This morning I fished with Daniel L., currently serving with the 1st Cavalry Division as an Army medic. Daniel has been deployed to Iraq twice and is headed to Afghanistan soon.
Daniel got a “multi-species double” catching a white bass and a hybrid striped bass at the same time on a tandem rig.
In short, conditions were tough today and so was the fishing. The winds were light and the skies were bright — that’s always a tough combination on these clear, limestone lakes like Belton and Stillhouse.
We got on the water before sunrise and found some light topwater action. Small schools of white bass were forcing young of the year shad to the surface in the vicinity of Area 1143/952. Because the shad are small and swim slowly, it takes very little effort for the white bass to overtake and eat them, thus, there are no big splashes or boils or explosions on the surface — just subtle, small swirls. We caught 8 white bass throwing blade baits before the hot, bright sun drove the fish deep.
Next, we downrigged over the same area and picked up a few single white bass on Pet Spoons.
When this action died, we went hunting for deep, suspended hybrid striped bass and targeted them with live shad. We hunted and pecked, but never got on a really solid bite until a buddy of mine invited me over to where he had located some fish near Area 512. What I found here was loose, small schools of hybrid suspended down around 27-31 feet over 50+ feet of water. We got baits down to just above these fish and picked up 2 hybrid and 2 blue catfish. The bite was definitely on the downhill slide, as indicated by the great number of fish we saw versus the very few strikes we drew. We decided to add some horizontal motion to the mix by downrigging instead of fishing bait, and this worked well for us.
We were able to land 4 more hybrid and several large white bass using Pet Spoons on our downriggers. Most of these fish came from between Area 512 and 815.
TALLY = 22 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:15a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 82F
Wind: Winds were light and variable at <3 from the SSW.
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas