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I hit up @jc34 asking if he'd be down to try out Decker with me for a mid week casting session, as the topwater had been on and off lately with some good sessions after work during May. He agreed to take a break from catching those "Slobs" 
at the bird only 5 mins away and make the drive across Austin to check out new waters . We launched about 6ish, and decided to try the east most arm at the east most bank, as I'd never fished that side and wanted to see what was going on over there.
We found our first cove quick, it was littered with thick clumps of algae/weed mats as you moved shallower. I started with a weightless senko my go to "plastic worm", just trying to shake the skunk and was getting nips and grabs with none of them getting the hook. Jc gets the skunk off with a cookie cutter on the frog, I was surprised as the sun hadn't started setting yet. We split off different ways to try and find fish, I rounded a shady point at the cove and Jc went east around the opposite bend, going back into a swamp like sort of creek. After not even as much of a nibble on the frog and senko I made my way back over to Jc. I got a cutie on the senko and was happy to desunk, Jc pitched a frog right up into the tules weaving it in and out of the mats, BOOM! nice chunky one gets airborne and then shortly after... slack, damn! It looked to be a nice 3-4lb fish, bummer. Not even 5 casts after that, he sends the frog further back into the slop towards the back of the cove, it almost looked like a creek back there. Bam! another nice blowup, it must've followed the frog out a bit as it didn't hit until the frog was a fair way out of the pocket back there. We see it surface and it does that classic open mouth massive headshake as it rolls across the surface, both of us quiet as we knew it was a giant! It all happened so fast, but shortly after we both had question marks above our head, just as fast as it made it to his boat, it was back down to the depths of the lake. We said our usual awe inspired vulgarities and basked in the awesomeness that was this sessions "one that got away." Jc's initial reaction was "I just lost a 10lber" But after we collected ourselves we imagine if it wasn't 10, it was probably around the 8lb range, it was a great fish.
We did our best to shake the two mishaps and kept moving on, and the sun started setting. I was throwing a frog that kind of had a popper like mouth lent to me from Jc, his was a different style, more of the traditional shaped mouth, kind of bobbed as you popped and twitched it. For whatever reason they really wanted the frog he was throwing and not the one I was 🤷♂️, but had trouble connecting with it, after several more missed blow ups we started heading in, it was dark, late, and we were tired. After the long paddle back, I started messing around with the g2 shellcracker little double jointed wake bait I've had some luck with. I started throwing it around some dock lines, and pitched it back behind the dock, paralell to the cement barrier and the edge of the dock. I think it was pretty shallow back there, couldn't have been more than 2 feet deep, I got that sublte "slurp" hit, almost like the sound if a hydrodynamic rock or bullet weight hits the water, a very stout and direct subtle slurp, it was so stealthy I almost didn't think I hooked up, and shortly after thought It popped off and hung me up, I gave it a solid swing to set the hook and she took off. Jc was sort of milling around and I told him I hooked up and it's a nice one and he had a casual acknowledgement, then the firework style surface headshakes started and he perked up a little more haha. I rushed it to the boat, I didn't want to lose this one but it was still green and it had me scrambling like a cowboy riding a bull at a rodeo. I only recently bought a hand net for the yak, I knew if I ever hooked a sharelunker my chances of landing it by hand from a kayak are slim to none. Each time I've hooked a good enough one to net since buying it, I initially forget I even have it. I reached for it and after a bit of a scramble swam it into the net. As much as I want to lie and say it was exactly 5lbs Jc was witness to it being 1oz shy at 4-15. Anyways, while it wasn't the one we lost earlier, it felt good to bring in my best TX largie thus far.
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at the bird only 5 mins away and make the drive across Austin to check out new waters . We launched about 6ish, and decided to try the east most arm at the east most bank, as I'd never fished that side and wanted to see what was going on over there.We found our first cove quick, it was littered with thick clumps of algae/weed mats as you moved shallower. I started with a weightless senko my go to "plastic worm", just trying to shake the skunk and was getting nips and grabs with none of them getting the hook. Jc gets the skunk off with a cookie cutter on the frog, I was surprised as the sun hadn't started setting yet. We split off different ways to try and find fish, I rounded a shady point at the cove and Jc went east around the opposite bend, going back into a swamp like sort of creek. After not even as much of a nibble on the frog and senko I made my way back over to Jc. I got a cutie on the senko and was happy to desunk, Jc pitched a frog right up into the tules weaving it in and out of the mats, BOOM! nice chunky one gets airborne and then shortly after... slack, damn! It looked to be a nice 3-4lb fish, bummer. Not even 5 casts after that, he sends the frog further back into the slop towards the back of the cove, it almost looked like a creek back there. Bam! another nice blowup, it must've followed the frog out a bit as it didn't hit until the frog was a fair way out of the pocket back there. We see it surface and it does that classic open mouth massive headshake as it rolls across the surface, both of us quiet as we knew it was a giant! It all happened so fast, but shortly after we both had question marks above our head, just as fast as it made it to his boat, it was back down to the depths of the lake. We said our usual awe inspired vulgarities and basked in the awesomeness that was this sessions "one that got away." Jc's initial reaction was "I just lost a 10lber" But after we collected ourselves we imagine if it wasn't 10, it was probably around the 8lb range, it was a great fish.
We did our best to shake the two mishaps and kept moving on, and the sun started setting. I was throwing a frog that kind of had a popper like mouth lent to me from Jc, his was a different style, more of the traditional shaped mouth, kind of bobbed as you popped and twitched it. For whatever reason they really wanted the frog he was throwing and not the one I was 🤷♂️, but had trouble connecting with it, after several more missed blow ups we started heading in, it was dark, late, and we were tired. After the long paddle back, I started messing around with the g2 shellcracker little double jointed wake bait I've had some luck with. I started throwing it around some dock lines, and pitched it back behind the dock, paralell to the cement barrier and the edge of the dock. I think it was pretty shallow back there, couldn't have been more than 2 feet deep, I got that sublte "slurp" hit, almost like the sound if a hydrodynamic rock or bullet weight hits the water, a very stout and direct subtle slurp, it was so stealthy I almost didn't think I hooked up, and shortly after thought It popped off and hung me up, I gave it a solid swing to set the hook and she took off. Jc was sort of milling around and I told him I hooked up and it's a nice one and he had a casual acknowledgement, then the firework style surface headshakes started and he perked up a little more haha. I rushed it to the boat, I didn't want to lose this one but it was still green and it had me scrambling like a cowboy riding a bull at a rodeo. I only recently bought a hand net for the yak, I knew if I ever hooked a sharelunker my chances of landing it by hand from a kayak are slim to none. Each time I've hooked a good enough one to net since buying it, I initially forget I even have it. I reached for it and after a bit of a scramble swam it into the net. As much as I want to lie and say it was exactly 5lbs Jc was witness to it being 1oz shy at 4-15
. Anyways, while it wasn't the one we lost earlier, it felt good to bring in my best TX largie thus far.
