lake and the coves behind the Rough Hollow marina and the Gnarly Gar marina.  We also tried a Kalin grub, a Roadrunner, and a jerkbait.  It started out overcast but became sunny quickly.  It also became quite windy.

4/21/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants had a good time at the 4/21/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Travis.  The threesome caught 21 fish.  Paul Irwin caught seven bass (four on chartreuse Roadrunners and three on baby brush hogs) and a catfish (caught on a chartreuse  Roadrunner).  Randy Rowley caught seven bass (three on a salt/pepper colored grub, two on a Toledo Gold (red and yellow) color Xcalibur Xr50 lipless crankbait, one on a pumpkinseed colored creature bait and one on a gold and white Yellow Magic popper) .  Jim McGee caught four bass (all on a Beatle spin), an 18″ flathead catfish (caught on a watermelon worm) and a perch (caught on a Beatle spin).  We fished the docks and cliffs along the main lake and the cove behind the Rough Hollow marina.  We also tried a deep diving crank and a spinnerbait.

4/11/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Two participants had a good time at the 4/11/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Travis.  The twosome caught six fish.  Randy Rowley caught a largemouth bass, a white bass and a small perch on a white Xcalibur Zell-pop.  He caught another largemouth bass on a crawdad color Xcalibur Xr50 lipless crankbait.  Ryan Rowley caught a largemouth bass on an umbrella rig and another on a white Zoom fluke.  We saw one other guy catch a fish.  We fished the marina by the Gnarly Gar, behind the Lakeway marina, and Bee creek.  We never found any bedded fish.  We also tried a pumpkinseed creature bait, a salt/pepper grub, a deep diving crank, square bill cranks, a spinnerbait, and a small umbrella rig.  All but one of our fish were caught at the marina by the Gnarly Gar.  Ryan caught the last one at the Lakeway marina.

3/29/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants had a good time at the 3/29/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Austin on a warm and windy afternoon.  Three fish were caught.  Burl Fulenwider caught a largemouth bass and a white bass.  Randy Rowley caught a white bass.  All three bass were not legal, although Burl’s was close.  We tried crankbaits (lipless, square bill and round bill), spinnerbaits, umbrella rigs and worms but the bass were mostly unimpressed with our efforts.

3/2/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

One participant had a good time at the 3/2/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Bastrop on a cold, windy and very foggy morning.  Randy Rowley started out in the slew north of the dam.  He threw a watermelon red worm and a red bug worm, two crankbaits (a Rapala DT6 and a Rapala Jointed Shad Rap), a Rapala hard jerkbait and a pumpkinseed jig.  No hits.  He then tried the dam with the red bug worm, a Norman DD 22 and the Shad Rap.  Still no hits.  His trolling motor was struggling so he didn’t quite finish the dam and headed to the hot water discharge where he found two guys parked in front of the barrier.  They stated that they had caught four fish.  He again threw the Shad Rap and the red bug but didn’t get any hits.  He did see a couple bass hit on top and considered tying on a topwater, but by then his trolling motor had died so he couldn’t maneuver.  (He took his boat to his mechanic who said that either one of the batteries is bad or the three bank system (that he just bought) is faulty.)  He didn’t see any other boats on the water but ran into a kayak fisherman at the ramp who claimed to have caught 15.

2/16/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip

Three participants had a good time at the 2/16/15 Self-chartered Bass Fishing Trip on Lake Austin on a cold and rainy day.  Consequently the bass had lock jaw.  They only had two hits and didn’t catch a fish.