I fished this morning with U.S. Army retiree Bill C. of Killeen. Bill has always been a bank fisherman who primarily targeted crappie from the bank or from marinas, so, today was a whole new experience for him.
About 45 minutes into the trip Bill looked at me and said, “Well, we’ve already caught more hybrid on this trip than I have in the rest of my life!”
Bill was great company. He loves and serves the Lord, his church, and his community. Yes, he’s retired, but I think he does more now than when he was working between Sunday School teaching, working with church bus ministry, Habitat for Humanity, serving food to the elderly, and more. Just a great guy and a pleasure to fish with!
We found active fish spurred on by the still incoming cold front that filtered in overnight and into this morning. As they typically do, the fish fed heavily until the N. wind peaked and began to fall off; at that time the fishing also began to fall off.
We found pods of surface or near-surface feeding fish spread all over the crescent-shaped area defined by Area 837 to the S., through Area 859 to the W., and Area 839 to the N.(BA:30RBG,9T,3WP) and fished these fish primarily with slabs and swimbaits worked horizontally in a very simple, no-frills manner. The key was to spot fish on sonar, know what depth they were holding at, and let the lures sink to that depth and try to keep them their by controlling retrieve speed and rod tip location.
In an unusual manner, we also found fish working over the Leon River Channel in no way relating to the bottom, but just gorging on shad (BA:60RBG)
Once the action throttled back a bit with the brightening sun, we took a more vertical approach targeting bottom-hugging or bottom-cruising fish doing particularly well at Area 966.
By the time all was said and done we’d boated 56 fish today, capped off with Bill’s 3.75 pound hybrid taken on a horizontally worked slab.
As you’re reading this, please know that our fishery is in great shape. Yes, the water is low due to drought, but that’s about all that is wrong right now. The fish are doing what they normally do this time of year which is feeding heavily during falling water temperatures and responding as they typically do to frontal activity.
I fear the newspaper and TV news stories of drought, low water and water hazards has scared folks off a bit — I know boat and fishing the pressure on Belton and Stillhouse has been very low, which only adds to the quality of the fishery!
If you’re contemplating a Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday fishing trip, by all means, don’t hesitate!!
I’m at:
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 11:00a
Air Temp: 44F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 64.7F.
Wind: Winds were NW12 at sunrise tapering to N3 as the cold front blew out by 10:15.
Skies: Skies were bluebird.