It’s going to be another hot summer here in Central Texas! We’ve already had several days where the temperature nearly reached the 100-degree mark, and the water temperature has been hovering around 80 degrees. Summertime fishing is here folks!! With the annual shad spawn nearing its end, the morning bite has substantially died off as the bigger bass remain offshore overnight. For the past few weeks the late afternoon and early evening bite have been very predictable on Lake Travis. The hot days and high boat traffic have pushed the bass deeper than they have been earlier in the month of May. My clients have been catching bigger bass in the 4 to 7-pound range by slowly dragging their baits off steep bluff walls to the depth of 30 to 40 feet. The steeper bluffs next to the spawning areas seem to be the key in finding the bigger fish! Some of the bigger fish have been very skinny and are clearly in recovery mode after the recent spawn cycle. However, the Guadalupe bass population is very healthy with several 14 inchers caught in the past two weeks. A good portion of my trips are with beginners, and I’ve had quite a few clients this past month with 7 and 8-year-old youth anglers. The key to success for these new anglers has been working with them to make sure they let out plenty of line and let the bait sit long enough to reach the necessary depth or strike zone. The light gear and light line take time to reach the target depth 25 to 30 feet. With the super clear waters of Lake Travis, you really want to give that bass time to inspect the bait. Dead-sticking a ned rig has been deadly this past week for the young ones. When I see the bright yellow braid start running for deeper water it’s time for them to set the hook! Usually my go-to baits have been a Texas rigged baby brush hog with a ¼ oz worm weight or a speed craw on a ¼ oz shaky head this time of year, but the baits with exposed hooks like the drop shot and ned rig have a better hookup rate with the beginners. Surprisingly, the ned rid has been out fishing the drop shot this week!! For a good fish or two around the shallow side of the marinas, the ned rig and neko rigs have been consistently putting keepers in the boat. For targeting the deeper bass, I’ve added extra weights to get the drop shot down to the right depths. With the weekend boat traffic already in full summer swing, some areas to target during the day include main lake marinas, bluff wall just inside coves like Devil’s Cove, Rough Hollow, and Little Rough Hollow. These are areas you can load the boat with bass without battling the wind or boat traffic. Early in the morning and later in the day, I’ve been targeting the main lake bluffs in the basin around Oasis and Hippie Hollow as well as main lake points around Starnes Island. I hope you find this information helpful as we enter the dog days of summer! Just remember, the bass will move up and down the areas throughout summer. You can find them in the same areas day after day for the next several months. Big fish for the month goes to Omar T. with a beautiful 6.74 pounder caught on a drop shot in 25 feet of water!

While many anglers are scouting the pockets and coves for bass beds, they often overlook some interesting bass behavior that is happening around the bed area. Even though the beds may be empty, and the bass have spawned in certain areas, the bass are still protecting the fry and are very aggressive towards their #1 predator and forage: bluegill! Bluegill love to feed on the bass eggs and newly hatched fry. You can see largemouth bass hiding around the spawning area and ambushing the bluegill as the come in to pray on the baby bass fry. It’s amazing to see just how fast these fish can move and how shallow they will run. With the super clear water on Lake Travis, you really must make long casts into these areas, so you don’t spook the fish. In the same areas where I’ve been plowing through the brush with my boat to flip the beds, I’m staying in deeper water and making long casts to the very back of the brush lines. My go-to bait for the past few weeks has been the much-underrated tube! This is something I can throw on a bed if needed or I can cast to the clear shoreline waters and work it slowly back to the boat. I’ll drag the tube it along the bottom and hop it over the laydowns and brush that lies between the shoreline and the boat. 9 times out of 10 the tube gets smashed within a few feet of the shoreline!! Don’t be afraid to make long casts over 50 feet of brush. I use 20-pound braid with a short 15-pound fluorocarbon leader and haven’t lost a fish yet. The brush on Lake Travis grew around 2011 to 2015 when the lake was in a drought. Collectively, they make for excellent shelter for baitfish and bass alike. However, they are very brittle and break apart easily when reeling in bass that just smashed the bait. After you set the hook, keep you rod tip high and get the bass in a quickly as possible. If the bass does manage to pull you down into the deeper brush just troll over to brush and the bass will usually come up along with the brush! I had a bass wrap my dropshot with a 12-pound fluorocarbon leader wrap me completely around some brush in 20 feet of water. I was able to push the brush up out of the lake bottom once I was directly over it. The bass was still on the other end too! The top water bite is just around the corner, so check back soon for another fishing report focusing on how we are catching them on topwater and why we are fishing certain areas!

Spring Break is in full swing here in Central Texas, and that usually means bass are spawning in the area lakes. Bed fishing is a fun way to catch bass, especially on ultra-clear lakes like Lake Travis, Canyon Lake and Lake Belton. When bass are locked in on to the bed they are very catchable. Sometimes you just need to keep pitching the bait until the bass gets angry!! So what exactly is a “bed” and what does it mean that a bass is “catchable?” Male bass start making beds around December and January in Central Texas. A bed is a cleared-out area that is mostly protected from the wind that a male bass can guard once a female lays her eggs. “Buck Bass” are juvenile males that start making beds very early in the season. Their beds are typically small and don’t draw in any female bass. The bigger males make bigger beds and will usually be enough for a female to lay her eggs. Once the female lays her eggs the bass become “catchable.” I’m not saying that you cannot catch bass before this period. However, once the male is guarding the eggs you can sit right on top of the bed and catch that bass!! If you pitch your bait on a bed and the male doesn’t get spooked, it’s most likely guarding eggs. Now for the fun part! You need to figure our where on the bed the female has laid her eggs. Usually, once you find that spot the male will either nose up to the bait or hit it. Repeated casts to the exact same spot will anger the male enough that it hits the bait! Where do you go to find beds? This can be a complex answer and really depends on the lake. Constant level lakes like Lake Austin and Lake LBJ will have very defined spawning coves or areas. These are very shallow areas of the lake and protected from the winds. On lakes where the water can fluctuate 40 feet the bass will spawn on a shallow ledge right next to a drop off. Most creeks and main lake pockets in Lake Travis and Lake Belton will hold beds that may be right next to water that is 30 to 50 feet deep. On Lake Travis, I’ve had the boat in 20 feet of water while pitching to a bed that was in 2 feet of water. You can use a variety of baits. I like to throw a white Zoom ultra-vibe speed craw on a ¼ shake head. The pinchers have great action, and I can see the bait when the water is stained. The bait isn’t as important as finding the magic spot on the bed that will entice the bass to hit it! Keep these tips in mind if you are our fishing for bedding bass. You’ll find your trips will be successful! Tight Lines.

Fall fishing can be finicky when the conditions are changing almost daily here in the Central Texas region. During the months of November and December, the temperatures can swing from the low 20s one day to the high 70s the next. These massive temperature swings will affect the movement and feeding behavior of bass, so the techniques used on one day to load the boat won’t necessarily work the next day, if the conditions are substantially different. This can be frustrating for anglers because bass love consistency. When the weather is consistent, the bass will hit the same bait in the same place day after day, but when the conditions change, the bass will barely move. Here are some pointers and patterns that can help anglers have a successful day on the water when the conditions are constantly changing during the fall months. I’ve been on the water probably a dozen times over the past two weeks and had the opportunity to fish all stages of the cold fronts. Anglers can pretty much break these weather systems into two stages, each having their own conditions: pre-frontal and post-frontal. I typically won’t fish as the cold front is moving through because the winds on the lake can gust up to and exceeding 40 mph. Once the winds get above 20 mph the conditions can be hazardous on the Central Texas lakes. Before the cold front moves into the area, the winds are usually nice, the clouds are low and rolling in. You won’t really notice a big change in the temperature, and we haven’t had any heavy rains recently. The water’s surface temperature has been in the low to mid 60s and I can see a ton of bait on the banks. It’s time to fish fast and go for a reaction strike! I’ve been sticking to the main lake lately for a few reasons. Whenever the weather changes the bass will move vertically up and down the water column. When the clouds are out, I fish fast and shallow. The bass have been hiding behind all the rocks, tree stumps and laydowns. I’m just pitching a small crankbait on spinning gear to each piece of structure, and some casts may be as close as 10 feet away. I know the bass can see me and still they crush the crankbait as it bounces off the laydown or tree stump. I’ll make longer casts along the rocky bank, keeping the boat almost on the bluff wall, and the crankbait bounces and deflects off the rocks. We’ve caught as many as 15 bass on a single stretch covering about 100 yards! After the cold front, the high-pressure system takes over. The water is a little cooler in the morning, the skies are clear and bluebird. The bass are in the same area but running the banks and fishing fast usually won’t load the boat like the day before. I find the fish in these areas have moved vertically in the water column and are now a little deeper. Using a slower presentation with a shaky head, drop shot, or Texas rig in craw colors has been working great! The high-pressure system pushes the bass deeper into the 10 to 25-foot range so casting to the bluff wall and dragging the bait slowly to the depths seems to trigger a good strike. As the bait is slowly falling down the bluff, bouncing off the various rocks and brush piles, the bass just inhale it. When your line goes slack or you feel a tick, set the hook! When you find a good population of fall bass and fish the conditions, you should be able to have a successful day on the water. On deep water impoundments like Lake Travis, the bass will move up and down the water column when the fronts and pressure system move in to the area.

