Lucky 13! Season’s 13th SKIFF Trip Yields 62 Fish for Copperas Cove Kids

by Bob Maindelle

This past Friday morning, July 28th, I fished the 13th SKIFF trip of the 2017 season welcoming Nicole Bretz and her three children aboard. Fishing today with me was five-year-old Logan, seven-year-old Adyson, and eight-year-old Jayden.

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Jayden broke the ice with our first fish of the morning, one of many plump, 13+ inch-long white bass we landed on the downriggers this morning.

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From left, Natalie (“Mom”) Bretz, Logan, and Adyson.

Nicole’s husband, Norman, is currently deployed to Kuwait. Staff Sergeant Bretz has 11 years of service in the US Army as a scout.

We fished in two very different ways this morning. First, we downrigged for white bass as long as they held up and the kids’ attention spans lasted, then we headed up shallow to fish for sunfish.

The white bass fishing yielded 18 fish including quite a number of doubles, and the sunfishing, which was really on today, produced over 40 fish for us include including bluegill, longear sunfish, green sunfish, and blacktail shiners.

Little Logan ran out of steam in the middle part of our trip, but got a second wind just about the time we were going to wrap up, and landed a nice sunfish, capping off our day with exactly 62 fish.

“Homefront” spouses with a husband or wife away from home on military duty (not just deployments) are welcomed to call me at 254.368.7411 to arrange for free 4-hour outing for your children.  Homefront parents are always welcome to attend, but are equally welcome to take some downtime from their own children and leave them in my care for this time on the water.  This is all made possibly through the work of the Austin Fly Fishers and the supportive allies they have developed along the way.

TALLY: 62 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15am

End Time: 10:00am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Water Surface Temp: 86.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: SW breeze 8-9mph the entire trip

Sky Conditions: ~30% cloud cover

Water Level: 0.05 feet high and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

28JUL17

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 484 to 1968 — downrigging and smoking

**Area 668 to 1970 — downrigging and smoking

**Area 1098 – 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

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