This evening’s trip was the fifth S.K.I.F.F. trip of 2011. S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families. Below is my report to the membership of the Austin Fly Fishers and other SKIFF supporters …

Dear AFF and Friends of SKIFF,

I got an e-mail from an Army mom earlier this week; Kim Beers of Harker Heights let me know that her young man could use some “guy time” and inquired about a SKIFF trip for Wesley (Wes) who is 14 years of age.

Wes boated this and 3 other identically sized hybrid tonight, as well as many short, stocky hybrid and a very nice white bass measuring 14 1/8 inches.

As I asked about Wes’ situation, I just shook my head at the difficulties the military life can place on families at times after speaking with her. Wes’ step-father, Sergeant First Class Rob Beers, served in Iraq from January 2008 to January 2009. When he returned to the U.S. he enjoyed 90 days’ leave and then immediately turned around and was assigned to the 1st of the 407th ACRC based out of Ft. Knox, thus again separating him from his family to this point in time. Mrs. Beers then informed me that the family just received word that SFC Beers will be assigned to Korea for one year when his time with the 407th is completed in August of this year. So, Wes (and his mom and 3 sisters) will have gone from Jan. 2009 to Aug. 2012 only getting to see husband and father for an occasional long weekend now and then. This is not at all uncommon in the culture of Ft. Hood’s families and it’s a tough, tough thing for kids. It is this kind of scenario and the impact it has on youngsters that motivated me to do special trips for our military kids to start with.

So, with all this going on in Wes’ life, I wanted to put him on fish BIG TIME and do so just one-on-one for this particular trip.

In 4 hours’ time Wes and I boated 108 fish on Belton Lake under near-perfect conditions. The skies were overcast and grey, the wind was 10-12 mph from the S., and there is a mild weather disturbance due in before sunrise tomorrow.

We first encountered a bit of action on smallish white bass under birds near Area 097 in 22′ of water. This allowed for a good introduction of the techniques we’d be using for the day. Next, another bird-driven scenario developed a bit shallower near Area 132 in 15-19′ of water. These to areas yielded fish that were ready to take a slab presented via a “smoking” technique, as they were really ramped up and feeding hard.

No sooner did these fish settle down than action developed along a long stretch of open water extending from Area 547 westward to Area 740. Most of these fish were suspended at 20-30′ and so we used electronics to watch the fishes’ position in relation to the depth of our slabs and reeled our lures through the suspended fish with good results.

Finally, right at Area 740 right at sunset (obscured) the first topwater action I’ve observed this year broke out on the surface for a period of about 25 minutes. We took our fish count from 81 to 108 in the final minutes of the trip literally at least hooking, if not landing, a fish on every cast as we cast to the boils made by the surface-oriented fish (both hybrid striped bass and white bass) feeding on larger threadfin shad ~4 inches long and kept our lures high in the water column to tempt these fish that were “feeding up”.

I asked Wes on our drive home (as I do many of the teens I fish with) what he planned to do with his life after high school. He said he wanted to be a good father that was reliable. He said he wanted to get a job where he could eat dinner with his family every night and was leaning towards being an aircraft mechanic.

I congratulated Wes on having a plan, and, of course, on mastering the art of fishing in one evening!!

I feel that I definitely met a need at this particular point in Wes’ life. I thank all of you who make S.K.I.F.F. possible for equipping me for that opportunity.

Take care,

–Bob Maindelle

Today’s Conditions:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time: 17:45p

Starting Air Temp: 69F

Water Surface Temp: 57.6F

Wind: S10-12, tapering to S6 by sunset.

Skies: Heavily overcast and grey.