This Labor Day Monday I conducted the season’s 15th SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trip treating Eric and Roxy Flores to a very productive morning on Belton Lake.
Eric and Roxy Flores boated 112 fish today using a variety of tactics: topwater, vertical jigging, downrigging, and slipfloat fishing.
Roxy landed our largest fish of the trip with this 3.75 pound blue catfish that struck our downrigged bait in 22 feet of water.
Eric and Roxy’s step-mother, U.S. Army Sergeant Marri Flores, is currently stationed in South Korea where she works in a military transportation unit. Eric and Roxy’s step-father, Donnie Snider, a U.S. Army veteran, was able to accompany the kids as a non-fishing spectator on our trip.
The skies were cloudless this morning and so there was plenty of “seeing light” before sunrise. Once the light reached that “magic” level, the fish turned on and began to feed on the surface for nearly 90 minutes. The intensity of the feed rose and fell, but never stopped during this hour-and-a-half run. During this time we used “Cork Rigs” equipped with hand-tied flies of my own design to imitate the very small baitfish these white bass and hybrid striped bass were feeding on. Although the majority of the bait this morning consisted of small threadfin shad, there was also a low percentage of American silversides mixed in. The flies we were using did a great job of imitating both, and nearly every well-placed cast was answered with a strike. By the time the feed concluded, the kids had boated 43 fish. This isn’t bad given that neither had used a spinning outfit before arriving at the courtesy dock this morning.
At one point, as the sun rose and shone directly on the nearly calm water, the action just about died. During this time, because I was still seeing fish on sonar showing near the surface, we simply flatline-trolled the umbrella rigs I had intended to downrig with. This continued to produce fish for us until a southerly breeze kicked in, rippled the surface, and re-energized the topwater action.
Once the topwater action died for good, we managed a few more fish by using slabs fished vertically along an anomaly in the bottom in the same general area where we’d experienced the topwater action. This, too, died fairly quickly after giving up just 5 more fish. Our tally now stood at 48 fish.
So as to introduce the kids to “pole fishing” with a bream pole, we spent a few minutes up in the shallows fishing for sunfish and blacktails. I always like to show folks who are otherwise limited to fishing from shore this technique as it can be used in any body of water where sunfish exist. The fact that Eric and Roxy seemed excited to get their little brother and little sister in on some fishing just gave me that much more reason to demonstrate this tactic. We wound up catching 14 fish on the poles, including bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, and blacktails.
By now, it was just after 9:00am, and, over the past several weeks, I’ve been experiencing a solid 9:30a to 10:45a bite by sub-surface white bass. So, as we approached that time, we got “on station” and began patrolling the area where this has been occurring with our dowriggers in the water. The hope was to find the fish with downriggers and then really work over any population of fish we located by using slabs fished vertically. Well, this worked like a charm. We got into a large, aggressive school of white bass numbering in the hundreds and caught fish from out of this population for a solid 45 minutes. We added exactly 50 more white bass to our tally, with (too) many missed fish that dropped off right at boatside or just after they were hooked. The Redneck Fish’n’ Jigs Model 180 did the trick on these fish.
By 10:30 the fish had given up for the morning, the breeze was slowing and the sun was warming it up as a wave of recreational boaters began to arrive at the lake. It was then that we agreed we’d done well and that it was time to head on in.
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, organizations, and companies 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. SKIFF is open to children in elementary and middle school, as well as teens in high school.
TALLY = 112 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:35a
End Time: 10:40a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F
Water Surface Temp: 84.0F
Wind Speed & Direction: S3-5
Sky Conditions: No clouds, fair sky.
Note: Lake has dropped 0.03 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 593.82 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool
Other: GT= 0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1104/1591/188 topwater action for ~90 minutes
**Area 1591 on shore panfishing
**Area 687 downrigging leading to slabbing for heavily schooled deep white bass
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX