# Bassing in Texas.......



## DocEsox (May 12, 2008)

Finally I was able to briefly escape the prison of my rapidly degenerating shoulders and got away to fish in Texas for 4 days. Lovely flight from Anchorage, AK to San Francisco, CA to Phoeniz, AZ and finally to Austin, TX. Took a short drive to Bastrop and hit the sack. An hour later I woke up and instantly realized it would probably be good to have a Texas fishing license&#8230;&#8230;thank goodness there was a Walmart right around the corner.

First morning fishing the Colorado was overcast and a pleasant low 70's&#8230;.definitely naked leg wading when you live in Alaska. Before anyone comments I know my outfit was&#8230;..well&#8230;&#8230;interesting. The Colorado River around Austin is chuck full of largemouth bass, Guadalupe bass, some white bass&#8230;..and other various fishes. Started using a small, shallow running crawdad crankbait&#8230;.we hadn't been floating 5 minutes and I had my first bucketmouth&#8230;..not a big one but a promising start. Awhile later I got nailed by this nice white bass&#8230;.



After a small dead patch I switched to the ubiquitous pink fluke rigged with no added weight. It quickly produced some nice largemouth&#8230;.





Not sure what I was thinking with the facial expression&#8230;.



Briefly switched to a LuckyCraft jerkbait and landed a couple of nice fish but they really didn't seem to be wanting this&#8230;.although I love using them&#8230;..





Seem to be squinty eyed in many of these pictures&#8230;..guess I wasn't used to having so much sunlight even if it was indirect. Switched to the crawdad cranker as we were finding many of the fish had attennas hanging out of their stomachs. Immediately caught my favorite bass in these waters&#8230;.a nice Guadalupe&#8230;..or simply "guad"&#8230;&#8230;



Love their wild diamond spotting pattern&#8230;.red eyes too. The guide I always fish with, Shea McClanahan (great guy to be with), had a customer of his catch a potential new world record Guadalupe last month. Texas has recognized it as the new state record they are just waiting for the IGFA for WR acknowledgement. Interesting enough&#8230;Texas F&G genetic test it to make sure it was a pure guad. They don't hybridize with largemouth but can with smallmouth which were inadvisably stocked upstream 40 years ago. BTW the fish was 3.71 lbs and is still swimming around in a breeding tank&#8230;..here's a pic of the little beast&#8230;.



Anyway guads are why I first started fishing central Texas waters&#8230;.they may be small but they fight like the dickens. Through about noon I kept switching back and forth between the fluke and little crankbait&#8230;.





This one was a chunk&#8230;&#8230;slammed the cranker and promptly spit up a couple of crawdads while being released&#8230;.



We stopped for lunch&#8230;..chicken burritos with fixins&#8230;.very yummy. Funny but while conversing around the food I mentioned fishing seemed a bit more erratic than normal&#8230;&#8230;wrong. Shea asked me what my best day was with him and I said probably 40-45&#8230;..I finished this day with 47 and many lost&#8230;..perception sometimes is just not accurate. We got out and waded this little side water you see behind me&#8230;..



This was the result of the first cast&#8230;&#8230;lost another one&#8230;..caught two more then tagged another really good bigmouth&#8230;.



So I caught 4 in that little pool behind me with the cranker&#8230;..moved down and Shea promptly pulled another 5 out of the same pool with his pink fluke. It was a great little side water. Followed up with a pretty guad then a nice sized one&#8230;..





So the fishing was simply great and continued nearly down to where we pulled out of the river&#8230;&#8230;nice cranker largie here&#8230;..



My last bass looked really bizarre with the double bugeye look&#8230;.probably some kind of infection&#8230;&#8230;



As we pulled out the boat I looked at Shea and said, "Ya know&#8230;..50 fish would've been nice"&#8230;..fortunately I was fast enough to duck after the comment.

The next day we were going to fish a new stretch way farther down the river but later on Shea called and changed where we were headed as one of his friends had just fished that section and said it wasn't fishing so well. Come morning the sun was out and I had the good sense, which is infrequent, to wear a long sleeve shirt. Ended up using the crawdad cranker most of the day but occasionally changed to the fluke. Fishing started right off the bat&#8230;.



Unlike the day before there was a definite pattern of the fish crashing stuff thrown right up against the shore&#8230;..others were hanging around grass edges&#8230;



Nice fat largemouth were frequent&#8230;.





This one gave real meaning to the term "black" bass&#8230;..



Ate lunch and then hit this long deep beautiful run of water with logs all over in it. The river was really clear here and I was using the small cranker&#8230;..as I came over a log about 3 feet down at the start of this run and was crushed by a bass in the 6-8 lbs class&#8230;..beautiful take to watch. Managed to work her away from the trees, she ran deep under the boat and "bop" the lure popped out of her mouth&#8230;&#8230;ahhhhhh!!!! Oh well we continued down this run and I proceeded to hook two more largemouth of the same size only to have them come unbuttoned&#8230;&#8230;very aggravating but what can you do when the hook pulls free. Was kind of down after 3 like that in a row. But there were still many quality fish to be had&#8230;..



......to be continued......


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

Dude, that looks like a workout.-----SS


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## scartinez (Apr 22, 2008)

Looks like a blast. Those guads are cool looking.


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

Gosh darn it, thanks for making me homesick. Bucketmouths are fun especially when you hit a hot spot. I hit a great spot once where two bayous converged and had a current flowing. Pulled in bass after bass after bass. Never had that happen since then but man it sure was fun. Every cast was a hit or landing a fish for the better part of an hour.


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## neverdrawn (Jan 3, 2009)

Great report, as usual. Hope those shoulders don't wear out too soon, although it appears to me as if you're trying to with all the fish you catch!


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