This morning I fished a ‘business development’ trip with Tony Bagliore of Bagliore Concrete, along with two of his employees, Greg Graham and Scott Kearsing, as well as one of his suppliers, Ken Wilkins, of Tex Mix Concrete.
Ken Wilkins of Tex Mix Concrete with a solid Lake Belton hybrid — one of 119 fish we boated today.
Greg Graham was the first to score this morning, boating this nice “keeper” sized fish right off the bat.
Scott Kearsing holds a big male hybrid striped bass taken on live shad. Note the milt dripping from the fish’s anal fin – a sign of warming water and increasing metabolism.
What was supposed to be a 4 mph N wind with 60% cloud cover turned out to be a 13 mph WNW wind with heavy grey skies and light drizzle. Regardless of the wind direction, in this season of rising water temperature, I feel pretty confident as long as we have grey skies and wind. Today we had both, and the fish responded well.
We got going at 8:15a, giving me ample time to collect bait, aided by Tony. I searched for fish in 3 areas before finding enough “fish density” on sonar to feel that I could work fish up beneath the boat. Once we got into a hover over these fish, got baits down, got chum down and let the system work, we began to draw fish and score. At our first stop (Area 672) we boated exactly 22 fish before they lost interest and moved on after about 45 minutes. The second area we hit (Area 1548/1141) gave up 97 fish in about 2.5 hours with the action going through the roof right before the fish turned of for good around 12:30p.
Good technique using the circle hooks I have tied on my live bait rods was the key to turning bites into landed fish. A slow, methodical approach to taking stretch out of the line and easing the rod out of the rod holder is very important. The use of chum when things got slow and the use of chunk baits when things got hot also added to our success considerably.
After getting back to the launch site and after discovering today was my 46th birthday, the crew treated me to a nice lunch at Sol de Jalisco on FM2271 in Morgan’s Point.
Interestingly, Tony thought it appropriate to assign all passengers responsibilities during this trip. Ken (who was dressed in a really nice Cabela’s Gore-Tex rain jacket) had the job of “looking good” and landing his fish in a stylish way. Greg had the job of performing a “fish dance” when things got slow. And Scott, well, let’s just say he “transformed” FiberOne snack bars into something that just grabbed ahold of all of one’s senses. Tony was the first mate and cheerleader of the trip.
There was talk of a 100 fish day from the get-go, and with a little persistence, we saw that become a reality as we finished our day up with exactly 119 fish brought into the boat.
TALLY = 119 Fish, including 3 white bass, 1 blue catfish, 1 smallmouth bass. 1 largemouth bass, and 113 hybrid striped bass — all caught and released
GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 8:15a
End Time: 12:45p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 61F
Water Surface Temp: 67-68F @ lower lake, 69-70 @ upper lake
Wind Speed & Direction: WNW13 at trip’s start, tapering to WNW11
Sky Conditions: Grey and overcast with light drizzle at trip’s start; beginning to clear with approach of high pressure by 10:45a
Other: GT = 150
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 678
**Area 1548
Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
