Get Ready, Freddy! — 37 Fish, Belton, 23 May 2014

This morning I welcomed Freddy Mize and his wife, Cindy, aboard for a trip targeting hybrid striped bass using live shad on Belton Lake.

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Freddy Mize with a pair of nice “keeper” hybrid on his first ever guided fishing trip.

Freddy and Cindy are from the rural outskirts of Conroe, Texas, and were inspired to do some traveling outside of their locale by the TV show “The Daytripper”.  They rented a nice cottage near Arrowhead Point on Belton Lake, and planned to due a few things here in central Texas including visiting the Texas Ranger Museum, going to the suspension bridge over the Brazos River, eating at some locally popular restaurants, and fishing with me.

Although Freddy has fished since he was a kid, he’d never taken a professionally guided trip before.  By the time our half-day on the water was over, he caught more fish than he had ever caught before in a single outing — 37 to be exact.
Cindy was a spectator to all of this.  She’d been fishing before and kind of assumed you just sat … and waited … and got bored.  Not 12 minutes into our trip when 3 of our 4 rods were being pulled down by 3+ pound hybrid stripers she declared, “Well if I had known we were going to catch fish like this I would have gotten my license!”.   I am confident she’ll have her license when they return in November to fish with me once again!.
Today’s bite was best in the first hour, average in the middle two hours, and went cold in the final hour.  As the shad spawn tapers and the water warms, the hybrid begin to spread out and head shallow to get above the developing thermocline.  I have also noted over the past several years that the incidence of blue cat being caught on shad increases sharply as the hybrid bite begins to soften.
Cindy stayed seated on the rear bench seat of my center console.  From that position she could observe all four rods.  Once she got the hang of what a rod looked like as the shad began to get nervous just before a gamefish swallowed it she would warn us, “Get ready, Freddy!”.  Having Cindy on board was better than having reels equipped with bait clickers!
We had a good time today, although thanks to the stronger-than-expected pull of so many hybrid, Freddy said he was going to have to factor an unplanned nap into his schedule before heading out to lunch over at Sol de Jalisco on FM2271.

 TALLY = 37 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

 

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp.: 68F
Water Surface Temp.: 72.6F
Wind: SSE10-12
Skies: Fully greyed over but bright entire trip.
Other Notes: GT0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
** Shad were abundant at Area 1387
** 1388/1389 produced well early for legal hybrid
** Vicinity 1204 produced fish of all sizes during mid-morning


Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

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