April 20, 2006 - Monte's Metroplex Fishing

April 20, 2006
Monte spent Wednesday April 19th and Thursday April 20th fishing Richland Chambers Lake with friends Roy Hudman and David Jackson. On Thursday Roy's son, Randy joined us too. We had a blast! We caught several Hybrid Stripers to seven pounds and so many sand bass that we lost count early on.

Wednesday found Monte, Roy and David fishing in conditions that rivaled mid summer with little wind and a sun that beat down on us pretty hard. We started around 8:30AM trolling hell/pet rigs on the 309 flats with no hybrids but several sandies. We trolled our famed LM06 and LM07 GPS honey hole spots hard but the hybrids simply wouldn't cooperate. Once we gave up on that we trolled around Pelican Island but still no hybrids so we found a spot that looked good on the graph, anchored off and stated slabbing with glitter slabs. In no time David's pole doubled over and the fight was on. That turned out to be the biggest fish of the two day adventure, a nine pound carp.

On Thursday, Randy joined us and we were on the lake even earlier, around 8:00AM. The sky looked ominous but the winds were light and there was no evidence of lightning so we forged ahead to our favorite LM06 & LM07 trolling spots on the 309 flats. The hybrids were still not falling for the hell/pet rig but the sand bass were all over them. So much so that we started scoffing at them. "Oh, just another nuisance fish" we would say as we pulled in a magnum sandie or even a double. We wanted the big hybrids! We wound up back at Pelican Island as a storm cell passed well to our north. We saw lightning within it but that storm was going away from us so we stayed because we started catching three and four pound hybrids and we were having a great time. That is when Monte came up with the seven pounder. It is very very thrilling to witness an Ambassadeur Reel being hit by a big hybrid. ZIIINNNGGGGGG!!!! WOOHOO!!! You better have alot of line on your reel because there isn't a whole lot you can do while the beast runs except hold on. Anyway the fish were really active as another storm cell approached from the west. This one was heading right for us with lighning and because we kept fishing about 10 minutes too long, it was a rather scary boat ride back to Fisherman's Point. We spent the next hour there with several other fishermen including guide Royce Simmons who told us his son, Adam, was stuck under a bridge with his clients while the storm passed. Yikes!

After that the weather cleared and we were right back at it off of windsock point where we slabbed up a few more 3 and 4 pound hybrids along with white bass after white bass. That action just seemed to die so we headed back to Pelican Island where Roy came up with a five pound and 2 1/2 pound Hybrid double on the same hell/pet rig. That's why we fish Richland, right there!

BTW, no fish were harmed in the filming of this fishing adventure except for maybe a torn lip here and there. Every fish was thrown back to be caught again another day.