Guide Dave Escamilla with Striper Express eased the throttle back on his guide boat last week at the mouth of a ten-acre pocket off the main lake on Lake Texoma. My longtime friend Bill Carey, the ‘boss man’ at Striper Express, was with us as was our friend Jeff Rice, there to hopefully get in on the red-hot striper fishing of the past several days and film a segment of our TV show, “A Sportsmans Life” on Carbon TV.
There was a combined 250 years of fishing experience present in the boat including two very veteran striper guides. Back at the dock before daylight that morning, we were discussing fishing conditions. The water temperature had dropped 4 degrees overnight, thanks to the passage of the recent cool front, and the lake was as slick as glass. We all expected the front and slack wind to slow the top water bite from the previous few days, but even with the adverse conditions, we were hoping for the best. Just the day before, everyone was experiencing the thrill of throwing big Pencil Poppers and a prop type top water plug named Choppos to greedy surface feeding stripers and boating fish up to 13 pounds. This little cove, which had provided almost nonstop top water action the previous day was mirror smooth, not even the sign of baitfish was breaking the water. A great blue heron was perched on a little point jutting out from shore; he probably was remembering the previous day when he gorged himself on shad pushed to the surface by feeding stripers and, like us, hoping for a bit of wind to dimple the lake’s surface and put the stripers in the mood to feed.
As we tossed topwater plugs, ‘walking the dog’ with Pencil Pencil Poppers and churning the surface with the prop type blades of the Choppo, Bill Carey looks at me and says, “ Luke, catching fish on top water baits is a gift. It’s something those of us that love to catch fish wait all year for, and May is prime time. The bite has been very consistent the past week, but I’m afraid it’s going to take a day or two for weather conditions to stabilize. We should be able to raise a few top water fish though.”
Our guide’s prediction was spot on. We did manage to boat a few fish that were hugging the shoreline, feeding on the most recent shad spawn. We were there for the top water bite and to film a top water striper show, and we decided to continue casting surface plugs. Escamilla pointed to his graph at a big school of roving stripers holding about 30 feet below the boat. “These fish would have been blowing up all over the surface yesterday, and I feel confident we could hammer them with jigs or slabs right now but that’s not our plan of attack.” We stuck with our game plan and managed to catch enough fish on top water baits to make a good TV show.
Back at the dock, we had plenty of fresh stripers and a few jumbo-sized white bass, the centerpiece of an excellent meal of blackened fish that evening. Weather is always a major factor when catching fish of any species. The very next day after our trip, our guide sent me a photo from his cell phone of a limit of stripers, all landed on top waters caught during the first couple hours of daylight. Since our trip, weather conditions have stabilized without any cold fronts moving through. The dependable top water bite currently underway should continue without interruption for the next few weeks. Cold fronts followed by dead calm days are rare in north Texas this time of year. We are planning to return for round two with the top water stripers in a few days. More on this annual top water fishing event soon!
TOPWATER TIPS
Fishermen addicted to the adrenaline rush of catching surface feeding fish understand all too well that millisecond between when they see that swirl on the water’s surface and feel the strike telegraphed up through the line and down the rod. Every fiber in our body tells us to ‘jerk back, hard’ when we see and feel a fish attacking our lure but that is precisely the wrong thing to do, regardless of if we are fishing for bream with a little popping bug cast by flyrod or a big plug for bass with a baitcaster. More likely than not, those lightning like hook sets result in pulling the plug away from the fish before he is hooked. The universal rule for catching fish on top water baits is to wait until the weight of the fish is felt before attempting to set the hook. In truth the hook will probably be set by the time you feel the fish’s weight but a tug on the rod to ensure a solid hook set will at least help relieve the fisherman’s tension and it just might actually help set the hook. Just don’t jerk too hard; you aren’t fishing with a Texas rigged plastic worm where you have to pull the hook through the worm and solidly into the fish’s mouth! The vast majority of times, a game fish striking a surface bait will hit it hard and, if he doesn’t get hooked on the first strike, he will instantly hit the bait again. Unless, of course, the angler jerks the bait out of the strike zone before the hook is set. One of the most challenging things for a fisherman is to let the bait sit motionless, maybe giving it a slight twitch or two after that initial strike! This is tough to do but a tried and proven technique that often results in a solid hook up.
May is prime time for topwater fishing regardless whether you are going after bedding bream with fly rod, largemouth bass, white bass or hard pulling stripers. Even when you are fishing sub surface lures, consider keeping a rod rigged with a topwater bait suitable for catching your targeted species. Like Mr. Carey says, “Topwater is a gift.” There is no better time of the year than May to unwrap the package!
Contact Striper Express at www.striperexpress.com or call (903)786-4477. Watch a video of this fishing trip on A Sportsman’s Life www.carbontv. com.
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