Lady Bird and Lake Austin fishing report 4-17-11

[Clint Wright]

Started on Lady Bird with a friend Saturday morning. Caught 15 up to 5lbs. Best lure was a Carolina rig and a swim bait. But we caught them on a variety of other stuff too, sort of junk fishing.
Ended up leaving and fishing Lake Austin till 2am (18 hours straight fishing). Lake Austin was great. We caught fish all night everywhere we went. We caught them finesse and power fishing soft plastics. Thanking God now that we finally had a day without much wind to enjoy a day on the lake. The females we caught on Lady Bird were post spawn. The females on Lake Austin were pre-spawn. Green pumpkin and watermelon/chartruese were our two best colors on both lakes.

[5-20]

Man, that's great. I fished Austin from 630a-4p yesterday out of 360 and went all the way to Quinlan. Managed one three pounder. Threw big plastics and then finessed the last couple of hours. Got back out again today around 4 out of city park and fished a bit past quinlan. Was targeting spawning flats with grass between 2-10 ft of water most of the time. Did this until 930p and had only one small keeper. And I threw a wacky senko for the last hour and half, too! Haha.

Still, seeing the moon come up was awesome. At that time, I really wished I'd gone out of 360 instead of cp so I could hang around for another hour or so but I really didn't want to put up with the pain of the 4pm weekend crowd at 360. The traffic on the lake wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, tho.

[basstrack]

Sounds like a marathon trip, thanks for the report!

[fishtodeath]

Just curious, how deep were the post spawn fish on Lady Bird and were you fishing the upper end of Lake Austin? Was thinking the lower end would be in post spawn by now but, then again, water temp and the moon is everything to the bass brain. Well, mine too for that matter.

[Clint Wright]

Yes, marathon trip....but that's my style!

The biggest post spawn female on Lady Bird was 4.7 and was on the bank protecting fry. We fished the south end. Lots of fry in the reeds on the bank, south of the dam a ways. We got there late, but know a buzzbait would whack em right at daylight in there.

We fished the north end on Austin and caught plenty (pre spawn), water was 53. After dark that bite was over. So we went back down to the Hula Hut, watched all the hot college girls, then went back out till 2 am. The fish on the south end seemed to be post spawn. Temps were around 70 or so.

I night fished for 20+ years on Lake Fork, but Lake Austin is flat out awesome after the sun goes down!

[CL]

Great report dude!