Fishing on Black Friday

With all of the turkey, family and football last week, I almost forgot about one of the most extraordinary events of the year: Black Friday. Now, at my house, very seldom does anyone wake up before I do, especially on weekends. I’m usually headed out the door way before dawn to insure that I’m on the water for the early morning bite. However, last Friday the alarm clock went off well before my normal time to head to the lake.I don’t know if it’s like this at your house, but when the girls wake-up to get ready for the day at my house, it is almost impossible to get any further sleep. All of the lights are turned on, hairdryers are buzzing and I promise that each television in the house is either on a music video or that NBC Today show. Needless to say, last Friday at 3 A.M. I was wide awake and like my female counterparts, ready to get a jump on the competition.Black Friday is the only day out of the year that I am accompanied when getting ready to go fishing. It was kind of enjoyable to have a conversation in the morning. After putting on my Gore-Tex cold-weather fishing gear, I didn’t even mind getting razzed by the girls about how un-stylish I looked.After seeing the shoppers off in their caravan to find the bargain of the year, I realized that I had time to kill before meeting my fishing partner Buck Buchanan for our trek to Lake Texoma. Looking around the kitchen table, I saw a sales advertisement for Academy that said something about doors opening at 5 A.M. Thinking that I might be able to get a good deal on fishing equipment, I quickly called and alerted Buck of my plans to go to the store.I was astonished as I arrived at the intersection of Highway 82 and 75. Five in the morning resembled rush hour traffic and all parking lots were full. Academy was packed with shoppers as we hurried to the fishing section. Apparently stores don’t target anglers during these type of sale events. There were absolutely no sales in the fishing department for Black Friday. We bought a few lures that we needed anyway.The weather cooperated last week and Lake Texoma was great as expected. Water temperatures ranged from 57 to 61 degrees and the lake level hovered around 618 feet. I guess a lot of people were either shopping or deer hunting because we only saw a couple of boats all day long.Early in the day a lot of the bass were schooling on shad in the back of coves. Top-water pop-rs and Zoom flukes fished weightless worked best. Most of these black bass were in the 12 to 15 inch range but could be caught on almost every other cast. Medium to small Crank-baits fished on points also produced several fish as well.Later in the day as the gulls began circling, we headed for deeper water to catch striper and sand bass. Cotton Cordell jigging spoons were the bait of choice. Most of these active silver fish were located in 15 to 20 feet of water. Numerous times we both had on striper in the 4 to 5 pound range at the same time. It was a great day to be on the lake to say the least.