Any time now … 14 Fish, Belton Lake, 22 Feb. 2014

This morning I fished with perennial guests Jim and Shena S., a father and daughter team from the Austin area.



Downrigging and vertical jigging provided mixed bag results today.  Jim holds his best hybrid and best white bass.

Shena with her best hybrid and largest white bass.  We caught no fish until the wind came up to around 11 mph.


This
nice warm spell has certainly reversed the downward trend on our water
temperatures, and has even warmed the surface a good bit (we found
“spots” of 52F water here and there), but the waters beneath the surface
are still quite chilly and the fishing continued to reflect that.

For our efforts today we boated 14 fish including 3
hybrid striped bass and 11 white bass including fish in the 1 to 3 year
class.

Once again, the fish never really fed
well or long, and, despite the presence of lots of bait-eating birds,
very little bird action was to be found.  We had no action for the first 90 minutes and until the wind began to kick in at around 11mph.

There are some indications that things are beginning
to improve.  Yesterday on a scouting trip to Stillhouse, and again this
morning on Belton, I found the deep holes where these fish have been
hunkered down over the past 5-6 weeks now devoid of bait and gamefish
indicating that they are moving up shallower in the warming upper layers
of the lake water.  I also found bottom-oriented white bass on both
lakes in under 35 feet of water.  This is good!

Today we caught fish via two very different methods.
 We downrigged slowly and specifically targeted fish seen on sonar by
adjusting our downrigger ball depth to run where they were seen on sonar
(no “set it and forget it” as is done in the summer).  Storm ThinFins
did the best for us today.  This produced all of our hybrid and a few
white bass. Although we saw fish consistently suspended at both 21-25
feet and 32-25 feet, those shallower fish at 21-25 feet were the ones
doing the biting on the down riggers.

We also vertical jigged with small 3/8 oz. TNT180
slabs.  We were very methodical, keeping the lures positioned very
precisely near the fish, and pausing for long periods before jigging
again.  This produced only white bass for us.

I never want to be one to over-promise and
under-deliver, so, I tried to be very upfront about how this present
cold-water situation has impacted our fishery for the time being.  Like
most things in nature, Spring will most likely work on a bell-shaped
curve, starting slowly, peaking, and then tapering off.  I do believe,
based on what I saw today and on the forecast for next week with hardly
any time spent cooler than the low 50’s, that we are on the upswing of
the curve headed toward the typical peak in late March, barring anymore
extended cold or any flooding.

Stay tuned.  It’s going to happen any time now!


TALLY = 14 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:15a
End Time: 2:30p
Air Temp: 56F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 49.7-52.1F 
Wind: Light and variable at sunrise, tapering up to SSE11 by 9:30 and increasing to SSE16 by trip’s end
Skies: Fair skies with no cloud cover.
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**  1335/1344 – downrigging
**  1341/1340 – downrigging
**  1339/1008 vertical jigging
**  1342 vertical jigging
**  1343 vertical jigging





Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

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