Fishing for Answers — 37 Fish, Lake Belton, 05 May ’17

This past Friday after noon, May 5th, I fished with Clay Lohse who drove four hours from Abilene to do an instructional trip on Lake Belton in order to help him in his own efforts on Fort Phantom Reservoir, his “home” lake.

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Clay Lohse drove from Abilene for answers to some very specific questions he had about the pursuit of white bass, hybrid stripers, the use of sonar, the use of downriggers, and more.

 
Clay is an ER nurse and is progressing towards nurse practitioner status. He came prepared with 11 very specific questions that he wanted to be sure to cover with me during our time on the water. He emphasized that he was not so much interested in catching a lot of fish, but rather was interested in learning about my approaches to catching fish through the seasons of the year.

With this in mind, I tried to demonstrate for him as much as this season and today’s weather and fish behavior would allow for.

I started out by responding to his questions about sonar use, and then provided a live demo as we searched for, found, and successfully caught heavily congregated, deep water white bass holding in 42 feet of water on bottom.

Next, knowing these fish were present, I demonstrated two different downrigging tactics. The first was the “wrecking ball” tactic I wrote of in my recent In-Fisherman magazine article. The second involved the use of Pet Spoons used on a tandem rig to catch white bass. This resulted in two singles and two doubles caught in just a matter of minutes.

Next, we moved to a less steeply sloped and shallower area where I was able to demonstrate the use of blade baits. Clay successfully put a small white bass in the boat using this tactic.

Next, we went to the back of a shallow cove where I demonstrated the use of a pole and slip float combination targeting sunfish.  This was mainly because he mentioned he has a 3-year-old, and I knew this would be helpful as Clay introduced his child to fishing.

We wrapped up the trip this evening fishing live shad on tightlines and boated numerous white bass and hybrid striped bass using this tactic.

As a bonus, Clay and I were able to take advantage of subsurface feeding white bass we found driving shad to the surface on our ride back into the boat ramp.

For our efforts, we landed a total of 37 fish this evening, and Clay went away a very satisfied, and much more well-prepared angler.

Here is the first sentence of an email Clay sent me after fishing on Fort Phantom:  “Hey Bob, wanted to let you know I did awesome at Fort Phantom thanks to the techniques you taught me!” 

It is very gratifying to get a note like that from someone I’ve provided instruction to.

 

TOTAL = 37 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time: 8:20p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Water Surface Temp: 76F

Wind Speed & Direction: NNE7

Sky Conditions: Clear

Water Level: 0.67 feet above full pool and falling; 1592 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 40

Wx SNAPSHOT:

05MAY16

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 308/508 easing for deep white bass & downrigger demo

**Area 818 bladebait demo

**Area 1754 sunfish demo

**Area 1935 sunset hybrid on shad

**Area 1938 post-sunset topwater whites fished subsurface

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

 

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