This past Tuesday morning, May 3rd, I fished with Dr. Jim Wood of McGregor, TX.

The demands of life and patients have been high of late for Dr. Wood and so, despite trying to piece together a fishing date since the late January weekend of the Central Texas Boat Show, this past Tuesday was the first date that was mutually agreeable.

A mild cold front passed through Texas over the weekend, leaving cool, dry, clear post-frontal weather in its wake.  The pre-dawn ambient temperature was just 52F.

Given the cool temps and northerly breeze, I was pleasantly surprised to find spawning threadfin shad readily available.  One throw of the 7′ castnet brought in over 370 shad.

I met up with Jim at a few minutes before 7am and we got right down to business. By 7:15am we were buckled down overtop of active hybrid striped bass in 52′ of water and Jim was reeling in keeper hybrids.

We fished only 3 areas this morning, and these areas gave up exactly 81 fish.  Our first area produced the best quality fish, but only a few of them.  Our second stop produced a blend of keeper and short hybrid and white bass of all sizes.  And our last stop, made for variety’s sake and to demonstrate to Jim the difference in appearance between white bass and hybrid stripers on sonar, yielded mainly white bass taken on slabs worked with an easing tactic.

All was going well until I raised my rod to lift a short hybrid out of the water that had struck my slab.  As the fish cleared the water, the hook came out of the fish.  The fish fell back into the water, but the lure was catapulted toward me at high velocity.  When it hit me, one of the points of the treble hook buried well beyond the barb into the middle joint of my left middle finger.  It was hurting, to be sure!  Jim and I kind of weighed our options; I would do the surgery, and Dr. Jim would assist.  We worked together to cut away the lure and the other two points of the treble hook with a pair of wire cutters, leaving just the eye of the hook and the point that was stuck in me.  Jim pressed the eye down toward my finger and I looped some fluorocarbon leader material around the bend of the hook.  On “ready, set, go” I yanked the hook backwards.  All went just as illustrated in the Boy Scout handbook and, after licking my wound for a minute or two, we went back to jigging.  Thanks, Doc!

TALLY = 81 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:55a

End Time:  11:20a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 52F

Water Surface Temp:  68.3 to 72.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were light at NNW5-8

Sky Conditions:  High, clear blue skies.

Water Level: 8.88 feet above full pool with a fall of 0.19 feet in the last 24 hours with a release of 4922cfs ongoing.

GT = 30

Wx Snapshot:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1277/683 – keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area 1012 – blend of keeper & short hybrid and white bass on live shad

**Area  1299 – nearly 100% white bass on 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

This past Saturday morning, April 30th, I fished with Andy Bell, his father-in-law, Will Zschiesche, and Dylan Murray, Andy’s nephew.

Andy Bell with a nice Belton hybrid striped bass taken on live shad.

Will Zschiesche with one of the many hybrid we boated this morning.  Circle hooks made for quick, easy releases, thus allowing us to get fresh baits back down to the fish quickly while they were still present and biting.

This was Dylan Murry’s first time fishing for hybrid striper after mainly casting for whatever would bite his lure while dock fishing at a family lake house on Possum Kingdom.

Will is a retired firefighter, Andy is a physical fitness trainer for the Premier Jewelry Company, and Dylan is a 17-year-old high school junior and avid golf player.  As Andy asked his nephew about his latest golfing accomplishments, Dylan said he just missed an “albatross” recently.  Not being a golfer of any sort, and having never heard the term “albatross” used in a golfing context, I just had to inquire further.  It seems an albatross is when one makes it from the tee to the hole in just 2 shots on a par 5.  Back to fishing…

Andy and I had been corresponding since before Thanksgiving of 2015 trying to get a date to fish, but on a number of occasions winter weather hindered us.

A mild cold front pushed into the area in the late afternoon yesterday, and caused turbulent weather during the overnight and early morning hours, complete with thunder, lightning, brief heavy downpours of rain, and occasional pellets of hail. Within 30 minutes of our planned start time of 7:15 AM, this weather began to move off to the east leaving a north-northwest wind and heavy grey cloud cover in its wake. Additionally, although the Corps of Engineers is running 5000 to 6000 ft.³ per second out of the dam, Belton still rose slightly over this past 24 hour period. Fortunately, none of the areas that have been producing fish lately were impacted by off colored water.

We fished four areas this morning, the first three specifically in pursuit of hybrid striper, and the last (for variety’s sake), targeting schooled white bass caught via a jigging spoon. The first area we hit gave up only one keeper hybrid and a short white. We saw plenty of fish near bottom, and even had fish approach our baits suspended a few feet up off bottom, but despite chumming and thumping, these fish would not respond.

The second and third areas we hit were in approximately 48 feet of water, and produced much better following a wind shift from north-northwest to west-northwest. We put an additional 48 fish in the boat at these two areas with a majority of the fish being legal hybrid striped bass of at least 18 inches. Our single largest fish today weighed in at 4.25 pounds.

At the last area we fished, we targeted heavily schooled white bass in over 60’ of water.  Although these fish responded to our presentations allowing us to put 3 fish in the boat in short order, the morning bite was just about over and after the initial interest these fish showed, they turned right off and refused to bite.  We wrapped up right at 11:15a.

TALLY = 53 fish, all caught and released

This past Friday morning, April 29th, I fished with Dakota and Brianna Umbarger, both originally from Oregon, and now stationed here at Ft. Hood for Dakota’s first enlistment.