This past Monday morning I fished the 4th SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trip of the 2017 season with Eden and Warren Erp, accompanied by their mom, Katie Erp.

 

From left: Mrs. Katie Erp, and her two kids, Warren and Eden, enjoyed a SKIFF fishing trip while their dad, Andy, is involved in an Army field training exercise away from home.

 

Eden, who lost a second front tooth just the day before our trip, managed to land the trip’s one and only “triple” catching a fish on each of the 3 lures of our 3-armed umbrella rig all at the same time.

The kids’ dad, Andy Erp, a U.S. Army warrant officer working with the Army’s unmanned aircraft program, is currently away from home on a field training exercise (FTX).

I suspected we would begin our trip doing some downrigging, but, as I searched for fish with sonar, the very first signs of life I saw this morning came in the form of a nicely grouped school of white bass holding on a deep breakline dropping from 35 feet to over 50 feet.  Although there were fish holding off the face of this slope over deep water, the ones that got my attention were the ones holding right on bottom in around 38 feet of water.  Instead of using the downriggers, we began the trip dropping slabs down to these fish as we held over top of them in a hover using the Spot Lock function on the Minn Kota.

Both Warren and Eden were able to put three or four fish in the boat before this school moved on and we had to look for greener pastures.

We headed to the main basin of the reservoir and ran a pair of downriggers at 28 to 35 feet depending on depth and at what level the fish were holding. The Cannon ‘riggers I use are electronic, so, I was able to call out depths to the kids positioned on the ‘riggers and they worked the touchpads to manipulate the level of the weights so as to keep our baits just above the level of the fish.  We used 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons on the business end.

The kids routinely took singles and doubles as the took turns on the rods; Eden even managed a “triple” — 3 fish on one rod at the same time.  Whichever sibling wasn’t catching a fish was helping me raise the balls by pressing the “Auto Up” button on the Digi-Troll 10 ‘rigger and helping me get ready to drop the fishing line back in that much more quickly.

I kept a weather-eye out today as we had 30% chances of rain in the forecast and, as I awoke, I saw some storm activity up in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area slowly heading our way.  When these storms reached the Gatesville/North Fort Hood area, I moved us back in the vicinity of our launch site and we continued catching fish on the downriggers until it was no longer safe to stay out.

As a quick “bonus” the kids took turns on my long sunfish rods equipped with slip floats and were able to put a half-dozen bluegill sunfish in the boat that were holding in hydrilla near the shore where we’d launched.

We wrapped up about 40 minutes early and the kids camped out with their mom in the family car as we waited to see if the storms would pass, but, as it turned out, they kept up until around 2pm.  So, even with the trip shortened a bit, we still managed to land 34 fish.  With their dad facing a possible deployment at the start of the new school year, the kids were already talking about getting to go out again.  This is one of the intents of the SKIFF program — to bring something positive to an otherwise difficult time of separation for our military families.

A huge thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and all of the “allies” they’ve gathered along the way to provide funding, support, and encouragement for this program.

TALLY: 34 FISH, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp: 83.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: S7-8

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies in advance of some rain that moved in from the NNW

Water Level: 0.20 feet above full pool and falling; 200 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1951-992 – low light slabbing

**Area vic 039 – 1112 – downrigging

**Area vic 088 – 1439 – downrigging

**Area 456 – panfish on slipfloats

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

This past Saturday morning, June 17^th, I fished a Fathers’ Day trip with Mr. Robert Haisler of Temple, accompanied by his children, 10-year-old Cole Haisler and 9-year-old Hannah Haisler.  Robert’s lifelong friend, Charles Mikeska also joined us.  Robert’s wife, Tammi, coordinated everything for this Fathers’ Day outing, then remained at home with the family dog while husband and kids were fishing.

 

As is appropriate for a Fathers’ Day fishing trip, dad caught the triple!!

Cole took big fish honors by landing a bass which never even had a hook point come in contact with it — read on!

 

The fishing was a bit slower today than it was the rest of the week.  The fish just seemed a bit lethargic save for about a 45 minute window when the first rays of direct sun hit the water and the wind peaked all at the same time around 9am.  Other than during this time, fish rarely raced up off bottom to inspect the downrigger balls and rarely appeared in near-bottom schools in a feeding mode.  Additionally, although shad were certainly not in short supply, they were generally relaxed and blanketing the bottom and were not in tight “balls” as they are when being chased and threatened by gamefish.  Finally, there was next to no topwater action witnessed despite ideal siting conditions.

So, we had to work for each of the fish we boated this morning.  Fortunately, my crew consisted of all fast-learners who, after being shown how to set the downriggers once, were able to do this on their own so I could focus on reading sonar and maneuvering the boat.

Our first area fish yielded 13 fish in about 90 minutes.  We moved to our second, most productive area and it produced another 31 fish including quite a number of doubles.  As the direct sun got covered by clouds and the winds slacked off, the fishing in this area slacked off with it.

The trip’s highlight took place on this area as Cole began reeling in what started off as a double – two fish hooked on his 3-armed umbrella rig.  As he reeled it in, I was keeping an eye on him and his rod and saw the bend in the rod increase very suddenly as line began to peel off the spool against the drag.  I prepared the net, not knowing what we had.  As Cole continued to reel the big picture began to come into focus.  A 4 pound largemouth bass had engulfed one of the two yearling white bass he had hooked and, although the bass wasn’t hooked, the dorsal fins of the white bass were poking into the inside of the bass’ mouth such that the white bass couldn’t “back up”.  The end result was Cole landing both the white bass and the largemouth – a 4 pounder, which turned out to be the largest of the trip.

We moved to a third area, still in search of an elusive “triple” – 3 fish caught at the same time on a 3-armed umbrella rig.  After about 20 minutes on this area, covering an ellipse of about 110 yards in length, it finally happened – Robert’s rod went off and bent well down into the butt section as he connected with a trio of 10-inchers.  The running joke was that whoever got the first triple got the privilege of buying the rest of the crew lunch, so, naturally, the kids were rejoicing when the triple came in.  Their enthusiasm was quenched when dad informed them that the lunch venue happened to have the same address as their own home.

We fished a fourth area during which time the morning bite died to nil and we called it a day.

We ended the morning with 54 fish.

TALLY: 54 FISH, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp: 82.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW5-6, spiking briefly to SSW13 around 9am, then slacking off again

Sky Conditions: Fair skies with 20% cloud cover.

Water Level: 0.40 feet above full pool and falling; 400 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1112-041 slow downrigging

**Area 1741-1950 – best bite of the morning with bright skies and peaking winds at 13mph; tried smoking with little success

**Area 428-349 average downrigging

**Area 190-1301 average downrigging; tried smoking with little success

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

This morning, Friday, June 16^th, I fished with Mr. Mike Russell and his 6-year-old son, Cole, on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.

Mike hoists our largest fish of the trip — a largemouth taken in 41 feet of water.  This fish was likely stalking the yearling white bass that we found spread across the bottom and caught on downrigging gear.

Summer time is for father and son time.

 

Mike makes his living as an attorney in Temple, and Cole is a newly minted Kindergarten graduate.

With this week’s very consistent weather came some very predictable, consistent fishing – just right for when young anglers like Cole are aboard.

We began our day making two “listening stops” both looking and listening for topwater action which is due to start in the mornings on Stillhouse any time now.  None was to be found this morning, however, so, we took to deep water and began presenting young-of-the-year shad imitations to gamefish (both white bass and largemouth bass) holding right near bottom in 30 to 42 feet of water by using downriggers.

Using two rods, each equipped with a 3-armed umbrella rig (not to be confused with an Alabama rig), we presented  6 baits at all times and regularly caught singles and doubles (no triples today), taking our tally up to 21 fish.

Around 8:30am we encountered a large, bottom-hugging school of white bass which just begged to be jigged for.  I got the Ulterra in the water, turned on Spot Lock and we hovered over these fish for about a half hour, regularly catching white bass using a smoking tactic rigged up with ¾ oz. white slabs retrofitted with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks.  We took our tally up to 36 on these slabs.

Around 9:00am I felt Cole could use a bit of a transition to help keep him engaged, so, instead of returning to downrigging right away (which certainly would have still produced fish), we headed shallow to fish for sunfish with bait and slipfloats.  This was also intended to give Mike an idea of what he could do to make Cole successful and keep him engaged while fishing from the shore.  Father and son landed exactly 20 panfish in one stop, including bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, green sunfish, and blacktail shiners.

By 9:45am our panfishing was playing out given how many fish we’d already taken from this one area, so, we moved to another area and wrapped up the trip with yet another round of downrigging.  The downrigging immediately began to produce doubles, which led me to sample the area to see if the fish were able to be lured in under the boat with the thumper, consolidated, and smoked for .  Well, they were!  We took our tally from 56 fish up to 78 in the closing half-hour of the trip catching fish very consistently on slabs using the smoking tactic.

