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It's been a while since I posted a report, but I haven't been on the water much and these two days on Austin have been the only trips out there since the last Wed Nighter on 8/31.

9/29 – Started the day at 7:30 am running all the way up to the low water crossing; thought if they were flowing any amount of water the fish would be actively feeding around the bridge.  When we got up there it was the slickest water I've seen on that end in quite some time, in addition to the lack of movement the clarity and temp were off as well with temps as high as 72-74.  We worked our way thoroughly down the lake to the hazard flat throwing jigs, Senkos, cranks, frogs and Flukes with only one dink and another 3 lber boated.  Around 10 am we ran some mid lake grass beds and fished deeper without much success; put the boat back on the trailer at noon and decided to rule out the upper end altogether for Saturday.

10/1 – Fish the ABM Championship with Brad and started our day running south to the reeds.  There were quite a few boats already on the lake and our starting water was already covered by another boat that was finishing up.  Pulled in behind them and began to flip jigs and Senkos tight into the reeds; that yielded a couple of dinks and perch bites, but even they were few and far between.  Ran several spots all over the south end picking up a dink here and there with Brad boating a 14" keeper off a random dock.  At 11:30 we decided to head mid lake and completely change our plan.  We started fishing deeper water around the bluffs without much luck; around 12:30 Brad put the second keeper in the boat on a jig in shallower grass.  With only a couple hours left we decided to stick with the grass pattern, shorlty after losing a fish buried in the grass Brad managed to catch keepers #3 and 4 out of holes in the matted grass beds.  We worked our asses off punching grass and flipping the holes for our limit fish but it never came through.  Ended the day with 4 for around 8 lbs.

It was a tough day across the board with lots of solid teams only having a couple small keepers.  I also did not catch a single keeper in two outings, it was definitely the toughest two trips I've ever had on Austin.  Congrats to Josh Wallace and Jesse Fry for winning the tournament with a little over 13 lbs!  Trey Groce and Joe Bill Hale finished a very close second with a limit in the high 12s and our very own Timaaaaay McNeal and Todd Wagner came in third with about 12.5.  Rounding out the money were Wed Night regulars Wyatt and Dan Sharphorn with 10+; Dean Alexander and Paul Carman came in fifth with 3 fish for over 10 lbs and won Big Bass with a 6 lber.

I think the lack of flowing water, high pressure and the abundance of HEALTHY hydrilla all over the lake played a big part in the lackluster results.  Austin Boats and Motors did an awesome job treating us all to a tasty BBQ meal complete with refreshments…thanks again to those guys for hosting this series!

On the bright side, the hydrilla is the healthiest I have ever seen it since I started fishing Austin late in 2005.  The only other time I saw grass like this was back in '06 when Oldham won the Big Sandy Creek Big Bass Roundup punching the hydrilla with the big jig.  The grass is not too far away from that pattern coming back into play, and as it gets more matted at the surface the frog bite will only get stronger along the edges and shallow mats!  I can't wait for next year's Wed Nighters to start back up!  I probably won't be doing too much fishing until then…maybe sneak in a Falcon trip in January but until then I'll be in Houston spending time with the family.  Good news is Lake Charles and the poker tables are only three hours away!