White bass run beginning on Trinity River near Lake Livingston

A recent fishing trip just north of Lake Livingston for white bass started out like many endeavors — searching for females.

Guide Simon Cosper and angler Conor Harrison, associate editor for Lone Star Outdoor News, did their best and finally found the girls.  But it took awhile.

The pair launched in Cosper’s bass boat from the Harmon Creek RV Park and Marina near Riverside around 9 a.m. and headed up the creek that ran in front of the marina.

After a short boat ride, lines were in the water and the hunt was on. The bite was slowed this weekend due to a north wind and a slight cold front that dropped temperatures into the 40s.

Even with the slower bite, the pair managed lots of small males fishing with Road Runners, Panther Martin small spoons and white plastic grubs on a ¼-ounce jig head.

Harrison was fishing with a small Shimano spinning reel, 5 ½-foot ultralight rod and 4-pound test line.

Around lunchtime, the anglers had covered the entire creek north of the marina, and had caught close to 50 small males, but the females remained elusive.

“They’re here somewhere,” Cosper said. “This cold weather might have bumped them back towards the main Trinity River, but they are stacked up somewhere.”

Cosper’s words proved prophetic, as the pair ran the trolling motor by a stretch of bank two bends from the Trinity and in sight of the bridge for Farm Road 980.

Both anglers’ first casts to the reed bank produced fish — and all big females! For the next two hours, the duo hooked fish on almost every cast. Harrison only kept five fish for a family fish fry later that evening, but he could have kept a limit (25 fish) of fat females weighing between a pound and a pound and a half each.

The white bass put up a great fight on ultralight tackle, and Cosper and Harrison caught fish until 3 p.m., when it was time to head to the ramp, clean a few fish and, for Harrison, hit the road back to Dallas three hours north.

“Simon is a great young guide who will work hard to put his clients on fish,” Harrison said. “The day started out slow, but Simon knew the bigger fish where there and it was just a matter of time before we found them. And he was right.

“I can’t wait to go back and try the striper fishing with Simon in the summer.”

Guide Simon Cosper, (936) 355-2889.