This morning I fished with a really nice young couple from Academy, Texas – Cory and Kelli Hargrove. Cory is a Texas A&M graduate now employed as an engineer on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. Kelli is the stay-at-home mom of Hunter, now a 1st grader. The couple first met at church in 1995.
44 of our 51 fish caught today were “legal” 18+ inch hybrid striped bass which came from 30-35 feet of water.
Cory takes a moment for a quick shot with our trip’s largest fish before releasing it to fight again another day. It went right at 5.25 pounds.
With continued (6 straight days) of southerly winds, there was a continued solid hybrid striped bass bite and solid threadfin spawning activity making both gathering bait and then catching quality fish with that bait very straightforward.
We fished our first area for 3 straight hours and caught fish there steadily until 11am when the action began to soften. We spent about 20 minutes searching for more fish and were fortunate to find yet another concentration of fish so late in the game on a morning bite that rarely lasts more than 4 hours.
We were able to pull 7 more keeper hybrid from off of this last area and then called it a day around 11:45.
Despite the fact that Cory was already a knowledgeable fisherman, he listened very closely to the instructions I provided at the beginning of the trip concerning the use of circle hooks. Kelli, who was not as experienced, also listened out of a genuine desire to do well. With both Cory and Kelli willing to be coached, we avoided the steep learning curve that many anglers go through as they try to fish with circle hooks as they normally would using conventional J-shaped hooks and getting frustrated by losing fish after fish as they make their way through that curve.
We landed a total of 51 fish on this trip including one “short” hybrid striper of less than 18”, 5 blue catfish, 1 white bass, and 44 legal (18+ inch) hybrid striped bass. In the 22 years I’ve been on Belton, I have never seen the proportion of legal fish to sub-legal fish that I’m seeing this year, nor have I seen so few other species mixed in with the hybrid stripers I’m catching. This has been a remarkable spring.
TALLY = 51 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:45a
End Time: 12:00p
Air Temp: 64F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 68-69F
Wind: SSE16-17 at sunrise, dropping slightly within the first hour after sunrise to SSE14
Skies: Greyed over entire trip.
Other Notes: GT20
Areas Fished with success:
**1200 Netted shad here in the AM
** 1377 – caught 44 of 51 fish here in first 3 hours
** 151 caught 7 of 51 fish here in last 30 minutes
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas