This past Friday evening, May 19th, I fished with Jeff Atchison of Killeen, his dad, Ricky, and Jeff’s son, Logan. With their own boat, these fellows normally pursue catfish on either Inks or Buchanan, but wanted to sample some variety closer to home.
Jeff Atchison with a nice 4 pound class hybrid — one of several we landed before the winds ramped up too high to stay on ’em.
Ricky came up with a nice surprise as we were working slabs for white bass. As you might imagine, a hybrid like this landed on spinning gear intended for white bass “took a little doing”.
Look at that grin! Logan was really focused in his fishing and did very well at all of the techniques we used this evening.
Jeff and I spoke briefly at this past January’s Central Texas Boat Show after he heard my presentation about the use and interpretation of marine electronics. Jeff is a Killeen native and owns Budget Used Car Sales in Killeen, which he bought from his father. Jeff and his dad do some ranching, as well, raising livestock and coastal grass on acreage south of town.
Jeff, Ricky, and Logan were all up for using a variety of tactics for a variety of species, so, given that the wind forecast showed our winds to be lightest at the beginning of the trip, I hit open water early on in an attempt to catch hybrid striped bass using live shad.
This worked out well, as we were able to land six hybrid in right at 45 minutes before the wind ramped up to the point where our baits were being jerked up and down very unnaturally and we decided to close out this chapter of the trip pretty quickly.
Next, I introduced the fellows to downrigging. We found scattered, suspended white bass holding consistently at 24 to 25 feet beneath the surface and so we ran Pet Spoons rigged on tandem rigs on a pair of downriggers and wound up catching a double followed by a single in short order.
Next, I endeavored to find deep, heavily schooled white bass so I could show these fellows how to use a smoking tactic with slabs. Unfortunately, the fish had other ideas. Most of the white bass we found were scattered and suspended. As I was studying sonar intently, Jeff noticed a school of white bass feeding nearby on the surface in open, deep water. We worked it so I stayed on the front deck working the trolling motor to keep us within casting distance, and all three fellows cast off of one side of the boat to avoid tangles and to avoid anyone getting hooked.
We quickly took our fish count up to 39 fish and no time as we caught a variety of sizes of both white bass `and largemouth bass. Between the time this schooling action ended and the time the sunset white bass bite began, we tried the smoking tactic on at least three other groups of fish, but they simply did not respond well as they were very transient and were not heavily grouped on the bottom to begin with, which is really a prerequisite for success using this tactic.
The last thing we did this evening was cast paddle tail grubs on quarter ounce jig heads to white bass feeding just subsurface as they pushed shad upwards and shorewards. Once again, just as was the case this past Saturday, we had these fish all to ourselves which is a bonus anytime fishing around the weekend on Belton in the warm months.
We closed out our trip with 95 fish landed.
TOTAL = 95 FISH, all caught and released
Wx SNAPSHOT:
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:30p
End Time: 8:30p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 88F
Water Surface Temp: 72.9
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE15-16 the entire trip
Sky Conditions: 50% cloud cover the entire trip
Water Level: 0.81 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam
GT = 55
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1269 – all hybrid on live shad
**Area 1940 – downrigger demo for suspended whites
**Area 1943 and out to the channel for surface feeding whites
**Area 1625 – aggressive low-light action on subsurface whites
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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