Fished a half-day morning trip today with adult brothers Daniel and Joel C. Daniel does electronic systems integration work in Austin and Joel works in the maintenance department of a Dallas-area private school. Both were very nice young men, eager to learn, and a pleasure to have aboard.

IS THERE ANYTHING A BOMBER WON’T CATCH??

BROTHERS DANIEL AND JOEL ENJOYED A DAY OUTDOORS TOGETHER

Start Time: 7:30a


End Time: 12:30a


Air Temp: 62F at trip’s start, and warming to near 80 in the afternoon.


Water Surface Temp: ~62-63F

Wind: Winds were flat calm the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were clear.

Once again we were plagued by a flat calm, bright condition with no wind the entire trip.

Daniel and Joel had limited fishing experience, but enjoyed one another’s company and had tried other fishing excursions before. To date, their best experience came at a pay-to-fish stocked catfish pond which they didn’t find all that challenging, so they wanted to up the ante and go on a guided trip on public waters.

Fortunately, right before sunrise, we were in the right place at the right time and found what would be the only significant concentration of fish we found all day. This was a tightly congregated school of white bass holding tight to a gentle hump in 24-26 feet of water at Area 103. I had just come off plane and was looking at sonar setting to drop downriggers in and get a feel for things when I saw these fish on sonar. I quickly reacted and got buoy on them and then returned with the trolling motor so as not to spook the fish under such calm conditions. We went to work with our Lamiglas XPS 703 spinning rods. I showed them both one time how to jig effectively. They immediately got the hang of it and from then on I just landed their fish and gave them little technique enhancements. We went through 13 white bass in about 40 minutes before the action died hard.

After that it was all downrigging in and around Area 103-108-324 for a short while for 3 more whites, and then flatline trolling around Areas 888, 100, and 110-116 . In the next few hours we did all we could do to pick up 12 more fish. All of these came in 12-14 foot of water, including a carp of all things.

By 12:30 even the trolling was getting weak. I did search a few deepwater areas and managed one suspended white on a smoked bait, but there was no congregation of fish where that straggler was found, so we called it a day with 29 fish landed.

TALLY = 29 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing