This past Monday morning I fished with Kyle Mathes and his crew of four others on Lake Belton in pursuit of hybrid striped bass. This crew included his father, Mark Mathes, and three friends, Kyle Marable, Brian Fogle, and Cory Weiermann.
Mark Mathes took big fish honors with this 6 pound class hybrid.
Kyle was the camping trip organizer and did a great job getting all the reservations, fishing details, groceries, RV site etc. lined out.
Kyle Marable was evidently the only morning person in the whole crew, his comedic monologue kept everyone chuckling, even when they didn’t yet feel like talking.
Cody Weiermann, a plumber’s apprentice working for A-Z Plumbing in Harker Heights took a day off to join in on the hybrid fishing.
Brian Fogle stayed focused on the fishing the whole time and rarely took his eye off the rod.
Kyle and the gang made plans to camp all week at Westcliff Park but had to shuffle over to Live Oak Ridge Park instead due to the recent flooding.
This same flooding has really put the normal consistency of the hybrid striped bass bite experienced this time of year off a good bit. The areas in which these fish are typically found had been badly muddied up by the flooding. Now that the water has begun to clear, I still find no bait nor gamefish on the deeper, clearer areas normally loaded down with fish this time of year.
Evidently, the last two years of flooding in the springtime have mightily contributed to a strong presence of white bass in the lake. Without exception, white bass materializing while fishing live bait for hybrid has been an issue all during this 2017 season. Some of the normal tricks of the trade to fend these white bass off, including using large baits, and keeping them high up in the water column, often fail to ward off these smaller fish which, when caught on more stout hybrid tackle, are not all that fun to reel in.
We persisted today and gunned only for hybrid, and only with livebait, and were able to come up with hybrid striped bass at about a 1 to 6 ratio with the white bass.
By the time 12:15 PM rolled around, my crew had landed exactly 101 fish, they had a good idea of where they would need to fish for the rest of the week, some ideas about when and where to gather shad, and some realistic expectations about their hybrid catch versus their white bass catch.
TALLY = 101FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:20a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 60F
Water Surface Temp: 70.1F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE9-12
Sky Conditions: 10% cloud cover over a fair sky
Water Level: 3.94 feet above full pool and falling; 3900+ cfs release
GT = 40
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1643/1068 – mixed whites and hybrid
**Area 1923 – mixed whites and hybrid
**Area 1620/1757- mixed whites and hybrid
**Area1628- mixed whites and hybrid
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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