On the evening of April 23rd I fished with Mr. Dean Renkes from the Dallas area and U.S. Army Specialist Andrew Zills, now stationed at Fort Hood.
Andrew Zills displays our largest fish of the trip, a 4.25 pound hybrid that hammered his shad bait as the sun, obscured by cloud cover, was about to set.
Dean worked through the circle hook learning curve quite quickly, landing several nice hybrid stripers, as well. Both men managed this “double” right at sunset.
Andrew’s wife, Megan, is the nanny for Dean’s grandchild. Dean has been impressed with both Megan and Andrew and simply wanted to do something decent for this young couple.
Dean, himself a Vietnam-era U.S. Army veteran, now works as a financial advisor.
I was upfront with Dean, letting him know that afternoon trips can be very tough, but, given both his limited schedule and Andrew’s, we went ahead and put this date on the calendar.
We met up at 4:15pm, planning to fish until dark. Not 15 minutes into the trip we had to run for cover from some passing thunder and lightning being produced by a small storm cell moving west to east and generally to the south of us. Once that turbulent weather passed, winds went calm, posing yet another challenge to the fishing.
We kind of pecked at the fish most of the trip, boating 12 fish over our first 3 hours, but, towards sunset, while fishing near a gentle breakline in ~28 feet of water, a nice school of hybrid stripers moved through for a bit of dinner and we were able to put 7 nice keeper-sized hybrid in the boat right in the final minutes of like so as to end on a strong note.
Thank you both for your service to our nation!
TALLY = 19 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:15p
End Time: 8:40p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 85F
Water Surface Temp: 70-70.5F
Wind Speed & Direction: SE6-7
Sky Conditions: Rainy skies with thunder and lightning during the first hour, with a turbulent atmosphere following the storm passage
Other: GT=115
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 672
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com