 

TALLY: 78 FISH, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp: 81.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW8-10

Sky Conditions: Fair skies with 20% cloud cover.

Water Level: 0.50 feet above full pool and falling; 400 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1128 thru 1112   – white bass and largemouth on downriggers with smoking tactic used when large congregation of whites seen on bottom @ vic 1112

**Area 1098 – sunfish on slipfloats

**Area 1741 thru 1364 thru 1537 thru 1950

 

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

This morning, June 13^th, I fished with Mr. Joe Ybanez of Harker Heights, TX, and his 7-year-old daughter, Claire.  Joe’s wife presented him with a fishing gift certificate over the holidays, and Joe decided to cash it in today before heading to Fort Drum for their next military assignment.

 

When clouds kept a good sunrise topwater bite from forming, we headed deep and found cooperative white bass ready to pursue our downrigged baits.

 

As we downrigged, occasional small packs of largemouth would break the surface as they popped shad.  When they got too close, we got ’em on grubs and jigheads.

 

We met at 6:15a on Stillhouse Hollow and fished for four hours.  We began the morning looking for topwater action but, as was the case yesterday, heavy clouds obscured the sunrise and kept any topwater action suppressed.

We next checked out the deep water bite with downriggers and found loosely schooled white bass in 35-42 feet of water ready to bite.  We worked these fish for about 1.75 hours, regularly taking singles and doubles of white bass, with a few largemouth sprinkled in, too.  During a few sunny stretches allowed for by breaks in the clouds, largemouth would begin chasing shad at the surface.  This allowed up to pick off a few schoolie-sized largemouth on grubs and jigheads before the wind and more clouds once again shut that bite down.

After the downrigging at this first place we searched died down, Claire was ready for a change of pace.   I searched just one area looking for white bass we could jig for, and, finding none there, we devoted the remainder of our time to catching sunfish in shallow water at two locations.

The sunfish cooperated well this morning, allowing us a variety of species (bluegill, longear, redear) and a variety of sizes.

We landed a total of 51 fish for our efforts this morning.

TALLY: 51 FISH, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 81.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8-10

Sky Conditions: Fair skies with 60% cloud cover.

Water Level: 0.80 feet above full pool and falling; 400 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 853 thru 039  – white bass and largemouth on downriggers with occasional shots at topwater fish chasing shad

**Areas 200 and 1948 – sunfish on slipfloats

 

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

This morning, June 12^th, I conducted a Fort Hood SKIESUnlimited program trip for Charley and Addison Elgin.

 

 

Addison Elgin of Fort Hood landed half of the 48 fish she and her brother boated this morning, including a mix of white bass, largemouth bass, and sunfish.

Charlie landed several largemouth today and prided himself in carefully removing the hook from as many as he was able to on his own.

A “double-double!! Four fish on two rods, all at the same time.

We met at 6:15 on Stillhouse Hollow and fished for four hours.  We began looking for topwater action but, thanks to a heavy cloudbank in the east, no direct sun hit the water at anywhere near the normal time of sunrise, thus the topwater did not develop.

We moved off into deeper water and began probing with sonar and downriggers and immediately got into fish.  We landed singles, doubles, and even a “double-double” (both kids landing two fish at a time simultaneously – see photo) using tandem rigs equipped with Pet Spoons.

Every so often I would see a school of fish tightly grouped on bottom.  Such fish are “ripe for picking” using a smoking tactic now that the water is warm.  I would have the kids bring in the downrigging gear, then I’d stop the boat, put us in a hover over the fish, and have the kids drop ¾ oz. slab retrofitted with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks down to them.  We’d then work these baits for these fish as long as the fish stayed interested.

This combination of downrigging and jigging allow us 33 fish boated through mid-morning up until a bank of heavy grey clouds moved directly over us, thus obscuring the sun.  When this happened, the fishing fell off quickly, and from that point on we were only able to scratch up one more white bass and two small largemouth on the downriggers.

With about 30 minutes left before the kids’ mom was due to pick them up, we transitioned over to fishing with poles and slip-floats for sunfish in shallow water.  The kids got the hang of this very quickly, including the correct hooksetting technique, and put a final 12 fish in the boat before we called it a good morning.

We landed a total of 48 fish for our efforts.

IF YOU ARE A MILITARY PARENT INTERESTED IN ARRANGING A TRIP FOR YOUR OWN CHILD:

To participate in such courses, children must first be registered with Child and Youth Services (CYS).  Registration is free and is accomplished by contacting Parent Central Services at 254.287.8029.

Once registered, parents may go online to enroll their children for the myriad courses available.  Payment must be made for courses in advance.

Military families separated from their sponsor may be eligible for deployment benefits in the form of SKIESUnlimited course credits.  Mission Level 1 credits may amount to $300 per child and Mission Level 2 credits may amount to $150 per child.  Parent Central Services can help parents understand which applies to their situation.

TALLY: 48 FISH, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 81.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8-10

Sky Conditions: Fair skies with 40% cloud cover, increasing to 60% cover

Water Level: 0.85 feet above full pool and falling; 400 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1128 thru 039 thru 1120 – 33 whites on a combo of downrigging and smoking

**Area 986 – downrigged for 2 largemouth

**Area 667 – 13 sunfish

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

This past Saturday morning, June 10th, I fished with Mrs. Joanne Rich’s two boys, Omari and Jayden. Mrs. Rich signed the boys up for this fishing trip through the Fort Hood SKIESUnlimited program, and also joined us as a chaperone.

 

Omari landed the first fish of our trip, and the first fish of his life, just minutes after we arrived at our first stop of the morning.  This fish earned Omari a TPWD “First Fish Award”.

After catching his first fish (a white bass) by casting to surfacing fish in shallow water, Jayden later landed this larger white bass using downrigging gear in 28′.  Mom looks a bit unsure about this whole fishing thing.

For the second day in a row, the early morning topwater bite was both light and brief thanks in part to choppy water created by a southeasterly wind. I have to think this chop makes it that much more difficult for the white bass to see and pin the young of the year shad up against the surface.

Regardless, both boys landed the first fish of their lives as we cast to what few surface feeders showed themselves. Omari’s first fish was a largemouth bass, and Jayden’s first fish was a white bass.

After the topwater bite died by 7 AM, we made use of downriggers for an additional hour, slowly but steadily picking up more white bass mostly one at a time, but with a pair of doubles thrown in for good measure.

After the action died on downrigging, we changed up and pursued sunfish in shallow water. We visited five areas, two of which produced well, allowing the boys to catch a variety of sunfish species.

With about 30 minutes left in the trip, I quickly looked over three distinct areas attempting to locate some blue catfish to fish slip floats over, but, thanks to the winds approaching 14 to 15 mph, the deeper, more open water I had hoped to fish was not a good choice for novice anglers attempting to observe light bites on a slip float.

We ended up the day with exactly 26 fish landed, and two “first fish” awards earned by the boys for their efforts.

IF YOU ARE A MILITARY PARENT INTERESTED IN ARRANGING A TRIP FOR YOUR OWN CHILD:

To participate in such courses, children must first be registered with Child and Youth Services (CYS).  Registration is free and is accomplished by contacting Parent Central Services at 254.287.8029.

Once registered, parents may go online to enroll their children for the myriad courses available.  Payment must be made for courses in advance.

Military families separated from their sponsor may be eligible for deployment benefits in the form of SKIESUnlimited course credits.  Mission Level 1 credits may amount to $300 per child and Mission Level 2 credits may amount to $150 per child.  Parent Central Services can help parents understand which applies to their situation.

 

TALLY: 26 FISH, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp: 80.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: SE

Sky Conditions: Fair skies with 40% cloud cover

Water Level: 0.46 feet above full pool and falling; 1,589 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1746 – light topwater white bass action

**Area 488 thru 1923 – downrigging for whites at mid-morning

**Area 492, 1583,1794 – sunfish up shallow

 

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

This past Friday morning, June 9th, I conducted a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip on Belton Lake with Ember and Ever Glass. Accompanying the girls as chaperones were their grandfather, Joe Glass, and the girls’ father, Michael Glass, of the DFW area.

 

Ember saved the best for last, landing this 4 pound blue catfish just as we were about to wrap up our morning excursion.

 

Both girls handled the downrigger rods well, thus, white bass made up the majority of our catch this morning.

 

Ember and Ever did equally well on sunfish caught out of shallow cover this morning.  Here, Ember shows the largest sunfish we caught, a nice redear that came off a mix of brush and rocks.

My “Kids Fish, Too!” trips are less expensive, and shorter duration trips targeted towards elementary aged kids. These trips focus on quantity over quality in order to keep up with these younger kids’ short attention spans.

Today we divided the trip into four parts that played out over the span of about four hours. The first part of our trip we spent searching for white bass aggressively forcing young of the year shad to the surface and creating a commotion on the surface thus letting us know right where the fish were and where to cast to. The girls each caught one fish in the very weak, and short-lived, surface action found today under windy conditions and dark early-morning skies.

The second part of our trip involved downrigging for white bass that had pushed down further in the water column and also further offshore after the initial topwater feed was over.

The third part of our trip involved fishing for sunfish in shallow cover using poles equipped with slip floats.

The final part of our trip involved using slip floats in deep water and using fresh, dead shad as bait for small blue catfish.

All of these approaches contributed to our final take of 48 fish. The largest fish of the trip was the last one landed. Ember brought in a 4 pound blue catfish on medium action spinning gear. She brought this fish up from out of 40 feet of water and did a very good job of it.

TALLY: 48 FISH, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp: 80.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: SE

Sky Conditions: Fully grey skies all morning with the lightest of occasional precip. falling in the last hour

Water Level: 0.50 feet above full pool and falling; 1,589 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 5

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1641 & 562 – light topwater white bass action

**Area 794 thru 1792 – downrigging for whites at mid-morning

**Area 1583 – sunfish up shallow

**Area vic 150 – blue cat on fresh, dead shad under slip-floats

 

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

This past Thursday morning, June 8th, I fished with Mike Mansell, his son Peyton, and Denver Holman, a friend of the family. My intention was to introduce the three to a number of effective summertime tactics for Belton and Stillhouse.

 

 

Graduating Belton High School quarterback Peyton Mansell with one of several nice hybrid he landed before heading off to play football as an Iowa Hawkeye.

Mike Mansell, a West Pointer and Army dentist, with his best hybrid of the trip.

Family friend Denver Holman chipped in with a few white bass, hybrid, and catfish of his own.

 
Mike is a dentist in the U.S. Army and, as our conversation later revealed, a fellow West Point graduate. Peyton is headed to college to play football as an Iowa Hawkeye. Denver is the younger brother of Peyton’s girlfriend, who is on an athletic scholarship at Abilene Christian University.

As was the case yesterday, we experienced a solid topwater feed by white bass up until the sun began to shine directly on the water around 7:10 AM. By the time the fish quit hitting our paddletail grubs, my threesome had landed over 30 fish.

We remained in this general vicinity, moved out a bit deeper, and continued to take fish using tandem rigged Pet Spoons behind downriggers.

When the early, shallow bite dried up, we moved out to deeper water to hunt hybrid with livebait and to specifically target blue catfish using fresh, dead shad.

Sonar revealed hybrid striper slightly up off bottom in around 40 feet of water, so we put live threadfin shad down to tempt them and, over about an hour’s time landed 13 legal hybrid plus a number of white bass in addition to a few blue cat.

Once sonar revealed that the hybrid had moved out and that the blue cat had moved in, we switched over to fishing slip floats to present fresh, dead shad at depth to tempt them. Although most of the blue cat were small, they were more than cooperative, and very engaging. By 10 AM we had landed right at 80 fish. With about 30 minutes remaining in our trip, I offered that we could try one last area for hybrid once again and everyone was agreeable to that.

As I searched for hybrid, I found heavily congregated white bass s lying belly-to-bottom over a 15 yard area in about 42 feet of water. This scenario is just right for summertime “smoking” tactics using slabs. We quickly got set up over top of these fish using my Ulterra trolling motor’s Spot Lock function. This smoking tactic accounted for a quick, final 13 white bass. We were also able to boat one more legal hybrid using a chunk bait on the opposite side of the boat from that which the three were jigging from.

We ended our morning with 94 fish boated including 14 legal hybrid stripers.

 

TALLY: 94 FISH, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp: 80.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: ESE

Sky Conditions: Fair skies with light haze and 10% wispy white cloud cover

Water Level: 0.53 feet above full pool and falling; 1,589 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 794 thru 024 – topwater whites on grubs

**Area 1748 & 133 – downrigging tandem rigged Pets for whites

**Area 152 – hybrid on live shad; bluecat on fresh, dead shad

**Area vic 344 – whites on smoked slabs; one hybrid on chunk bait

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

This past Wednesday evening, June 7th, I fished with John Leavy, his teenage son, Connor, and John’s stepfather, Mike Marcel, who is visiting Texas for a week from New York City.

 

Connor Leavy shows our largest white bass of the trip.  This fish exceeded 13″.  His grandfather, Mike Marcel, who was visiting from New York City, looks on.

 

As is typical of Belton during the summer, our first two hours from 4:30 to 6:30 PM were quite tough, giving up only 12 fish.

We used a combination of livebait (which got us nothing this afternoon), cutbait targeting blue catfish on slip corks, and downrigging with tandem rigged Pet Spoons for white bass.

Despite a slow start, we had a pretty good conclusion, putting 18 white bass the boat in our closing 25 minutes as some very light twilight schooling took place under calming wind conditions.

We closed out the trip with 30 fish landed for our efforts this evening.

 

TALLY: 30 FISH, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 9:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 87F

Water Surface Temp: 80.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: NW4

Sky Conditions: Cloudless, fair skies all afternoon

Water Level: 0.56 feet above full pool and falling; 1,589 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1404-1604 downrigging for sparse white bass

**Area 1800 downrigging for sparse white bass

**Area 1000 downrigging for sparse white bass

****Area 1664 & 437 downrigging followed by surface action ’til dark

 

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

This past Wednesday morning, June 8th, I fished with Mr. Phil Moore of Killeen, and his two brothers-in-law, David Norwood of Colorado, and Garvon Golden from the Dakotas. This trip was in celebration of Phil’s 70th birthday.

Phil Moore, the birthday boy, with one of the 18 keeper hybrid we landed today after a nice topwater blitz by white bass and largemouth right at first light.

David Norwood of Colorado with one of the hybrid we took from 40′ on live shad.

Former Lake Belton white bass C&R record holder Garvon Golden with a hard-pulling hybrid he landed.
I have been off the water for 10 days on a fishing vacation to Flaming Gorge Reservoir. So, today I was a bit unsure of what I would find, but, thanks to help from a network of fishing friends, I had some pretty reasonable expectations as to where fish would be, and what mood they would be in.

We met up at 6:10 AM, and by 6:25 AM had all three guests hooked into white bass which were forcing young of the year shad to the surface and gorging on them. The “nervous water” that they created as they fed was a giveaway so long as your eyes could pick up on this clue. We moved to three or four different schools of fish all within about 1/4 mile stretch of lake making as many casts to each school as we could before the fish sounded, thus forcing us to move on to another school. Our lure of choice for this was a paddle tail grub chosen to simulate the size and color of these small young of the year shad.  “Schoolie” sized largemouth bass were mixed in with these white bass.

For more details on fishing this grub, see my article from this past Sunday’s Killeen Daily Herald: http://kdhnews.com/sports/fishing/bob-maindelle-paddle-tail-grubs-work-wonders-on-topwater/article_5bed357a-48e9-11e7-bec7-4bca38980d36.html

When it was obvious that the rising, direct sun had put these white bass down for keeps, we moved into phase 2 of the trip which was the pursuit of hybrid striped bass using live shad in deep, open water.

I looked at and fished four distinct areas this morning, and all of them had white bass, hybrid striper, and blue catfish holding on them. This time of year large schools of small blue catfish are a huge concern while bait fishing. These small catfish have very small mouths, and will attack a bait, kill it, and then begin nibbling on it from the tail end forward, rarely getting hooked, but regularly causing the rod tip to bobble up-and-down. Once the blue catfish move in, I just leave instead of dealing with the frustration that these blue cat cause.

Fishing these four areas with livebait allowed for three hybrid to be caught at our first stop before blue cat showed up, a handful of white bass to be caught at our second stop before blue catfish showed up, one hybrid to be caught before blue catfish showed up at our third stop, and, finally, at the final stop we would make, we got hybrid to respond in good numbers before the blue cat showed up. At this final stop we were able to put 14 legal hybrid in the boat in addition to several white bass, and then, finally, blue catfish towards the end of our trip at around 10:50 AM.

For our efforts today, we landed 79 fish including 18 legal hybrid striped bass, two freshwater drum, and a mix of blue cat, white bass, and largemouth bass.

TALLY: 79 FISH, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 79F

Wind Speed & Direction: WNW8

Sky Conditions: Cloudless, fair skies all morning

Water Level: 0.57 feet above full pool and falling; 1,589 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1641-794 – throwing grubs to topwater whites and largemouth until sun hit water

**Area 1947 – 3 hybrid until bluecat moved in

**Area 152 – nice steady catch of 14 hybrid over a 90+ minute span

 

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