In One Ear… 78 Fish, Stillhouse, Good Friday 2016

This Good Friday was spent on the water with Mr. Tony Vriseno of Belton, and his two sons, 13-year-old Tony and 8-year-old Ben.  The boys had the day off from school for the Easter holiday.

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Tony Vriseno of Belton did very well this morning throwing bladebaits and jigging slabs and was rewarded for his efforts.  These white bass were both just shy of 15″.

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Ben Vriseno got a little help from his dad and did really well this morning, too.

Tony works for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad as a conductor and had some down time in his schedule, so, he gave me a ring a few weeks ago and we put this “Kids Fish, Too!” trip on the calendar.  Kids Fish, Too! trips are intended for only the kids to do the fishing whether or not parents/guardians come along for the ride.  These are a little less expensive than a standard trip, and tend to go 3-4 hours instead of 4+ hours as most adult trips do.

Radiational cooling took the sunrise temperature down to just 43F this morning, so, we were back to hats and gloves and jackets after wearing Crocs and shorts for a few of last week’s Spring Break trips.

The boys both were already familiar with how to use spinning gear, and so to start our day, I headed up shallow and had them cast bladebaits for white bass.  Although the fish were willing, they were nowhere near as shallow as they were last week before last Saturday’s cold front and yesterday’s coldfront pushed them back down in the water column and back away from shore.  There was no bait on or near the surface today and no helpful bird action to key on.

We found our first batch of fish in 15-17 feet of water, backed off a good cast’s length and worked them over with bladebaits.  We picked up 25 fish in our first 65 minutes on the water before this shallow bite died.

From that point on, it was all vertical jigging in 35 to 42 feet of water.  Tony got the hang of this tactic pretty quickly and fished in the stern pretty much independently.  Ben was aided by his dad at the beginning and then he, too, was catching fish on his own by the end of the trip.

We made 3 distinct stops in deep water and found fish at 2 of them, allowing us to boat another 53 fish spread over the last 3 hours on the water.

Tony (dad) and I laughed at how the boys were getting to the age where if dad says something, it goes in one ear and out the other, yet let a coach or, in today’s case, a fishing guide, say the exact same thing, and all of the sudden it’s like Gospel.

We had a good time this morning!  Of the 78 fish we landed, 3 were largemouth bass, and the remainder were white bass in the 1-3 year class range.

TALLY = 78 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 43F

Water Surface Temp:  64.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds light and variable until 10:30am when they went SSE9.

Sky Conditions:  Clear blue skies thanks to post-frontal high pressure

Water Level: 624.57 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1139 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.13 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 0

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

25MAR16

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 108/1049 – vertical jigging with slabs
 
**Area 128 – vertical jigging with slabs
**Area 780 – vertical jigging with slabs

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

First Fish Ever! — 84 Fish, Stillhouse, 24 March

Today, Thursday, 24 March, I fished with father and son Peter and Theo Little.  Theo, a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army stationed at Ft. Hood treated his dad to a fishing trip for his 55th birthday.  Neither fellow had ever caught a fish before, so, we started with the basics of holding and using spinning gear, and built up from there.

PETER

Peter Little landed this 5.125 pound Stillhouse largemouth from amongst a school of white bass we had been jigging for for over an hour.  Once this fish came on the scene, the mostly 1 and 2 year old white bass departed the area.  After Peter landed this fish, we never caught another white bass at this area.

THEO

Theo Little with a sampling of the mostly 2-year class fish we vertically jigged for from start to finish on this cold front-influenced evening trip on which both Theo and his dad caught the first fish of their lives.

Both men are followers of Christ, so that made the great fishing and this new experience for these fellows that much sweeter as we got to converse about how and when we came to begin our relationship with Him.

The weather we experienced this afternoon, closely mimicked the weather I encountered last Saturday.  A hard coldfront blew in overnight dropping a bit of rain and bringing heavy cloud cover and strong winds.  As I did Saturday, I waited for the winds to peak and begin to fall off before we headed out fishing.

My experience has shown that until the winds subside, the fishing will be good, assuming boat control is possible given the strong winds typically experienced in a cold front’s wake.  Today as we launched, we faced 17mph winds with higher gusts and boat control was difficult but not impossible.  By the time we moved to our second area, the winds, which steadily tapered over the entire trip, were down to 15 mph and quite manageable.

We looked at 8 areas with sonar and found solid fishing on 3 of them, with marginal quantities of fish at two others, and nothing on the remaining three.

For quite some time now, the afternoon bite has been a one-trick-pony, and that one trick is deep vertical jigging.  We jigged in 34-38 feet at the 3 areas that gave up fish for us this afternoon.

We wrapped up a bit earlier than usual.  It seems Theo has been cooking for his dad and, well … I’ll just stop right there.

The fellows put exactly 83 white bass and 1 largemouth in the boat this evening and missed a good number more due to inexperience, but both definitely improved greatly from start time to the time we finished up.

TALLY = 84 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  6:55p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 60F

Water Surface Temp:  64.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Hard NE winds at 17 tapering down to 10

Sky Conditions:  Clear blue skies thanks to incoming high pressure

Water Level: 624.62 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1139 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.13 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 25

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

(not available for this date)

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1048 – vertical jigging with slabs
 
**Area vic 719 – vertical jigging with slabs
**Area vic 1720 – vertical jigging with slabs

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle