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The Great Outdoors: The best place to connect
By Luke Clayton, Special to Star Local News
Regardless of the occupation we choose, many of us tend to get wrapped up in work.
As an outdoors writer with a quarter-century of hunts, fishing trips and many, many written words chronicling these events, I sometime get caught up in writing deadlines, shooting images to accompany articles and planning my next outing. Add a weekly hour-long radio show to the mix and it’s pretty easy to see how an outdoor occupation can become work.
Very enjoyable work yes, but work just the same.
I began fishing with and writing about Holmes (texasfishingguide.net or: 214-728-3310) when he started his fishing career in the mid- to late-1990s.
Another great friend and frequent companion on bow hunting outings, Mark Balette, brought his girls along. Three of my five grandsons were rigged and ready for the upcoming fishing trip. We all enjoyed a great dinner of fried fish, hush puppies and squash at Balette’s campsite on Oak Cove Marina.
During the meal, we made plans for the morning fishing trip.
Having fished Richland Chambers several times, Balette knows the general pattern of white bass on the lake pretty well, but nothing beats the advantage of current advice from a top guide like Holmes.
“I know an area that is sheltered from the wind and holding tons of white bass,” he said. “We’ve been getting into lots of top-water schooling action during the first couple hours of daylight and sometimes throughout the day when there is cloud cover.”
Holmes added that the fish were schooling around standing timber and it was common for them to work the outside edge of the tree lines. On days with less wind, the series of isolated humps down by the dam have been paying big dividends.
After a good night’s sleep, we were greeted by a jovial Holmes at the dock.
My grandsons can handle bait caster reels pretty well, especially when vertical jigging, but I was happy to see the big Zebco 808s in Holmes’ rod rack.
“I think the boys will do more catching and less time fiddling with their reels with these fool proof spin- casters,” Holmes said.
Holmes favors silver or white slabs during the summer months and the rods were already rigged with one-ounce elongated lead baits.
“In the fall and winter, I usually switch to chartreuse-colored baits,” he said. “The fish seem to prefer a flatter slab when the water cools down. Right now though, these long slabs have been the ticket to some red-hot action.”
As we headed out from the dock and slowly motored into an area of scattered standing trees, Holmes used his binoculars to study the waters ahead.
“See that big Heron sitting on that stump,” he said. “There are several cattle egrets around him. It’s a good bet these birds have their eye on breakfast. Let’s use the trolling motor and quietly ease into the area.”
I looked back to see Balette and his crew were also slowly moving into the hotspot. Stealth is the name of the game when approaching top-water feeding fish. Even greedily feeding white bass will sound when approached too quickly with a boat that has a big outboard running at high speed.
Within a couple minutes the heron left their perch on the log, flew 50 yards into a little opening in the trees, hovered an instant over the water’s surface and gently scooped up a small shad, one that was obviously injured by a pack of hungry white bass below.
From nowhere, about 10 egrets joined the heron and the water began to froth as the whites pushed shad to the surface.
“Make long casts boys and hold your rod tip high,” Holmes said. “Shake the rod when the slab hits the surface. This will make the lure dart around near the surface, mimicking a wounded shad.”
Holmes had no more than uttered his instructions when a couple of the boy’s rods bent heavily toward the surface.
“Fish on,” he said. “No, two fish on.”
About that time the younger grandson’s rod tip began to dance. Three white bass on at once and up in front of the boat, Holmes was also hooked fast to a hard-fighting white bass. Balette and the girls were on their own school of fish.
I’ve had many people ask me my favorite freshwater fish to catch.
It’s a tough question.
I love to catch everything from bream to catfish, but the open-water schooling species such as white bass, hybrid stripers and stripers are at the top of my list. They are relatively easy to catch, once you find them, and all make excellent table fare.
Just as predicted, this top-water feeding frenzy held up a couple hours and then the fish went deeper around isolated bits of bottom structure.
“Now boys, this is when fishing gets really easy,” Holmes said as he marked a big school of whites on his sonar. “Just drop your bait vertically down to bottom and pop them up a couple feet. Make sure and keep the slack out of your line when the bait is falling.”
We rounded out our morning fishing from a single huge school that was staged out from the timber on a slight change in bottom elevation.
Balette and his daughters headed out to open water to do a little knee boarding before heading back to camp. As Holmes and I cleaned the morning catch, I took time out to do a little photography.
“Luke do you remember that picture you took of the boys years ago right here,” Holmes said.
I did remember.
That was at least five years ago, maybe six. The boys had their shirts off and they were just little tykes. Now the boys were much bigger. Gramps ordered them to remove their shirts, just as they’d done years ago and I put them through a grueling photo shoot.
This trip was a special one for me for several reasons.
I’d had the opportunity to spend some quality time with a couple of my dear friends and unhook countless white bass for three of my grandsons that had the time of their lives. I left this trip with a new outlook on my career as an outdoors writer and radio show host.
Yes, in a sense I am at work when hunting and fishing, but it’s the great times with the wonderful people I am blessed to know that really makes it seem like play.
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