As we fished, Bryan wondered if he should have coaxed his 6 year old daughter into coming along.  I told him these hybrid are really too much for younger children to handle.  Even 8-10 year old kids have a tough time battling these hard-fighting fish independently.  So, I suggested he hold off on bringing his daughter until July-August when we can rely on white bass to respond to downrigging and have sunfish as a backup plan to provide instant gratification over on Stillhouse Hollow.

We found aggressive hybrid striped bass feeding activity taking place over ~30 feet of water and this feeding activity drew gulls in.  As the fish fed, they would occasionally force baitfish to the surface allowing the birds above a shot at consuming a confused or wounded shad. We spotted the gull activity, idled in for a look, confirmed our suspicions with sonar, put down the baits and brought up the fish. 

It was all we could do to keep up for the first 20 minutes, then things cooled to manageable, then, by around 11:30, came to a close.  All of the fish we caught today came on live gizzard and threadfin shad fished on downlines from a “hovering” position maintained by a GPS guided
trolling motor. 

Young Nathaniel had limited experience with strong fish prior to this trip, but wound up catching several fish all by himself.  James took big fish honors with a nice 5.25 pound hybrid taken on an outsized gizzard shad — the old “big bait, big fish” maxim definitely held true.

As Mike and Craig got to know one another personally and professionally, I tried to stay in the background and keep us within casting range of biting fish.  We definitely took a step back on Monday with a strong, late season cold front that dropped water surface temperatures over 3F.  Today was warmer, but the wind still had a bite to it and the fish were definitely more tentative than before the front.  Shad were also more difficult to come by; in fact, I observed no shad spawning behavior at all today.

We made 4 stops and caught fish at the first three of them.  The action was definitely front-loaded into the first half of the trip today, as our first area produced best, our second area second best, and so on. 

The live bait bite was off a bit today as the fish just didn’t want to commit to grabbing and going with our baits.  Instead, we had a lot of “thumped” baits that were killed by biting fish, but still left intact on the hook.  We had a lot of fish mouth the baits partially, only to have the bait pull out of their mouths as we tried reeling them in indicated “tail grabbing” instead of taking the bait by the head where the hook was located.  We actually caught the majority of our fish on carefully worked Cicada bladebaits along the bottom in 21-25 feet of water.  Our large fish, both hybrid and largemouth bass, all came on shad, however.

By trip’s end we’d put together a nice take of 45 fish including both quality and quantity.  We got to share some fishing stories, some God-moments in our lives, and enjoy the company of fellows with a shared interest in the outdoors.  A good day!

Although our results were very good today, the day was not without its challenges.  The strong south wind that has blown the last several days continued today pushing almost 20mph by the time we came off the water at mid-day.  Additionally, a large, 200+ boat “Bass Champs” tournament was being held today.  Belton is an awful small lake for such a great amount of pressure.  The water churned with boat wakes from “safe light” to 3pm as pairs of bass fisherman sped to and fro in search of a winning 3-fish limit.  This wind-wake combination made boat positioning a challenge and made keeping baits down where the fish were without making them appear unnatural a bit tricky.

As the old adage goes, “Winds from the east, fish bite least.”  We definitely got a taste of that this morning as a stiff, cool east wind put a bit of a damper on the fishing.  We found fish, but getting them enthused about striking was a challenge most of the morning.

Unfortunately, we got off to a bit of a late start which cut into our chance at being on some prime early morning spots just as the skies were first brightening.  Once we got lines in the water, we had decent results right away, actually hooking 5 fish (but only landing one of them) during our very first trolling pass of the morning.  Afterwards, we were fortunate to pick up even a single fish per pass and noted steadily decreasing natural “sign”, especially while observing various fish-eating birds such as ospreys, gulls, and cormorants.  As the skies brightened through the grey clouds, the east wind continued to blow and cool us down, and weekend boat traffic built, the bite slowed down very quickly and stayed tough the rest of the trip..

We trolled early on with fair success, then did some horizontal work with Cicadas up shallow and again met with fair success, then returned to trolling with little to show for it, then ended the trip slabbing in deeper water, adding 5 more fish to our tally.

For our efforts today, we boated 1 freshwater drum, 2 largemouth bass, 3 white crappie, and 13 white bass.

After a short off-the-water break, I returned and continued scouting around 1:45pm, finding schooled whites both on bottom and suspended in yet a third area.  I boated 9 more fish in this area, all on a slab fished vertically. This is where we would begin the afternoon trip for David and Ryan.