At the Range with the Wife

If you haven’t guessed by now, two of my favorite past times involve fishing rods and fire arms. On one particular occasion, my wife agreed to come to the range and see what all the fuss was about. This was her first time firing an AR style rifle like this (Sig556). She was a bit nervous, but she did quite well I must say.

Here is her first target at 100 yards, and a short video clip of her in the act. I love you Markell!

Summer Fishing

Here in Texas, most of the fishing comes to a halt due to the heat, mostly it's too hot to be out on the water past 10:00 AM. However I have discovered several ways to keep the fish biting. In the summer the fish go deep because of two things, 1) The water temperature 2) Supportive O2 levels. One way I continue to catch fish is by going out early, sometimes as early as 3 AM! Going out early is great, but I think the fish prefer to sleep during 2 AM - 6 AM so if you can get out on the water by 6 AM I think you will have better performance and you undoubtedly get more sleep!

In late spring I went on a fishing trip to Minnesota and was also in search of lures that go deep. My local sporting goods stores and bait shops did not carry what I was looking for, the Deep Tail Dancer. The Deep Tail Dancers are made by RAPALA, they come in three flavors, but I prefer the 20' and 30' dive models because that is where the fish hang when it's hot. Shown here are four of my favorites: Flash Yellow Pearch, Bleeding Copper Flash, Flash Perch, and Purpledescent; since the surface temperatures have gone above 80 degrees, these are the ticket. On these lures shown I have caught plenty of bass

and several white bass at all hours of the day while trolling. Trolling is my new found love in Texas. As a boy we always trolled in MN, that's the best way to catch Northern Pike. I bought the lures as a means of catching striper in the summer, so far no luck, I even purchased salt water RAPALAs since they also have the X-RAP Magnum 30' seems like overkill for the lake, but check out this picture of Anders with a small largemouth.
On this particular trip we learned a lot about deep water high speed trolling!

Lucky Striper Hat!!

I would like to send out a special "Thank You" to my good friends at LEO ARMORY http://www.leoarmory.com/ for the great hat they sent me. I purchased a SigSauer 556 HOLO and a Trijicon ACOG 4x scope last November, I got the package at a terrific price and they threw in a hat as a bonus! Well, when I began searching for stripers this fall I had no luck wearing a free hat that I received from OPSGEAR http://www.opsgear.com/, as soon as I began wearing the LEO ARMORY headgear, I have managed to catch one on every outing. I have made the LEO ARMOY headgear my standard when seeking stripers (if you belive in stuff like that). Thanks again for the geat products and the "lucky" hat.

http://www.leoarmory.com/

Winter Striper Fishing

This past year I decided to pick up fishing again and use my boat (for the first time) in the fall and winter. After several months of fishing at varying times of day, trying to understand the relationship between water temperatures, feeding habits, and the solar and lunar effects, I can honestly say that I have made some progress in the arena of Striper fishing on Lake Travis. I began attempting Stripers January. I had been fishing in a little cut that never produced anything but a few Largemouths, some White Bass, and a couple of Crappie and almost always a Channel or Blue Catfish. It always seemed like a nice "protected" place to fish and hoped it would turn up a few lunkers, but it never did.

I decided to go to deeper water and deploy a new Humminbird 343c. The fish finder is so awesome! It takes the guess work out of where the fish are, or where they aren't. Being able to definitively see where they are hanging out and what depth is such a great asset; now all you have to do is plug in bait type and presentation, and a little patience.

At the end of January, the day that I caught my first Striper, this photo shows what the environment looked like. What you are looking at is a 200KHz narrow band (right under the boat). While a finder cannot tell you what type of fish it is pinging, it can reveal some interesting if not notable details. For instance, these fish are most likely at that depth due to temperature or supporting oxygen levels. In this photo, I had the depth finder "sensitivity" set to the lowest level. What that does is remove a lot of the clutter that can appear from the surface all the way down to the bottom. What you are left with is just fish and the disturbance they are making; you can also tell if (a) fish is making an ascent or has made a decent. According to the fishing reports, Striped Bass have pretty much been slow all winter, but have been biting somewhere between 25-40 feet. According to this photo, there are no big fish above 68 feet, this means the fish have to be persuaded up. I have tried to fish at their level, but I never get bites - it seems you just have to wait for one or two to get hungry. Eventually one did, a 22" male.