I had booked Thompson Ranch for November 1, intending to take along a friend of mine and his 14-year-old son, as a birthday present to the son. Regrettably my friend had to cancel, but his son was keen to go, so just the two of us fished for the afternoon. The two days prior to this expedition saw significant rainfall in the region, and so the last quarter-mile of the access road was pretty soft and somewhat rutted in spots. I wouldn’t want to take an Austin Mini over that road in that condition. The weather forecast for Nov 1 was good, but it didn’t quite turn out that way.

We started fishing about 12:30 with good weather and great success, but the rain started in earnest about 2:30 and by 4:00 we decided to pack it in. In that time we landed 20 bass, 14 of which were retained due to size, and six being over the 14 inch cut off and released. Much to his delight, the birthday boy managed to best me for large bass, with a 20.5 inch fish that I estimated at 5 pounds. I took a few photos which appeared on FaceBook hours later (70 “likes” within 24 hours!).

Almost all of the bass were taken on Texas rigged watermelon red worms. Surprisingly, they started hitting the surface about 3:30 and I managed to get a couple with topwater (plastic frogs). Most were taken in the corner of the lake directly in front of the parking / boat area.

All in all it was a great day, and my guest was happy with his birthday gift of catching a number of feisty bass in relatively short order.

Posted By: Rob Marshall