Fall fishing on Lake Travis continues to be outstanding! Many of the surrounding area guides have moved their trips from other lakes that haven’t been fishing very well over to Travis. This makes for a crowded weekend full of bass boat running from spot to spot. Luckily, you can pretty much fish your strengths and catch quality bass nearly everywhere on the lake. For my midday trips, we’ve continued fishing the same patterns that have been successful for the past two months. You can see my previous reports for a deeper dive into the last summer and early fall fishing patterns on Lake Travis. The late day bite is consistently bringing in the numbers for my clients. 40 bass in a four-hour trip is common. For my morning trips this week, my normal go-to spots had boats on them already. I didn’t want to reveal the offshore brush piles that nearly all the boats overlook as they fish the banks. So, we left and fish some “special” spots that exist in most of the main lake marinas. We fished fast using a 3/8 oz underspin with a 3.5-inch Keitech swimbait trailer. It didn’t take long so find a hungry bass! I went out scouting around more marinas Saturday morning using the same underspin with a swimbait trailing. I found a few more “special” spots in some main lake marinas. After a few casts along the marina’s attenuators, a fish smashed it. It surged away from the marina, and I could feel it rolling over and over. Ugh. A 3-pound channel cat had inhaled the underspin. I was able to get the lure back and the cat was on its merry way. I hit six marinas in three hours and was able to pull multiple keepers out of most of the marinas using the underspin. The key was letting is get about 4 to 6 feet deep. I could see on the PanOptix that the bass were handing down in the shadows at the corners and along the attenuators. Fall fishing can be exciting for anglers of all experience levels. It’s a great time to try new things and explore new areas of this 65-mile-long Central Texas gem. Fish your strengths and you’ll catch fish!

The fall feeding frenzy has finally arrived in Central Texas! A series of recent cold fronts this month has dropped the waters of Lake Travis down into the mid-70s. Combined with the super clear water, the bass are moving a long way to attack fast moving baits like spinnerbaits, flukes, and whopper ploppers. With the cold fronts and low-pressure systems, the bass are spread out from the main lake to about half way up the major creek arms. The lake is full of hungry 2-pound bass which put up a good fight on the medium spinning gear most of my clients use. Targeting the secondary points up the main creeks like Sandy, Hurst and Bee Creek have been good for several keepers all week long. Where the wind is blowing in the area, throwing a spinnerbait would get the better strikes. We are still able to catch some bigger fish in the 2 to 3 pounds range throwing a ¼ oz shaky head with a trick worm against the rock walls and ledges. When the sun was out, the bass were predictably in the shadows. Some stretches in Sandy Creek alone have yielded 7 or 8 bass with a few keepers in the mix all caught on drop shots. Most of the guided fishing trips this last week have yielded 15 to 20 bass for the beginner anglers and pushing 30 bass for the more experienced anglers. Now is a perfect time to take out the kids or beginners and just have a great day on the water. One of my clients was able to take is son out the next day and caught nearly 30 bass using the tips and techniques we covered in his trip. Let Captain Randal with Central Texas Fishing Guide help guide you to success in fishing! Tight Lines.