PRUITT BROTHERS CATCH 51 ON BUBBLE GUM

Jun 10 2019

Wayne Pruitt

Slot Fish

Member Since :
2017
Number of Posts :
114

PRUITT BROTHERS at LANEVILLE HIDDEN SPRINGS RANCH WITH 51 FISH - BUBBLE GUM - REALLY! (SEE PICS)

Thursday afternoon 6/6/19 had us commute from the South East side of Houston, spending the night in Henderson, Texas at my brothers’ favorite motel. 6/7/19 Friday a short 18 mile commute from Henderson launching the boat at Laneville Hidden Springs at 7:00 AM. Weather forecast showed a little chance of rain for today but not a drop was felt. Reason why - we had rain gear in the boat………………..

We started off throwing soft plastic, chatter baits and some square bills on the west end near the dam with no luck. Did the soft troll down the south shoreline looking for something green, hungry and or angry. Phil hit the first 5 fish on the dumbest looking stick bait color I have ever seen. Bubble Gum 5” OCHO KVD with coffee scent and salt. After watching him hook up at least 5 times I did what any big brother would do……….give me a bag of that Phil before I come to the back of the boat and take those KVD’s away from you. I hate giving in to using someone else’s bait because mine is just not producing. Pride just tells me don’t do it but after trying 4 or 5 different baits of my own with no success, I tied one on and of course first cast BAM! Phil says, I told you. He had pre-fished a little lake east of Houston with great success with this bait where the fish are finicky and hard to coax. Now I am sold and in my mind I am telling myself that I am going to buy some of these KVD’s baits as soon as I can get to the sporting good store. Very soft plastic and they are kind of octagon shaped with an amazing jerk action. Phil had 3 ½ bags of these tasty baits and we went through all of them before the day ended. Catch ratio is only one or two fish to one bait but I have never been opposed to even a 1 to 1 ratio. There is catching and there is fishing. Fishing means you show up with yours baits and you go home with all of your baits. My hope and humble opinion is that an energetic bass should destroy the bait every single cast and that I have to change out after every fish. No problem here. Phil however, wants to buy some creepy crawler molds and go into the business of making his own baits. He has this notion that with enough coffee, or garlic and salt he can make a bigger Z Craw type bait on steroids. I hear this line of bull every time we go fishing.

By now the day is progressing nicely and I am catching up to Phil very quickly. We are fishing the boardwalk behind the house on the north side of the lake. A nice bass knocks the fire out of my bubble gum but no hook up. Ok, I know where you are and back in there to have him/her knock the double fire out of it again with the tail end now totally gone. So I am threading the hook with another bubble gum when my observant brother throws in behind me and catches my fish on his own bubble gum KVD not giving me the courtesy! He laughed so hard, for so long and I just sat there and took it because I would have done the same thing to him……….these are the kind of memories that can be made on a PWF lake.

Water visibility was less than a foot. Very ice tea colored from rain run-off. All in All, a Great Day with all of the fish looking nice and healthy. Mostly 2 to 4 ½ pounders. Did not stop until 5:30 PM with Phil catching the biggest fish (my fish) with the count at Wayne 28 Phil 23. 51 in all with 18 of those being culls. Phil also had 2 break off with no dancing while stripping drag, he says they were huge, I say what? These fish are good fighters and very dark (not green at all) from getting lots of sun. This lake is a real treat to fish and the whole property is gorgeous and well maintained. The owner is very gracious to allow PWF members the pleasure of fishing this awesome property. This was our third trip since joining in the spring of 2017 and we will be back. We are doing a post July 4th double day trip on a Friday and Saturday in the San Antonio area. Hope to have some more stories. Stay tuned.

FYI, we have hit 4 Academy’s and bought all of the KVD Bubble Gum (and all the other colors as well) so you won’t find them in Houston LOL! And of course we had our must have Bum Phillips (RIP) Blue Ribbon Crispy Bacon Sandwiches……………..

Jun 10 2019

Steve Alexander

Admin

Member Since :
2002
Number of Posts :
1176

Great report.  Always positive, encouraging and helpful. You guys are the best.

Plus, you guys catch fish, big fish and lots of them. I know you put in the hard work and grind to make it happen. 

Steve

Jun 10 2019

David May

Slot Fish

Member Since :
2018
Number of Posts :
136

I must admit I have always been embarrassed to purchase that color lure, expecting someone to appear at the check out lane telling me I'm on candid camera and asking if I really thought that would catch fish. Now I wonder'in where I'm goin' to find some!! Great report!

Jun 10 2019

Wayne Pruitt

Slot Fish

Member Since :
2017
Number of Posts :
114

Thanks Steve,

We are looking forward to trying out a new lake out to us on July 5th and 6th…................it happens to be the lake that the club record was caught at this year. 

