Deployed Soldiers’ Kids Go Fishing – 02 Oct. 2010 – 68 Fish SKIFF 2010 #11






S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) exists to take the children of deployed and deceased soldiers on professionally guided fishing trips at no charge to the family. These trips are provided through my guide service, Holding the Line Guide Service, with funds generated by the Austin Fly Fishers, and with the support of businesses and individuals from all over the U.S.

Here is my report for today’s trip…


Joe with a nice Belton Lake hybrid taken from an aggressively feeding school in 37 feet of water on a TNT 180 slab.

Johnny with an 11th hour hybrid taken just before the morning feed ended. This fish came out of 44 feet of water.




Saturday, 02 October 2010


Dear Ron and the Austin Fly Fishers,


I had a great trip this morning with two really fine young men, 13 year old Joseph Bonar and his older brother, Johnny Bonar Jr., both of Kempner, TX. The boys are the sons of First Sergeant John Bonar Sr. and Mrs. Pamela Bonar. First Sergeant Bonar is serving a one year tour in Iraq with the 75th Ordnance Company. His unit is responsible for explosive ordnance disposal.

The day started out just right. Older brother Johnny met me with a firm hand shake and a “Good morning, sir, I’m Johnny,” while little Joe slept in the family truck! As I got to know the boys over the course of the morning, I found that they fished very regularly with their dad from their old family fishing boat, but, since they relied on dad to do the driving and the guiding, their fishing had ground to a halt while he’s away. The fact that the boys had the fundamentals of casting, equipment knowledge, fishing fighting, and the like already under their belts helped make today very productive as we were able to take full advantage of all of the “fishy” situations we worked to find.

Today we headed to Belton Lake as it tends to “turn on” in the Fall a bit sooner than Stillhouse Hollow Lake. We were on location a few minutes before sunrise so we took our time idling over some promising areas closely studying sonar for bait and fish.

Right at sunrise we found a loose congregation of white bass off a tapering point (Area 147) in about 27 feet of water. We put twin downriggers down with Pet Spoons trailing to see if the fish were in a biting mood. We picked up 4 fish on 2 consecutive passes — they were biting!! I circled back on top of these fish and all three of us then put jigging spoons (TNT 180’s) down and began working these lures as I hovered us in one place so we could study our lures and how fish reacted to them on sonar. Soon, things began to happen as fish not only began to creep in along the bottom to check out the commotion, they began to get excited and chase our baits upwards. By the time the action here ended about 35 minutes later, we’d boated a total of 15 white bass, all of legal size.

Next, we moved on to Area 086 (BA: 4HG), a deep, gentle hump in 37-38 feet of water. As we motored around, sonar and Structure Scan both lit up with fish in the lower 1/3 of the water column with gamefish and bait. I got us over the “center of mass” of this action and we no sooner got our lines in the water than the boys were fast to hybrid striped bass that went for their 3/4 oz. slabs. In scenarios like this where the fish are so aggressive they actually rise up off bottom to meet your lure, it seems the largest, fastest fish are the first ones caught, and, in this situation, we boated 3 of our largest fish of the day right off the bat. While the boys caught fish on nearly every drop, I baited up two livebait rods with circle hooks and just let them work their magic in the back of the boat as the boys kept busy on the front casting deck. I baited with both large shiners and with black saltys, and the shiners seemed to have an edge on the gamefish, whereas the saltys kept attracting small blue cat that would essentially scale the baits, eat the tail, and never grab onto the hook. By the time the action waned here, around 10am, we’d boated an additional 33 fish, now putting our tally at 48.

With the skies brightening and the nice NNW slacking off, I told the boys we’d probably only get another hour, if that, out of the fish, and that that hour’s action would likely be slower than we’d experienced up to this point.

We made one last stop at Area 672 and fished the “spot on the spot” with some timber and bottom irregularity in conjunction with the large breakline here. We initially used downriggers to probe the area, boating two white bass, then hovered over the fish we found while downrigging and worked them over thoroughly with jigging spoons. This time, most all fish were caught with a standard jigging stroke, and only once in a while would the fish perk up enough to chase. Even when they did chase, the excitement was short-lived. We rounded out the trip with an additional 20 fish here including a mix of short hybrids and whites, a single largemouth and a single drum.

By 11:30, the skies were clear and bright and the wind had faded to just a light breeze. The fish got mighty quiet and tough to catch, so, we knew we’d seen the best of it and decided to call it a day. Our tally for this trip was 68 fish, all caught and released.

When I see young fellows like this who are clean cut, respectful, sharp, and concerned for family and one another, it gives me hope for America’s future.

Thank you, as always, for partnering to make days like this happen for kids like these!

Sincerely,


Bob Maindelle