A trophy white-tailed buck bounds through a field at Lake Waco. The Corps of Engineers-managed property is a haven for wildlife and is home to a variety of species, including bald eagles.
Do enough fishing and you’re bound to end up with some funny stories. My dad was a magnet for funny when it came to fishing, reeling in strange things like dead fish (on two separate occasions), a rock (his line had looped around and cinched the rock in a knot), and he once even caught a fish that had another lure hooked in its jaw – and was still attached to another fishing pole.
I can’t even compare myself to that level of fishing mastery, but I have caught a few strange things over the years – the most interesting of which was a pair of underwear. All I hope is that the rightful owner lost them while skinny-dipping, and not in a tragic way.
Baits are another oddity of the fishing world. There are plenty of traditional baits with proven effectiveness, and you can’t go wrong with shad, crawfish, and others that occur naturally in fishing environments. But anglers are a creative bunch, and when the bite is slow sometimes innovation helps drive success.
The first non-traditional bait I used was a piece of powdered doughnut. I was fishing on a boat dock and accidentally dropped a little chunk of my breakfast, which bounced off the wood planking and plopped into the water. It floated there for a few seconds before being smashed and swallowed by a fish.
A few seconds later, I was lowering a doughnut-laden hook into the water, and not long after that, I was fighting in a 2-pound largemouth bass.
Like all baits that produce results, the value of those doughnuts increased sharply, and after putting a second fish on the stringer, I started getting offers from others to buy my remaining supply.
I’ve used a number of improvised baits over the years with varying degrees of success, but you never forget the first time. Ask an angler what baits they’ve tried, and you’ll likely end up listening to some great stories. Many, myself included, have even caught fish on bare hooks and had fish jump into the boat out of nowhere.
Sometimes it’s not the bait or method that’s unusual, it’s the actual catch. In the 20 years I’ve been writing the Tribune-Herald outdoors column, I’ve seen a lot of oddities, including several pacu caught from Lake Waco. These are popular tropical aquarium fish that occasionally get dumped into the lake. They’re cousins to piranhas, with the main difference being that they have squared off teeth instead of pointed ones.
Last week, a story caught my eye from South Carolina, where fisheries biologists conducting a population survey sent an electrical charge into the water to get numbers on species of fish that floated to the surface from the shock. To their surprise, they found themselves eyeballing a nine-pound goldfish.
Experts speculate that the goldfish was probably dumped from someone’s aquarium, although some people use goldfish as bait, and it’s possible that it was released from a minnow bucket.
Goldfish are indeterminate growers, meaning that they’ll continue to grow as long as their environment – including water quality, food availability, and space, allow.
Rainbow trout stocks
When I was a kid, we didn’t have to ride our horses through the snow to school, but if we wanted to catch a rainbow trout, we had to head to the mountains.
I caught my first trout back in the 70’s from a mountain stream near Albuquerque, but thanks to improved fisheries and transportation technologies, I can drive 10 minutes down the road instead of 10 hours and catch a mess of trout.
Texas Parks and Wildlife fisheries biologists raise and stock rainbow trout at community lakes and streams across the Lone Star State each winter, and both Buena Vista Lake and Amsler Park’s lake will be receiving stocks of rainbows over the next few months.
Anglers 17 and older are required to have a valid fishing license. Best baits are artificial flies, cheese bait, kernel corn, worms, and salmon eggs. Small spinnerbaits are also effective. Visit the TPWD website for stocking dates and locations, along with trout fishing regulations.
Striped bass promising
Lake Whitney striper guide Clay Yadon (Reel Deal Striper Guide Service) is a fan of cold-water fishing, and his favorite quarry is the striped bass, a saltwater transplant species that thrives in lakes and rivers with high salinity levels.
“The fishing is crazy good,” he said. “Water temperatures are in the low fifties, the birds are working like crazy, and they’re biting on live bait and artificials.”
He prefers using soft plastic swim baits and jigs to keep pace with the fierce action. Having to stop and re-bait a shad after each bite wastes time that you could spend listening to a big striper strip line off your reel.
“We’re catching a hundred or more fish on every trip,” Yadon said. “Tons of them are just an inch short of being legal, which is a great thing in terms of the future.”
Yadon, who has fished Whitney since the 1980’s, says there are millions of fish that’ll be keepers with a couple months more growth. “I’ve never seen it this promising,” he said. “Plus, they’re so aggressive that they’re literally fighting over your bait.”
He says to keep an eye out for birds feeding on schools of bait fish, and cautions anglers to approach the action with stealth. Cold water transmits sound more efficiently, and any motor noise can send a school scattering. He approaches from upwind, cuts the motor, and drifts in, making long casts into the school.
Toys for Tots
A lot more kids are getting presents this year, thanks to donations from anglers participating in last weekend’s fourth annual Fish On Texas Toys for Tots Catfish Tournament at Lake Waco.
More than 100 anglers competed in the kids and bank-fishing divisions, along with nearly 30 teams that fished in the boat division. Jose Ledesma’s 22.35-pound longnose gar not only won tourney’s Ugly Fish prize, but also broke the lake record for that species. Angler Brad Watkins caught a whopping 50.5-pound blue catfish. Last year’s tournament also saw a lake record set, with Jesse Ewing’s 84.13-pound blue.
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December 13, 2020 at 05:26AM
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Outdoors: Do enough fishing, and funny stories are sure to follow - Waco Tribune-Herald
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