Jun 10 2019

Wayne Pruitt

Slot Fish

Member Since :
2017
Number of Posts :
114

David,

I know that feeling and we definitely don't want to bet the farm on bubble gum, at least not in public. But on Saturday it was clearly the only bait that we needed in the boat. We had lots of stuff in the boat that did not work and a few of what did work (bubble gum). I even tried our candy corn (we call it the cheeto) stick bait since odd color appeared to be the ticket. That did not want that either. Now we have a pile of bubble gum and we are still looking for more LOL! 

Jun 13 2019

Jason Owens

Fry

Member Since :
2018
Number of Posts :
38

If you are going to Leinweber in July and using the club boat make sure you bring a push pole.  I was there this past Saturday Weeds around the edge extend a good ways out and it takes a bit of effort to get out into open water.  Push pole would have been much more effective than my paddle.  But it was worth the effort.  Even with blue bird skies and 100 degree temps we had a 25-30lb bag easy.  I didn’t have my scale so I don’t have exact weight, but there were plenty of big ones and good numbers.  I’ve only been a member for about a year and a half, but that was the best lake I have fished by far… 

Jun 14 2019

Wayne Pruitt

Slot Fish

Member Since :
2017
Number of Posts :
114

Jason,

Thanks for the heads up. We are taking our own boat and we have a bad to the bone Fortrex 80 Thrust Trolling Motor….........but a push pole eliminates lots unneeded stress on the trolling motor. What was your biggest fish? Did you have success all over the lake or just in particular areas? What baits were the most successful? We are going to fish it 2 days in a row and we plan to fish the baits we like to throw but we don't have any problem trying something new with proven success…............. if its something that we don't have, we will get it. We have fished Lago and thought about fishing Leinweber a day and moving over to Lago but we decided to stay with the one lake and target big fish. Hoping to find a Double D for my brother Phil. He has come close but no cigar yet….................where you fishing next?

Jun 14 2019

Jason Owens

Fry

Member Since :
2018
Number of Posts :
38

Wayne, 

I didn't have my scale with me, but I will leave some photos below so you can judge for yourself.  Also pictured below is a map I came up with based on my visit.  If anyone has been out there with some electronics they will probably have some better info.  On the map on website it shows the launch at the north end of dam, but when i showed up, the club boat was on the south end, so that's where I left it.  We came in from Odessa and stayed at the Hillside Boutique hotel in Castroville.  Its not the cheapest place I've ever stayed, but everyone was nice and the restaurant had some good pot roast.  That hotel was about 9 minutes from the lake.  We started fishing a little before 7, we made a few casts around the dam, but no bites so we decided to ride around the lake and see what it looked like.  We found what appeared to be a flat with submerged grass on the northeast side of the lake where the bass were actively chasing food.  The water was slick calm and you could see the wakes as the chased something.  Surprisingly they didn't want anything to do with a top water or any moving bait at all for that matter.  But when I tossed a wacky rigged senko out there you could see the wake turn and head straight for the bait.  That was pretty fun and it lasted about an hour.  We were still able to get bites in that general area for a while, but they weren't visible on the surface anymore.  We worked that area several times throughout the day.  We would just anchor, fan cast all around, then pick up and move down a ways and do it again.  We didn't get too close to shore where it was solid weeds, but rather stayed out a ways in the deeper water where the grass was patchy.  When that bite slowed we moved a little bit south to what seemed to be the deeper creek channel.  Using the senkos we worked submerged grass at the edge of that channel.  Some of the larger fish came from that area.  From there we moved down to the couple of submerged trees to the west near the dam.  I caught 1 dink on a Texas rigged junebug craw flipping into the trees, everything else in that area was on senko, including one of the big ones pictured below.  After we were done with the trees we worked the dam area.  We let the breeze blow us into the weeds along the dam and just casted out into open water with the senkos.  We caught several more doing that and I lost a 5lb that got caught up in my trolling motor.  

Me and my 9 year old son were fishing but my wife and daughter were hanging around too.  They were supposed to meet up with the in-laws from Houston but they ended up getting into town later than expected so they were stuck watching us fish.  I sent them on a mission to Walmart to try to find a push pole but they didn't have any.  We ended up leaving around 1pm because they were getting bored and it was starting to heat up into the mid 90's.  The bite slowed as it got hotter but we were still picking up a fish here and there and when any one of those could be a giant, it will keep you going.  Even in the heat.  We ended up with about 30 total with only 10 culls.  The Senko was Bass Pro brand 5 3/8" in the Bluegill and Smoke/Purple flake colors.

My kids are spending the summer in Houston with the in-laws.  When its time to get them back I will try to have them meet me in Castroville again so I can fish that lake again.  I hope you guys have a good trip.  The DD's are in there.

Jun 14 2019

Wayne Pruitt

Slot Fish

Member Since :
2017
Number of Posts :
114

Jason,

Thanks for the great information…...........looks like you did well. We look forward to trying this lake out. We will have 2 days to explore hopefully weather cooperates. Thanks again…..........