My Mom Wears Combat Boots! — 51 Fish, SKIFF Trip #2014-11

This morning I fished the eleventh SKIFF trip of the 2014 season with Tommie Clark and his two children, Tommy (age 8) and Alissa (age 10).  SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S.  All it takes is a phone call from a parent to me at 254-368-7411 to reserve a date.

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Tommie and Alissa pose with Alissa first hybrid striper of the day — a nice 3 pound class fish taken on live bait.

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And not to be outdone my his sister, Tommy landed his own hybrid striped bass just minutes after Alissa’s slid into the net.

Tommie’s wife, Takako, is deployed on a 9 month assignment.  She is a US Army Specialist and currently serves as a combat medic in Kosovo.  Tommie is a US Air Force veteran, having served as an officer in the USAF’s signal branch (radios, telephones, satellites, computers, etc.).

Near the end of the school year, Skipcha Elementary School in Harker Heights, TX, hosted an end-of-year event by inviting all manner of kid-oriented business, programs, and activities to the school to set up booths allowing the kids that attend there and their parents to peruse summer activities.  My wife, Rebecca, and I set up such a booth to promote the SKIFF program.  I met the Clark family at that event when the kids came by to try casting to the “Backyard Bass” I had set out as casting targets in order to try to win a prize.  I explained how SKIFF worked and Tommie chose a date for his kids on the spot.

As we got going this morning the winds were already high, above 14 mph, before sunrise. This made spotting the top water feeding fish I was hoping to start the day with very difficult to find. We did spot one school and made a successful downrigging pass through them, picking up one hybrid striper. With the winds only increasing and whitecaps becoming more prevalent, making top water action even more difficult to spot, I decided to change plans.

We headed to a semi-protected area and fished specifically for hybrid striped bass using live baits. This produced 8 large hybrid. When the hybrid bass bite slowed down we then went searching for some late-morning topwater action, again in a semi-protected area. As we arrived, several blue herons were feeding over open water on the surface feeding fish, thus giving us a clue as to where the fish were located. For about 30 minutes we were able to hover in one spot casting to white bass and small hybrid striper that were popping shad on the surface. After this bite settled down, we finished up the trip by downrigging for white bass and small hybrid striper using umbrella rigs. This produced numerous doubles and triples, allowing us to take our fish count up to a grand total of 51 for the day.

 

TALLY = 51 FISH

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30am

End Time: 10:20am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 80.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: S15-17

Sky Conditions: 80% cloudy

Other: N/A

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 967 topwater at first light

**Vicinity of Area 1400 – large hybrid stripers on live bait

**Vicinity of 847/1097 fish on top in schools, then in lower 1/3 of water column (downrigged)

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Turner Family SKIFF Trip, 40 Fish, Belton Lake, 28 June 2014

This morning I had a crew of four aboard for the 10th SKIFF trip of the 2014 season — Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, her oldest son, Jason (age 10), her middle son, Javier (age 9), and her youngest son, Jabari (age 6).  SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S.  All it takes is a phone call from a parent to me at 254-368-7411 to reserve a date.

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L to R: Justin (age 10), Elizabeth, and Jabari (age 6) with two nice hybrid from the same school that struck our downrigger rods just seconds apart.

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Javier (age 9) and his mom with his biggest fish of day — a hybrid striped bass weighing just over 3 pounds.

 

Mrs. Turner heard about SKIFF through a posting on the Fort Hood Area Events Facebook page run by Denise Igo whose children I took out this past Thursday.  Mrs. Turner is a U.S. Army veteran and served a three year enlistment, including a tour to South Korea where she met her future husband, Jason Turner.  Sergeant Jason Turner is in the Army’s Chemical Corps and has been away for the last month training in California.  He’ll return shortly, only to depart again to go to an Army school which is necessary for him to advance to the next rank of Staff Sergeant.

The boys were excited to go fishing, to say the least.  Although they’d fished before with their grandpa down in Corpus Christi, they’d never been on a boat, so, that was a fun experience for them in and of itself.

