Welcome to Anglin’ with Austin. Thanksgiving has come and gone and I ask myself why are we thankful?
The first thing that comes to mind is health, family, and happiness. The next thing that comes to mind is fishing the empty lakes. Taking advantage of the free day and spending it with my son, on the water, is the best Thanksgiving that I can think of.
For those of you that have never considered using fishing and Thanksgiving in the same sentence, I have some suggestions. With some advance planning and a little micro-management we can develop a 2010 timeline that will ultimately lead to combining angling and turkey day.
You need to start the process now. Let your better half know that with the economy the way it is, you’re going to save a ton of money next year by eliminating the turkey and ham. Here’s your master plan:
n Ask the family to schedule Thanksgiving late in the evening. This will allow you enough time to go chase the shallow bass and deep catfish. Remind them that your sacrifice is nothing if you’re able to feed the family economically. Advise all of your guests at this year’s feast that dinner will be served at 8 p.m. next year. That should allow enough time to clean the massive amount of fish that you’d catch and hopefully, give you enough time to shower before the festivities.
n Tell everyone that next year you’ll be bringing home the bacon, ummm filets, for a fried fish feast.
Not so quick. These people probably know that the economy and saving money have never overly concerned you. Also, if you can’t convince everybody that eating closer to midnight than noon is a good idea, you’ll have to improvise. We don’t want them thinking that you have an ulterior motive, like getting on the water and fishing, do we?
n Give in. Agree to eat at
3 p.m.
n A few days before Thanksgiving, check the fish inventory in the freezer. If there’s not enough, surprise your partner by offering to do all the holiday shopping and just add 20 pounds of frozen packaged catfish filets to the list. Very Important: drop the receipt in the garbage can on the way out of the store.
The night before Thanksgiving, encourage your partner to take a bubble bath, go for a jog or scrub the toilets. Anything that will get them out of the way while you transfer frozen fish from the freezer to the cooler on the boat. Don’t forget to take the store-bought fish out of the packages and place in zip bags. You might want to add some dirty fingerprints to the outside of the bags for realism.
n On Thanksgiving morning, go fishing. Return around 1 p.m. with a cooler full of thawed fish. Voila! You come home looking like the caveman that drug the pterodactyl into the cave.
Get the fryer cranking and while you’re cooking the fish, you can stand around and tell your family fishing stories the whole time.
Fishing Reports
Canyon Lake Report — 10-feet, 5 inches low.
Boat Ramps Currently Open — Canyon Lake Village (No. 1), Toms Creek (No.6), Potters Creek (West), Little Jacobs Creek (No. 17), Jacobs Creek (East), Lake Canyon Yacht Club (No. 12) and Canyon Lake Marina (No. 19).
All others are closed due to low lake levels and seasonal park closures. All of Cranes Mill Park is closed until further notice for renovation. The piers at Cranes Mill and Potters Creek are both closed.
Largemouth bass are good early and late in 3-20 feet of water using watermelon seed, green pumpkin, and watermelon candy colored soft plastics.
Texas rigged, Carolina rigged or shaky head is the preferred method, as the lake temperature continues its drop.
On windy days, 3⁄8 ounce white spinner bait against wind blown points is recommended for good action.
Watch for schools on top by the dam early. Use a small top water plug or spook for action. Smallmouth bass are fair through out the day in 6-20 feet of water on rocky points, piles and ledges jigging watermelon seed or pumpkin yabbies (crawfish).
Striped and white bass are good early on the surface in the area of Randolph, and Ramp No. 1 using a top water plug if busting the top or shad colored spook.
Crappie are fair through out the day using live minnows in timber and brush piles in 10-25 feet of water toward the mouth of the river. Channel catfish are fair on the edge of creek and river channels using stink bait and chicken liver in 5-15 feet of water, while blue cats are good in main lake and river channel live perch, cut shad and stink bait in 10-50 feet of water. Yellow cats are fair in the river and creek channels using live perch and shad in 14-25 feett or water.
Lake Dunlap and Placid — Largemouth bass good on crankbaits and pumpkin seed colored soft plastics, crappie are good at Lake Placid on live minnows around boat docks, channel cat are good on both lakes with chicken liver and Big Marv’s cheesebait, blue catfish are good on cut shad, and yellow cat are good on perch and goldfish.
