Last fish of 2009

I've been on vacation for just over a week and a half now. Time seems to have gone by pretty quickly with family visiting through Christmas and right before the new year. The wife said I should get out and do some fishing so I did.

Since I had not fished around my favorite section of Lake Travis in some time, I headed to Arkansas Bend to see how things looked. When I got there I noticed the boat ramp was still closed and even though we are finishing December with a 2" surplus of rain, the lake still looks awfully low. I drove down along the shoreline which is typically several feet underwater and launched my kayak.

The coves I usually fish felt much smaller as I paddled around. I fished a few points, large coves and finger coves for a while with not much luck. I spotted what looked like a carp rooting but then noticed it swimming rapidly into deeper water while still on top and proceeded to follow it.

Normally, if you get close to a carp and it spots you, it will high tail it out of there but this carp must have been sick or injured because I was able to paddle right next to it and it didn't submerge or try to evade me.

I should have known better than to down some coffee before heading off to paddle around and fish as I had to find a suitable beach to land on that had no homes around to relieve myself as I was about to burst! Whew!

After I paddled off again, I saw a splash that gave away the location of a bass and that turned out to be the only fish I was able to catch. It also turned out to be the last fish I caught for 2009. It was a spunky little bass though.

I hope 2010 brings more fishing time and better catches and I hope it does as well for anyone else reading this. Happy New Year!