Choke Canyon

February 2006

My brother John invited me to visit him in San Antonio, TX before my first tournament with the WBT. John fishes in tournaments as well and is a master at fishing with plastics. I wanted to glen from his knowledge and sharpen my skills so I jumped at the opportunity!

I flew down on a Thursday and the weather was incredible for February. John took me first to his personal favorite lake Choke Canyon. The entire lake is filled with stick ups and deep channels so I was really pumped to get out on the water and look for the big boys!

While the weather was incredible when I arrived, it quickly changed once we got to the lake. Strong winds began to blow and the sky turned a deep shade of grey which told us we might be in for a downpour! We ran up into an arm of the lake that had a channel running through it about 20 ft. deep. The boat had to be tied off to a stick up because the trolling motor couldn’t keep us in line with the string gusts of wind. With the water temp averaging 67 degrees, we both felt like this might be a nice day of fishing!

John led the day off by catching a bass on his first cast! My older brother had to show me who was in the lead! I quickly learned what he meant by “I’m spankin’ em!” I thought “okay, I see how this day is going to go…my older brother is going to skunk me!”

With a Texas rigged line and a ½ oz bullet weight, I put on a 6 inch Berkley Red Shad Neon. With the wind and the structure, it was almost impossible to feel if I had a real bite or not. My brother said “if in doubt…set the steel!” I used that logic and reeled in the bass shown here.

You can see by the wind tunnel in my jacket what the wind was like. I’m used to it thankfully because the wind never stops North of Dallas!
Happy with my first attempt, I decided to continue using the red shad worm and cast across the channel and reeled in towards the boat very slowly. The next thing I knew, I felt tension on my line. I tightened down and the pressure was so tight I thought for a moment that I was hung up on one of the stumps. Very slowly I let out a bit of line hoping that if there was a bass that was hung around the stump, he would get himself out of the situation. It worked! I started to reel down again and felt the line moving at which time I set the hook and landed another largemouth.

We decided to move closer to the opening of the arm that flowed directly into the main lake. I couldn’t believe how many snakes there were! Looking back behind us at a tree we might have tied off to, we saw a snake head sticking out of a hole in the tree at the height of our heads! A person would never see the water moccasin from the other side…but just one misplacement of your hand around the tree and BAM! I quickly decided then and there that I would be checking ALL sides of the stump we were tying off before touching it!!!

Using the same technique of casting across the channel and slowly reeling in the worm to the boat, I felt a huge hit right away. I reeled down hard and set the hook with all of my might. I didn’t want to loose whatever had decided to feast on my worm!

After a brief struggle, I finally won the battle and landed the bass you see here with the same red shad neon!

I decided at this point I loved fishing with plastic worms and the red shad neon became very near and dear to my heart!

John and I took a break for lunch. I had made low calorie low fat tuna salad pitas which tasted incredible! When I go fishing, I always bring along some Wasabi peas to snack on. These things are delicious and you can put a few in your pocket to munch on at your leisure throughout the day. John said he loved them and was going to keep a staple supply of them for the boat from now on!

In the afternoon the sun came out a bit but the wind was still a fierce demon. We ran into a small cove that was sheltered on three sides. I switch baits to a watermelon brush hog. The wind blew us into the shallow end of a point so I cast into the middle of the cove and reeled towards the shallow end of the point. After the second cast, I felt the line go tight and move slightly to the left. Again, I reeled down hard, set the hook and brought in my last bass of the day.

I had an incredible time fishing with my brother and learning from him. John is an incredible angler and I’m so privileged to have him on Team Jen! Thank you John for the wonderful time…I can’t wait to do it all over again!!!