Texas Classic Bass Club September Tournament on Lake Austin.

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club August tournament on Lake Austin with John Hackney, 6:00 to 3:00 on Saturday. The hot Texas summer made for some tough fishing conditions as the drought has cut down on the amount of water flowing through Lake Austin. The day of the tournament the wind was pretty strong a times, there were light rains, and true to Texas weather there was 90+ degree sunshine before it was all over.

The Tournament:

AT 5:15 AM I met John at the Quinlan boat launch. We loaded his gear in the boat and headed off to our first fishing spot. We moved out on to the grass flats on the upper end of the lake in 4 feet of water and went to work at 6:00 AM. Nothing happened for the first hour of the tournament and then around 6:00 AM the action picked up. I caught the first little one of the day on a Zoom horny toad. We then proceeded to kill three or four hours of flipping the grass and buzzing lures over the top of it. We had a few missed strikes, a few short fish, and it was tough. I decided to move down the lake to hit a few more areas. We hit one of the more productive creeks I like to fish and John caught several small fish out of it including a Guadalupe bass which is kind of strange for Lake Austin. I've never seen anyone catch one in all of the times I have fished on the lake.

Anyway, I made a few more moves down the lake and John caught a 13 and 3/4 inch bass just under the mark off of some posts. That spot didn't pay off so I decided to just continue fishing down the bank and noticed balls of shad on my graph and they were jumping out of the water when our baits got close to them. We threw all the standard schooling lures and caught small bass on chrome rat-l-traps and white swim jigs.

Follow your instinct and never give up:

The last move of the day came with just 45 minutes left to fish and we hit the creek next to the Austin 360 bridge. I stopped the boat at the mouth of the creek and elected to fish the golf course wall. I chose to fish it with a chartreuse spinnerbait and John flipped the jig he had been catching bass with. I dialed the trolling motor to 100% power and proceeded to chunk and wind that spinnerbait as many times as I could while sailing down the creek. We passed by the golf course with no bites and I apologized to John for fishing a little to fast for him to flip the jig, but we were running out of time. We crossed over and fish a laydown tree, then fished the rock walls next to the apartments, still no takers. As we fished down the front of the first set of boat stalls I noticed two empty boat slips that are normally occupied with boats. As we reached the first slip I made a cast to the very back of the slip, banged the spinnerbait off the walking path and dropped it right next to the wall. I burned the lure out with no takers. The boat is flying past stall after stall because I've got the trolling motor maxed out. When we reached the other open stall I made a cast to the back, but this time the spinnerbait glided under the walk way and made a small splash on entry, I gave the reel a quarter turn and felt a solid tug on the line. I said, "John I got a good fish on..." The fish proceed to shake it's head and then wrap the line around the submerged boat lift in the stall while trying to shake free. "But it's got me wrapped up!" John dropped his rod and went for the net. The momentum of the boat is still heading forward and we would be past the stall in next 30 seconds. I told John to forget the net and get on the trolling motor. It must have looked like some sort of fire drill or dance with John running to the front of the boat and me running to the back at the same time. I held pressure on the bass and waited for it to work itself free or break off which ever came first. A minute or two later the line started moving and I worked the bass out of the boat slip and into the net. I put the bass in the livewell, took in a deep breath, because I think I forgot to breath in all the excitement and looked at my phone to check the time, just fifteen minutes left to fish. John did a great job taking over the trolling motor while I worked the fish free, team effort all the way or we would have zeroed. Never give up!

Tournament in Review:

The tournament was pretty tough and I lost track of the number of small fish we caught, 10 give or take. John and I took first place and big bass with one fish weighing 2.3 lbs!

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to my mom for taking care of the kiddies while I fished in the tournament.