Fished a 1/2 day evening trip with Tim S. and his fishing buddies, Steve, Jay, and Shawn. The four were taking part in a trade show at the Expo Center and made a little time to fish after getting set up.

Start Time: 2:30p


End Time: 7:55p


Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start.


Water Surface Temp: ~62-63F

Wind: Winds were variable from 5 to 12 from the SW.

Skies: Skies were fair.

I had a good feeling about today’s trip due to the hard, cold wind that had blown all day on Monday, dropping Monday’s sunrise temperature to 41F, and allowing for an overnight freeze into this morning. That, coupled with calm winds this morning added up to a 36 hour period of unfavorable feeding conditions followed by increasing temperatures, the presence of wind, and a wind direction of SSW right in time for this trip.

We began our trip vertical jigging in 24-30 feet of water at Area 417 along the breakline here. We immediately got onto fish, putting 7 white bass in the boat in no time. These fish were not tightly grouped up (scattered) and were in a neutral mode. I felt we could be doing better given the conditions so we moved.

I headed to Areas 346 through Area 301 and ran sonar over all areas in between these two areas and saw very little on sonar. I ran a downrigger to test the waters as I graphed the area, came up empty, and we soon left.

We next headed to Area 150. I found solid sonar returns showing fish holding very tightly to the bottom here. As soon as our slabs went down we started pulling fish. These were all white bass in a mix of sizes from 7 to 13 inches with a single largemouth thrown in for good measure. We caught 38 fish here hovering over a 35 foot swath of bottom.

Once this dried up, we again located fish on sonar, this time at Area 187. We encountered nearly identical results here … a size mix of white bass feeding moderately and steadily, tight to the bottom. We managed two crappie here as well, bringing our catch at this location up to 20 fish, and a total of 65 for the trip thus far. It was now 6:30p and the light level was beginning to wane a bit.

Accordingly, the bite began to soften, so we headed for brighter conditions and found ample fish under plentiful but undecided and scattered birds in both Areas 389 and 412. These fish were all 24-27 feet deep and were much more apt to be grouped together and to pursue a hooked schoolmate off the bottom, thus lending themselves to being caught in doubles and triples. When all was said and done, we’d put an additional 37 fish in the boat off of these areas including a better size distribution of white bass and a single average keeper black bass. This brought our trip total to 102 fish caught.

It is interesting to note that despite regular catches of hybrid up to this point, we did not land a single hybrid (legal or short) in this entire trip.

TALLY = 102 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