Today’s fishing was a bit less productive than it has been for the past few days, and I attribute that mainly to very turbulent weather.  We got an area-wide rain at 4:15am, winds varied from near calm to near 20mph and had turned more easterly, skies were bright one minute and nearly dark the next, and it sprinkled on and off today for the entire four hour trip.  The fish I found were in the same places they have been for most of the week, but they just didn’t feed as long or as hard today.  The high winds no doubt dampened the excellent topwater bite we’ve had, as it made bait fish harder for gamefish to see and gamefish harder for me to see in the whitecapping chop.

Regardless, we caught fish fairly consistently from start to finish today.  We caught exactly 40 fish, including 6 legal (18+ inch long) hybrid striped bass and a mixture of 34 white bass and “short” hybrid.  Approximately 70% of our catch came on downriggers set between 12 and 25 feet, and the balance of our catch came on flatline trolled umbrella rigs fished in and around the few pods of topwater feeding fish we could find.

When all was said and done, each boy had caught at least one “keeper-sized” hybrid, and each boy had landed either a double or a triple (multiple fish landed on a single rod at the same time).

As I walked up the boatramp with the Turner’s headed back toward their family vehicle, Elizabeth was very thankful for the opportunity this SKIFF trip afforded her boys.  She assured me that SGT Turner’s phone would be “lit up” with messages from his sons about today’s trip.

TALLY = 40 Fish

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:25am

End Time: 10:25am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 81.8F

Wind Speed & Direction: ESE13-17

Sky Conditions: 100% heavily greyed over nearly the entire trip, with occasional sprinkles

Other: N/A

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 147 topwater at first light

**Area 845/1273 suspended white bass and mixed sizes of hybrid suspended at 21-25 feet

**Vicinity of Area 154 topwater and suspended fish high in water column (flatlined and downrigged)

**Vicinity of 847/831 fish in lower 1/3 of water column (downrigged)

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

SKIFF TRIP #9 — 103 Fish, Belton Lake, 27 June 2014

This morning I fished with 16-year-old Colton Cude of Killeen, Texas on the 9th SKIFF trip of the 2014 season.  SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S.  All it takes is a phone call from a parent to me at 254-368-7411 to reserve a date.

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Colton with 2 three-pound class hybrid striped bass taken on live bait on Belton this morning during a “break” from the more productive topwater bite that produced great numbers of smaller fish.

I first got to know Colton and his family through church about 6 years ago when Colton was 10 and his family was stationed at Fort Hood.  They “PCS’ed” (Army acronym for Permanent Change of Station) to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and now have returned to Fort Hood.

Colton’s mom stayed behind at Fort Campbell to complete her nursing education, but looked me up soon after she rejoined the family here in Texas to see if I could spend some “guy time” with Colton.  When Colton’s dad, Staff Sergeant Elbert Cude came down for ’round-the-clock duty taking him away from home, we decided to put a date on the calendar and make this trip happen.

Colton is now going through some of the same things that I went through as the son of a soldier when I was his age –  being uprooted during the high school years, missing friends, discontinuity in school work and athletics, being pulled away from a girlfriend, experiencing how long-distance relationships work, wondering why you couldn’t be in a non-military family, and more.  And that’s all in addition to the usual teenage challenges of questioning authority, figuring out what you are going to be in life, etc.  So, we got to talk about all those things and more in between being interrupted by more fish than we could shake a stick at.

The topwater bite remained in high gear today with ample bait present, a new moon, manageable winds, and abundant grey cloud cover.  We threw “Cork Rigs” fitted with hand-tied flies designed to imitate the size of the bait I’ve been encountering and they have worked like a charm.  Although the fish are typically smallish, an occasional “ringer” spiced things up now and then.  The fish fed for a full four hours today.  We fished topwater for the first hour and the last two hours, and devoted one hour in between to fishing live bait specifically for hybrid striper.  We put a quick limit of 5 “keeper” (18+ inch) fish in the boat during this time and then went right back to topwater.

We ended the trip right at 10:30 (as that is the time mom’s taxi was due to arrive) with 103 fish landed, consisting entirely of white bass and hybrid stripers.

TALLY = 103 Fish

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30am

End Time: 10:30am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 80.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE12-13

Sky Conditions: 100% Greyed over the entire trip

Other: N/A

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 845 topwater at first light

**Area 1400 hybrid on live bait fished at 25-32 feet over a 45′ sloping bottom

**Vicinity of Area 103 – ample topwater action by white bass and juvenile hybrid

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

SKIFF Record Broken Today! — 153 FISH!!! Belton Lake, 26 June 2014

This morning I ran the 8th SKIFF trip of the 2014 season.  Joining me were 12-year-old Cody McNeal and 10-year-old Cady McNeal.   SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S.  All it takes is a phone call from a parent to me at 254-368-7411 to reserve a date.

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Although the majority of our catch taken on topwater consisted of smaller, “schoolie”-sized fish, Cody pulled this nice hybrid from beneath the melee on the surface using a large live bait.

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Cady got this nice hybrid just moments after her brother’s fish took one of the live baits we were fishing down at 23′ over a 40′ bottom.

Cody and Cady’s stepdad, Staff Sergeant Lee Igo, has been away for over a month at an Army school in Fort Bliss, Texas (in El Paso) fulfilling requirements that will allow him to advance to Sergeant First Class.  The kids’ mom, Denise Igo, has been a huge help to the SKIFF program through her very well regarded Facebook page called “Fort Hood Area Events” which has over 24,000 likes.  She regularly reminds the community of the existence and purpose of SKIFF.

Fortunately, Cody and Cady were no fishing rookies.  Both could handle a spinning rod very comfortably and were able to cast with both good distance and good accuracy.  So, when opportunity knocked, they answered.

Based on the success I enjoyed yesterday on Belton Lake with another party, and seeing that today’s conditions were to be nearly identical, I felt we had a good shot at catching fish on topwater early and then downrigging later in the morning in the same areas where topwater action had occurred.

As we got going, no more than 10 minutes into the trip we spotted our first of many large schools of topwater feeding fish despite a fairly heavy chop on the water.  These schools consisted of a mix of white bass and small hybrid striped bass chasing mainly young of the year shad.  These shad are growing out well now that the water temperature is in the 80’s and food is abundant.

Long story short, we stayed on topwater fish and sight-cast to these fish for a solid 3 hours.  By 9:15am we’d boated over 120 fish on a Cork Rig with a shad imitator attached which closely matched forage size.  With about an hour left to go, I offered the kids some options, as I had come prepared to downrig as well as to fish with live baits.  I told them we could continue fishing with topwater and likely have a shot at breaking the long-standing SKIFF record catch of 147 fish set by Chase, Sean, and Trent Salyer on the 29th of January 2011, or, we could do some downrigging and/or live bait fishing for variety’s sake.  I made it clear that these methods would likely not be as productive as the topwater action had been.

The siblings agreed to try to catch one more fish each on topwater, and then to give downrigging a try.  We were pleasantly surprised as we began downrigging with balls set to 12 and 25 feet, that each time a rod went off, we brought in doubles (2 fish at at time)!  So now downrigging was outproducing the topwater bite, and the 147 fish mark looked very attainable.  As our fish count crept into the 130’s, I again offered variety in the form of fishing with live bait for some larger-sized hybrid.  The kids were good with giving that a try, too.

As our baits went down (4 rods), 3 of them got hit and up came with some very nice 3 pound category hybrid stripers.  We were now at around 140 fish.  As we scrambled to rebait our lines, and now sensing the record really could fall, we got our baits set down to the 23 foot mark where sonar showed the hybrid to be.  Just as we got the lines all set, a school of white bass and small hybrid began to feed on the surface, enveloping our boat in the frenzy.  I told the kids to grab the topwater rods and go for the record.  They brought in fish after fish from this cooperative school until my “clicker” read 153 fish at our pre-determined end time of 10:15am.  The record of 147 fish had been broken and replaced by a new record of 153 fish on a 4-hour SKIFF trip!!  Very exciting!

TALLY = 153 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

 

Start Time: 6:15am

End Time: 10:15am

Air Temp.: 75F @ trip’s start
Water Surface Temp.: 79.8F
Wind: SSE11-13
Skies: 100% bright grey cloud cover
Other Notes: N/A
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area  147/1001 topwater action at first light
**Area  509/1356 topwater action for first hour after sunrise
** Areas  1137/687 and 210/689 very aggressive topwater action and suspended fish beneath for last 3 hours of trip
Bob Maindelle

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

Bad Day to be a Shad! — 46 Fish, Belton Lake, 25 June 2014

This morning I fished with perennial guests Dr. David Butler and his boys, Jack (age 14) and Jay (age 12).  David is a career dermatologist who got his start as an Army doctor, and now, as a civilian, is once again serving (veteran) soldiers through his work at the Veterans’ Administration hospital system.

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David set the example for the boys by landing the first legal-sized hybrid of our trip.

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12-year-old Jay then landed this nice 3 pound hybrid on a downrigged Pet Spoon.

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And before all was said and done, Jack chipped in with a hybrid of his own.

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On a number of occasions as we brought hooked fish to boatside, they regurgitated the shad they’d eaten.  This gave us a good idea as to the size of bait they were pursuing, and allowed us to match that bait size with our lures.  Here, a white bass regurgitates a recently swallowed shad.
We had a very productive trip on Belton Lake this morning, although it was cut short at the three-hour mark at precisely 9:15a as lightning began to flash just to the south of us, in the vicinity of US Hwy. 190 and Loop 121.
We met at 6:15am, spotted our first topwater feeding fish at 6:25am and stayed on the topwater action (thanks to grey cloud cover and light winds) for nearly 2 hours.  After that we combed back over the areas that held these topwater fish by using the “Trails” function on sonar to identify where these fish had been, and worked them over with downriggers when we (more often than not) found the fish still present, only suspended instead of up on the surface.
In those first two hours we tried to match the hatch the best we could, although the young of the year shad that most of these topwater-feeding fish were eating are quite small.  I found a white/blue Cicada produced best, although was far from perfect.  Despite staying in the fish the entire time, we hooked up on roughly 1 in 8-10 casts.  This ratio will improve as the shad grow out and larger lures look more like the bait (and vice versa).
Our final hour was spent downrigging.  I chose to run small Pet Spoons on an umbrella rig on one ‘rigger and slightly larger Pet Spoons on a tandem rig on the other ‘rigger.  We caught a blend of all sizes of both white bass and hybrid stripers up to 3.25 pounds.
By the time the lightning began to flash, we’d boated exactly 46 fish.  After making a beeline to the boat ramp and getting my party to safety, I studied the weather radar.  It looked like the weather was stacked up all the way down I-35 to Austin and beyond and was moving our way at a pretty good clip.  Thinking we weren’t going to get another window without lightning present, we decided to play it safe and call it a good trip right there.

TALLY = 46 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

 

Start Time: 6:15am

End Time: 9:15am

Air Temp.: 75F @ trip’s start
Water Surface Temp.: 80.9F
Wind: SSE7
Skies: 100% bright grey cloud cover
Other Notes: N/A
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area  1283 to 1271 — topwater for 90 minutes
**Area  1143/1372/1283 – downrigged for 90 minutes after topwater ended
Bob Maindelle

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

First Fish of Her Life! — SKIFF Trip #7 of 2014, 54 Fish

This morning I ran the 7th SKIFF trip of the 2014 season, welcoming aboard three young people – Noah Golaboff, Erin Golaboff, and Carson Darling.  In case you are not familiar with this program, SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S. All it takes is a phone call from a parent to me at 254-368-7411 to reserve a date.

