Fished Lake Williams yesterday & ended up with 9 bass and a 26 inch channel cat. 3 bass were over the 16" min. with the other 6 being juvenile SM
bass between 10 to 14 inches each. The best bass was a LM that was 19 inches - 4.5 pounds. I kept this LM because I was extremely interested in the stomach
contents to test what I had read in one of Ken Penrod's books on bass. But the thought of my wife enjoying bass cooked in my smoker really sealed the
decision because we husbands need to bring home some evidence of our fishing trips to keep us from ending up as a victim on 'Unsolved Mysteries' when
our wife gets tired of us spending all that money on fishing lures, boat equip., etc. while never bringing anything back home. Know what I mean? Yes, a few
fish need to be sacrificed so that we married fisherman can still enjoy spending a second mortgage on lures @ Bass Pro or Dick's Sporting Goods (hee hee
hee).
Ken's book is on river SM bass but there are still a lot of cross-applications to reservoir LM & SM bass. Most of us with at least novice experience
can figure out what applies & what doesn't. Penrod's book is exceptional & worth its weight in gold in just what can be learned about how bass
relate to/with underwater structure & the feeding habits of the bass. In one of the chapters, Penrod describes in detail the habits of the SM that he kept
in his aquariums which was really interesting.
2 things have made a HUGE difference in my fishing the last 2 years fishing Williams and Redman: setting out to learn as much about bass behavior/habits as I can read & using the structure maps on hlsmaps.com that Boatnik 13 makes. In prior years I spent 90% of my time in the wrong areas before I bought Lake Redman & Lake Williams from hlsmaps.com not really knowing whether it was worth it or not. But I did know that it was still a hell of a lot cheaper than paying a guide who knew the lakes or spending endless days and hours scouting the lake myself. Even then, I can't afford the right equipment to do it anyways. Dead honest, those structure maps have been the best damn money I've spent for fishing. Boatnik 13 did NOT pay me to advertise his maps either. I'm doing it because I'm that thankful that the maps have made that much of a difference where I can really enjoy fishing because I'm catching so many more fish since the odds are in my favor when targeting the right areas where the fish will be.
The outings to Lake Williams & Lake Redman have been the best when I've targeted the significant structural areas on the map from as many different casting angles as possible. The creek channels have been productive too so long as the channel is near structure or well defined. Fish are exactly like women: they can't resist bright, shiny objects & they relate to elaborate structure!
