24 | December | 2016 | Fishing Report

This afternoon, Christmas Eve 2016, I had the pleasure of fishing with Andrew Zills and his father-in-law, Fred Jackson. We fished a multi-species trip on Lake Belton, expecting mainly white bass on slabs.

From left: Fred Jackson and his son-in-law, Andrew Zills, with the one and only hybrid landed today out of a tally of 165 fish.

fred-and-andrew

Fred and Andrew with a sampling of the white bass that aggressively fed for a full 2.5 hours under birds, pushing large, 3.5 to 4.0 inch shad to the surface and throughout the water column.
I first got to know Andrew when a man by the name of Dean Renkes, the grandfather of the boy Andrew’s wife is the nanny to, brought Andrew out for a live bait fishing trip focused on hybrid striper about two years ago in April of 2015.

Last December I got to fish with Andrew once again, this time accompanied by his wife, Megan. Andrew is an enlisted man serving in the Army’s Corps of Engineers, and Fred, originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, is the news director at American Family Radio based in Tupelo, Mississippi.

I opted for an afternoon trip today because the morning the winds were forecast to be quite light. No matter what the season, light winds make fishing difficult. Also, we were to have heavier cloud cover this afternoon. When it comes to white bass and hybrid stripers, the combination of wind and gray cloud cover is hard to beat.

As was the case yesterday, our first hour on the water from 1 PM to 2 PM was slow. There were no birds working and what fish we found were very tightly holding to the bottom. At exactly 2:05 PM, I spotted the first flock of helpful gulls working over fish, eating the shad that the game fish were forcing to the surface.

As I approached this feeding spree at idle speed I watched closely to see if I could gauge the size of the baitfish that the birds were grabbing from the surface. It quickly became apparent that the bait here was quite large – – 3.5 to 4 inch threadfin shad. When I found what I was after on sonar and used the Minn Kota Spot Lock function to hold us on top of these fish, we went with large profile three-quarter ounce slabs in bright white and equipped with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks in order to match the bait size closely. This served us very well.

From 2:05 and until 4:35, we caught fish nonstop taking our tally from the 12 fish we had caught before the birds started working, up to 165 fish for the afternoon’s final tally.

All of this action took place over a stretch of water approximately 1 mile long. We simply spot-hopped after aggressive bird activity. Once the bird action died away, and once the remaining fish still present on bottom stopped feeding, the cycle would then repeat itself – – active birds signaled active fish, followed by a dispersion of the birds with fish action still remaining sub-surface, followed by an absence of birds with fish on the bottom only, followed by that grinding to a halt and prompting us to look elsewhere for active birds on active fish.

For our efforts today, we landed one legal hybrid striped bass, two largemouth bass, approximately 30 freshwater drum, and the balance of our catch was made up of white bass in the one through three year class, ranging from 10 to 13 inches.

Fred paid me a very nice complement stating that he had learned more about fishing in this one afternoon on the water than he had over the course of his entire life.

Merry Christmas to all of you. I’ll be off the water tomorrow as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, and then back out after ‘em next week.

TALLY = 165 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 1:00p

End Time: 5:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Water Surface Temp: 57.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE12-14

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies not quite to the point of precipitation

Water Level: 0.33 feet above full pool

GT = 200

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1868 white bass by easing from a bottom-hugging school

**Area vic. 957 through 740 — 2.5 hours of solid fish action under birds using slabs via slow smoking and easing

**Area 1867 white bass by easing from a bottom-hugging school

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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This past Friday afternoon, December 23rd, I fished with Andres “Andy” Cota and Nick Quintana pursuing white bass and hybrid striper on Lake Belton.

From left: Nick Quintana and Andy Cota with a sampling of the just-legal hybrid we got into in 40 feet of water between 2-3pm under birds. We fished for suspended fish when the birds worked, and fish near bottom when they didn’t.

Both Andy and Nick are nearing the end of their one and only enlistment in the U.S. Army as infantrymen in the First Cavalry division. Nick and his wife, Amanda, are from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Andres and his wife, Christel, are from Arizona. As their time in the military draws to a close, both men hope to get on with the Copperas Cove Police Department. I first got to know both men through Memorial Baptist Church, where all of us worship together.

I chose the afternoon over the morning today because greater wind speed was forecast for the afternoon, and that did come to fruition. The entire day was overcast just to the point of drizzle with the ambient temperature hovering between 50 and 53°. A thin blanket of fog developed right around 11:30 AM and persisted through sunset.

Our first hour on the water was disrupted thanks to a fellow angler in need of a tow back to the boat ramp. As it turns out, the fellow flagging us down from across the water was a past client of mine, who also did an on the water sonar training with me some years ago. We actually got down to fishing by around 1:50 PM, and immediately got under actively working birds feeding on shad driven to the surface by white bass and hybrid stripers feeding on those shad from beneath. As we hovered over these fish in 40 feet of water, we put our first 46 fish in the boat over our first two hours of fishing while spot hopping just two or three times over a roughly 100 yards span to keep up with the birds.

After this action died down, and given that the heavy fog and clouds were obscuring the sun to a great extent, I chose to look shallower, figuring that the low light bite would take place earlier than normal this evening.

As we made our way to the next area I intended to try, we found yet another flock of gulls actively working fish, this time in 30 feet of water. We spot hopped twice over about a 1/8 mile span and, in the last hour, doubled our catch and then some. Fishing slabs equipped with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks, we boated fish after fish including white bass, hybrid striper, and freshwater drum, taking our tally up to 102 before the fish quit at dark.

As it turns out, Andy had never been in a motorized boat before, and neither had any significant prior fishing experience. I hope they did not go home spoiled!

TALLY = 102 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

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