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Erin Golaboff, age 10, caught the first fish of her life today — a small green sunfish.  She then built on success and landed even larger fish, including this foot-long channel catfish.

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Carson Darling, age 6, wore out the sunfish with a little help from his “Poppy”.

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The role of First Mate fell to Noah Golaboff, taking care of all the things for the younger kids that I didn’t have enough hands for.  He caught his fair share of sunfish and white bass, too.

Noah and Erin are the oldest and youngest of the four children of Colonel Stan Golaboff and his wife, Michele. COL Golaboff is an ordnance officer serving full-time with the Texas National Guard. In his current duty position he travels often with much of his time spent at Camp Mabry in Austin. This particular week, his wife was also away from home at an educator’s conference, so, it was an ideal time to loan some structure to the week and give their kids an opportunity to experience the outdoors.

Carson, age 6, is the son of Staff Sergeant Anthony Lyons and his wife, Ashley Lyons. SSG Lyons is currently assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division and is participating in a multi-national training exercise in Germany for several weeks. Carson was chaperoned by his grandfather, Jim French, of Copperas Cove, TX.

We met at Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir at 6:45am, got lifejackets on and shoved off. We spent our first half-hour searching 3 separate areas for topwater action, but none was to be found. This tropical air mass we’ve had over us for quite some time now has prevented the unobscured sunrises that typically generate the sudden brightening that typically spurs topwater action on Stillhouse. We found no topwater action this morning.

We then headed shallow to target sunfish living in shallow hydrilla beds. With a six-year-old and a ten-year-old (who had never caught a fish before), I was sure this was going to be a hit … and it was! Once the kids all got the hang of setting the hook just right when the slipfloat slid underwater, they were unstoppable. We caught bluegill sunfish and green sunfish – 40 in all, to be exact. Erin landed the first fish of her lifetime, a four inch green sunfish.

When the sunfish wised up to our trickery, we agreed to head deep and target some larger fish by downrigging for white bass. Our tools of the trade this day were a pair of three-arm umbrella rigs allowing us to present six baits on two rods. The fish we found were down between 29 and 31 feet over a 33-36 foot bottom. The fish were not overly aggressive, but, over the next 90 minutes we managed 14 fish, including 4 sets of doubles. We brought in 12 white bass, 1 largemouth bass, and 1 channel catfish using this technique.  This year I changed out my old manually operated Cannon Easi-Troll downriggers for a pair of electronic Digi-Troll 10’s.  I’ve taken note how the kids love pushing the up, down, and auto-up buttons when it’s someone else’s turn to reel in a fish, so, that is yet another task I’ve turned over to my guests to engage them to the greatest extent I can.

We closed out the trip by fishing live baits for the last 25 minutes or so over some deeper hydrilla beds, targeting largemouth bass. This time of year this approach usually works best when fish are seen at least occasionally feeding on topwater. I knew our chances were slim since we saw no topwater action at all today, and, indeed, we caught no largemouth.
So, we ended our trip with 54 fish boated.

TALLY = 54 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

 

Start Time: 6:45am

End Time: 11:00am

Air Temp.: 75F @ trip’s start
Water Surface Temp.: 82F
Wind: SSW8-9
Skies: 100% bright grey cloud cover
Other Notes: N/A
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1098 – Sunfish
**Area 1260/864 – White bass on the breakline
** Areas 853/1395 – White bass
Bob Maindelle

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

Happy Fathers’ Day — 46 Fish, Stillhouse, 21 June 2014

This morning I welcomed father and son team Mike and Patton Dean aboard from Round Rock, Texas.  Mike’s wife, Kate, set this trip up as a Fathers’ Day event for the two of them.

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Patton and his dad, Mike, with the best white bass of the trip taken on a 3-armed umbrella rig with Pet Spoons attached.

 

Mike is a U.S. Army Medical Service Corps veteran and currently serves as an administrator at Scott & White Hospital in Temple.  Mike’s son Patton is a 9 year old third grade graduate, football player, basketball player, summer camp camper, and, now, fisherman!
The same near-calm, overcast conditions that plagued us yesterday persisted this morning, so, I came prepared to use 4 or 5 different techniques, know that with a 9 year old aboard, we’d have to keep it interesting by transitioning our tactics frequently.
We began our morning fishing live baits over hydrilla beds.  We got two nice pull-downs, but those fish got away before they saw the net.  As we reeled in one of the nearly-dead baits that a largemouth bass had just crippled, I tossed it over the side to replace it.  Several seconds later, a ~30″ long nose gar appeared and snatched that 5″ bait sideways and swam off with his hearty breakfast.
We next headed to open water and downrigged for white bass.  Along a break line in about 37 feet of water as we approached from deeper water going shallower with the balls set at about 32 feet, the bottom just came alive with white bass.  As the ball swept over the bottom-hugging school, numerous individual fish came up off the bottom and swam up to and along with the ball for a short time out of curiosity.  Once they broke off the chase, our baits came trailing behind (were were using one 3-arm umbrella rig on each ‘rigger) and we hooked up immediately.
Seeing that the area these fish were using was quite small, I tried hovering over top of them to use slabs with a smoking technique, but we only got one fish to respond, so, we returned to downrigging and that horizontal motion did the trick.  We wound up catching 13 white bass here before the bite shut down.
Next, it was off to do some sunfishing.  Both father and son excelled at that, quickly amassing a catch of 32 sunfish (bluegill, longear, and greens) on slip floats and Gulp! baits in just 2 stops up shallow.
As we wrapped up the sun fishing, we gave downrigging one more try to attempt to end on a “big” note.  We were able to fool one more white bass into striking a Pet Spoon on our umbrella rig.  By now it was after 11a, the sun was getting hot, Patton’s enthusiasm was waning (not aided by his early-morning wakeup call), and we decided to call it a day.

TALLY = 46 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

 

Start Time: 6:30am

End Time: 11:15am

Air Temp.: 77F @ trip’s start
Water Surface Temp.: 83.0F
Wind: SSE3-4
Skies: 100% bright grey cloud cover
Other Notes: GT5
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 863  – 13 white bass
**Area 1257 – 1 white bass
** Areas 1098/1256 – sunfish

Bob Maindelle

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

Persistence Paid Off — 18 Fish, Belton Lake, 20 June 2014

I was joined once again this morning by Tony Bagliore and Greg Graham for a morning of fishing on Belton Lake.  Tony and Greg work together operating Bagliore Concrete.

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Greg took this hybrid striped bass on a large gizzard shad during a short feeding spree near noon.

 

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Tony plucked this nice 2-foot channel cat from out of the school of hybrid that Greg’s fish came from during that same feeding frenzy.
The conditions were near-calm and overcast, which usually bodes well for topwater action this time of year, so, we spent some time at first light looking for just that.  We found pods of smallish white bass scattered all over feeding strictly on young of the year shad.  Were we equipped with fly gear in order to imitate these 3/4″ long fry we’d have done well.  As it was, even the smallest lures we could use and still span the distance from boat to fish was too large and got largely ignored.  We managed 3 white bass on Cicadas, but it was anything but consistent.
We searched with sonar near and far and found precious little as the winds remained near calm — always a tough hand to be dealt on Belton.  Knowing that we were looking at a tough bite, I stopped and dropped baits in a few areas with scant fish showing, knowing that when fish are in a negative mood, you often don’t see much on sonar as the fish just sulk with belly-to-bottom.
Occasionally we’d see a school of white bass pop up and we’d chase them to see if they were locked on to bait large enough to imitate, but, today was always the same with the fish keyed in only on tiny shad.
Tony recently equipped his own boat with downriggers, so, I took him through the paces on rigging these correctly to give him confidence and reduce his learning curve; we did not, however, draw any strikes on our tandem or triple rigs equipped with Pet Spoons.
Between the 5th and 6th hour of this 4 hour trip persistence finally paid off.  I told Greg and Tony that I stuck with it this long only because I believed the fish had never entered into a feeding “window” at all this morning and that, despite the late hour, I felt the fish could still turn on.  Had the fish fed even briefly in the first 4 hours of the morning, I would have bet they were done by now.  So, we persisted … and were rewarded.
At 11:15, in 40-45 feet of water as I idled over a break line, I saw several sonar signatures indicating hybrid were in the vicinity.  We quickly got setup over these fish and got large gizzard shad baits down to them.  The response was fast — 3 of four rods went down right away, and, for the next 10 minutes rods kept getting pulled down and fish kept coming up.  When this short “burst” was over, we enjoyed much slower acton for another 50 minutes until finally, sonar was clean and the bite was done.
In this end-of-trip frenzy, we boated another 15 fish, including one white bass, one ~13 inch blue cat, one 24″ channel cat, and 12 legal hybrid striped bass.
Such is summertime hybrid fishing.

TALLY = 18 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

 

Start Time: 6:15am

End Time: 12:15pm

Air Temp.: 77F @ trip’s start
Water Surface Temp.: 83.0F
Wind: SSE4-6
Skies: 100% bright grey cloud cover
Other Notes: GT35
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1399 — all hybrid came off E. slope
Bob Maindelle

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

Take Once Monthly … 36 Fish, Belton, 19 June 2014

This afternoon I fished with first-time guest Anthony Vaughters.  Anthony is a U.S. Army veteran and now owns and operates Kid’s X-pression Learning Center, located near Killeen High School.  His young daughters heard him mention a little something about fishing not too long ago and that led to a Fathers’ Day gift which led to tonight’s fishing trip.

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Anthony caught this 5.50 pound hybrid on a large, 8″ gizzard shad in 30 feet of water about 30 minutes before sunset.

If you’ve fished with me before or followed my blog, you know I prefer fishing in the mornings for several reasons, and so I haven’t been on Belton in the afternoons much lately, so, I wasn’t sure how things were going to pan out for us.

As I waited for Anthony to arrive, I did some scouting and found some deep, suspended fish near the old river channel.  I marked them with my chartplotter and went to pick up Anthony.  When we returned we quickly figured out these were white bass and so we moved on in search of hybrid striped bass after boating one “confirmation” white bass.
We found what we were after very quickly, as I looked over a hard-bottomed area in 30 feet of water.  As I passed over with sonar, I saw 5-6 fish suspended just off bottom on the windward side of this area.  These fish showed equally well on colored sonar and Down Imaging, so, I was certain of what they were.  We used the i-Pilot to hold over these fish and got baits down to them.
Most of my baits today were large gizzard shad from 5-8 inches and the hybrid showed no hesitation in running these big baits down and taking them.  Within minutes of getting 4 rods down, we caught 4 fish, rebaited, caught a 5th and 6th fish (all keeper hybrid), and then things cooled off.  We made 3 “short hops” of a boat length or two each time and continued catching a few fish in this vicinity.  On our 3rd and final “hop”, and as the sun came within an hour of setting, things really turned on well allowing us to catch consistently for about 35 minutes.  This action came to a halt around 8:30pm when, despite having good baits in the water and having strong sonar signatures on the sonar, the fish refused to feed any longer.
By the time we wrapped up, Anthony had boated 35 fish including 1 white bass, 1 short hybrid, and 33 legal (18+ inch long) hybrid striped bass with the largest 2 weighing in at 5.50 and 5.125 pounds.  I also picked up 1 white bass on a Storm Wildeye bait as I was experimenting during a lull in the action.
As he left the parking lot, Anthony said, “I think I’ll need to be doing this about once a month … seriously.”.
Anthony, you are welcome back any time!!

TALLY = 36 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

 

Start Time: 4:45pm

End Time: 8:55pm

Air Temp.: 86F
Water Surface Temp.: 81.7F
Wind: SSE11 for a majority of the trip
Skies: 80% white cloud coverage on a sunny, fair sky
Other Notes: GT10
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**1368-1370: Netted 181 shad in 2 hours, 15 minutes)
**1398:  White bass suspended at 36-40 feet
**1012 and vicinity: 1 white, 1 short hybrid, 33 legal hybrid
Bob Maindelle

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

Gotta Mix it Up — 49 Fish, Stillhouse, 14 June 2014

This morning I welcomed first-time guests David Stuhan and his 3 children, Paris, Aden, and Layton, aboard.  David works as a contractor to the U.S. Department of Energy in Carlsbad, New Mexico, dealing with the safekeeping of radiologic waste.  His children live and go to school in Temple, Texas.

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David with his 3 kids, (L to R) Aden, Layton, and Paris and the 3 white bass we caught fishing deep this morning.

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Paris would eventually work up the nerve to hold a fish by hand today.

 

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Aden, on the other hand, emphatically announced that he would not be touching ANY fish or bait today.

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And easy-going Layton was just thrilled to be doing anything fishing-related.  He turned out to be our luckiest angler this trip.


My plan today with 3 kids on board was to “mix it up” with a variety of approaches to give them a good exposure to various effective techniques for multiple species in this warm-water season.
We began the day up shallow fishing a hydrilla bed for sunfish using slipfloats and Gulp! maggots.  David and I ran “crowd control” by taking off fish, rebaiting hooks, and untangling tangles.  This kids did real well at this, eventually boating exactly 14 fish (including both bluegill sunfish and green sunfish) before the fish “wised up” and began ignoring our presentations.
Next, we set out to fish deep water where I’d been moderately successful earlier this week on downriggers with Pet Spoons fished on umbrella rigs.  Although we graphed fish regularly, we encountered only a few schools of white bass.  It is schooled white bass that generally provide success, as they take on a competitive posture with their schoolmates and will race to a bait to be the first one to the groceries and get hooked.  We did take 3 white bass in this fashion, but the bite just wasn’t “on” here this morning.
Next, we headed to a breakline near the river channel and e-anchored with the trolling motor to fish bait on the breakline.  Here, again, the action was a bit slow.  We picked up 2 freshwater drum and 1 white bass before moving to greener pastures.
Our final, and most productive area was also adjacent to the river channel in about 27 feet of water.  As I motored in and studied sonar, I saw heavily schooled white bass from 19 feet down to the bottom over an area approximately 80 feet by 100 feet.  I killed the outboard, got us in a hover with the i-Pilot, and we smoked TNT180 slabs in both 3/8 oz. silver and 3/4 oz. white to boat 19 white bass in very short order.  I kept reminding my crew of the fundamentals of this technique, which we had rehearsed earlier when things were slow, so they could maximize their catch.  Fishing like this never lasts long, so, when I recognize it, I really try to “make hay while the sun shines”.  No breaks, no fish storiess, no snacks, no photos — just fish catching when a bite like this is on!  After about a 25 minute frenzy, these fish slacked off and began to disperse.  We then again employed the downriggers for “mop up duty”, boating a final 9 fish including 2 doubles for our efforts.  By 11:05 we landed what would be our final fish, and David and I agreed it would be wise at that point to end on a strong note, so, we wrapped ‘er up right then.

TALLY = 49 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

 

Start Time: 6:45am

End Time: 11:25am

Air Temp.: 76F
Water Surface Temp.: 82.6F
Wind: SSW11 at sunrise, turning S12-14 by trip’s end
Skies: 80% thin grey cloud cover
Other Notes: GT20
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

** Vicinity of Area 200: for 14 sunfish
** Vicinity of Area 1397: downrigging for 3 white bass

**Vicinity of Area 803: live bait for 2 drum and 1 white bass

**Vicinity of Area 1279 and parallel to breakline for 29 white bass

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