Lake Austin 7-9-05

Got up early on Saturday morning at 3:30 AM and was out the door by 3:45 AM. I backed my boat down the street to the dead-end and picked up Chris. Chris and I headed out for a great morning of fishing on Lake Austin. The weather was perfect, clear sky but the moon wasn't visible at this time. I was lucky enough to see a shooting star while I was looking for the moon about 4:30 AM. We launched at the 360 bridge on Lake Austin and headed up the lake to fish some grass beds that are known for lunker bass. After fishing for about an hour with no luck Chris started us off about 5:30 AM with our first keeper, about 1 lb just over 14 inches on a watermelon Whodaddy rigged Texas style with a 1/4 oz slip sinker. A few casts later I picked up a 2 lb fish in the same area, with a watermelon brush hog rigged Texas style with a 1/4 oz slip sinker. We burned down the bank because the sun was starting to brighten up the horizon and I wasn't to the spot I wanted to be on yet. I picked up 3rd keeper weighing 4.8 lbs on a white buzz bait and it put a great fight where the paddle boat is sometimes docked. We fished an hour more before I picked up another keeper about 3 lbs across the lake on the other side from the paddle boat place, didn't officially weigh it. We ran up the lake to a small creek and Chris later finished out our limit of five keepers with a 4.1 lb fish on the scales, man was he excited about getting it in the boat. I am glad he caught it, I'd suggested a bait to him for the spot the bass was caught from but it didn't pan out. I was about to leave and Chris asked me to hold up while he tried flipping the Whodaddy and it paid off on the first cast. Just goes to show, when you think you know your fish and the spot, you don't. :-) I was glad to see the spot pay off for Chris. We called it a day pretty much at 8:00AM but there was a tournament weigh-in at 8:00 AM and they had the ramps pretty much taken over for the moment, so fish the creek next to the golf course for a little bit. One of the guys I talked to said they had a 7+ lb bass and a total limit of 22 lbs, 10 fish limit by the way. I saw lots of fish in the 2 to 3 lb range released and a few 4+ lb fish but no giant bass that we saw. Below are pics of the two big bass of the trip. I've read a report that a 13+ lb bass was caught over the weekend about 10PM, no sure what day and taken to Cabela's for display, because the Share Lunker program did not want the fish.