Rayburn update from Bryan O'Conner

Posted by ken on July 7, 2014

I don't get to the lake every weekend and since I wasn't on Rayburn weekend before the 4th I got an update from my buddy Bryan O'Conner from Cypress who was ok with me sharing it here. Thanks Bryan!

Well, even a blind hog finds an acorn - eventually.  After the worst season of tournament fishing ever, I finally found some good fish.  Nothing to set the next lake record, but better than the empty sacks I've been carrying to the weigh-in.  Thought I'd share it with you.

Friday June 27th I picked up my boat from Quality Marine in Onalaska - best boat wrenches around.  They put it back together after I lunched the lower unit and motor mounts the day before the TXTT championship.  I stopped at my travel trailer in Lakeview Campground to turn on the air and water before I put in at Castle Boykins.  I started around 4:30 in the canyons.  

The wind was gassing it directly from the dam, and the rollers in the canyons were huge. No way to fish in there.  I took one over the bow idling out while looking at my phone - bonehead move!  I didn't really want to get beat up, so I was definitely staying above the bridge.  I went up back west mostly just to get out of the wind.  I picked a fairly calm bank and picked up my frog and started working down it.  I noticed the water temp was 79 - 80.  On this bank there were some scattered stumps, and one had a brush pile at the
bottom.  I pulled off a small fish that wrapped me up on a Texas rig in it, but there wasn't any more around.  Back to the frog.  I started down the bank, and the Lilly pads played out, but the 'hay' grass along the bank was out to almost 6' deep.  I picked up a nice 3.5, and quickly another.  I was coming to a point, and the closer I got to the tip, the more there were.  I caught 6 before I rounded the point and they were all 3+ and 2 were over 5.  The wind was still howling.  After the point the pads started back up and
the bite fell way off.  So did the size.  I picked up the trolling motor and  headed out to try and duplicate the point. I found another main lake point with the hay grass and no pads, and the bite was on.  I headed in for the night at 7:20 and had boated 11, with only 1 being under 14".

The wind continued through the night.  At one point I thought it was going to roll over the travel trailer!  I hit the lake a little late, and went back to my first point, and the 'first cast' curse struck - I caught a 4 pounder.  It was definitely a 'curse' because after not missing a single fish Friday, I missed my next 9
blow-ups on the frog!  I went to another point, and they were there, but these were small fish.  I caught 3 there, and there was only one over 14".  I ducked thunderstorms and by 10:30 I was back on the trailer.  They finally moved on around 4:00, so I went out again (also snuck in a world class nap! It had been a tough week).  The wind had let up, so I ran around to Julie creek. I couldn't duplicate the size, but the fish were again in the hay grass on points.  I had 5 keepers in there, but the best was probably only 3 lbs.

Sunday the wind was far less, so I ran over to Indian.  I really couldn't find any points without pads, and couldn't really get the frog going.  There were 8 other boats in there by 08:00, and I only had one keeper fish so far.  The wind started picking-up at 9:30, and it clouded up, so I moved to an outside point.  As soon as I got on it, I picked up a 4 and one just a little smaller. I picked one more that was a good 16" keeper.  The sun then burnt through for the first time of the weekend, and the frog bite died. I moved out to the edge of the grass and caught 1 more 14" keeper on a spinnerbait .  I decided to head back to home at 11:00. 

All in all, a fine trip.  Sadly to say, the best I've had this year.  I'd say this was completely weather and water temp related.  Points with hay grass and few pads, clouds and wind. After the rain probably was a factor as well.  The same conditions were there the 4th weekend, but I decided to stay off the lake. 
Going to have to get back later to see if it will work again.