Fishin’ with the Benners — 85 Fish @ Lake Belton

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This past Wednesday morning, 11 April, I fished with the Benner family of Fort Mitchell, in northern Kentucky.  The Benner’s 3 kids were on spring break and they came down to visit family, Michael and Jane Apodaca, in Salado.  Aboard were Alex and Megan and their kids, Xander (age 9), Lilly (age 8), and Grace (age 5).  If you keep up with my posts, you’ll know I normally don’t advocate taking kids under the age of 8 or so until the summer months when more variety and “instant gratification”-style fishing is available.  Nonetheless, we gave it our best shot, taking what I’ve observed of the state of the fishery right now and putting the kids in situations that were the most engaging.  As watching the end of a livebait rod sit for long whiles (which can be the case even on good hybrid fishing days) is really not kid-friendly, we did just enough hybrid fishing to pull a few quick fish in, show the kids how to use the equipment, introduce them to the fine art of chumming, and then we moved on to “Phase II”.  Phase II involved waiting on the wind and some thin cloud cover to develop sufficient to turn on the white bass bite, then we found, fished for, and caught white bass after white bass until the only ones fishing were mom and dad.  We landed a grand total of 85 fish on this trip, and, kept even little Grace engaged for the majority of our 4 hours on the water.

 

Mom broke the ice with the first fish of the trip just minutes after getting our livebaits down among scattered, suspended hybrid stripers.

 

The white bass cooperated “big time” today.  From left: Lilly, Xander, Megan, Grace, and Alex.

 

 

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we fished for hybrid stripers early on with live bait, then switched over to fishing for white bass with artificials in the latter part of the trip.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday morning, 11 April 2018

HOW WE FISHED:   This morning we fished with live shad for hybrid stripers as a “primer” for the kids to see one method of fishing and all that goes with it.  When the novelty wore off, we quickly moved on to more engaging and more productive fishing, albeit for smaller fish, as we vertically jigged for white bass.  The white 3/8 oz. slab with the Hazy Eye Stinger hook worked its magic for over 2 hours straight and accounted for the vast majority of our 85 fish this morning.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES:   1) Once again, no spawning shad after seeing the first spawning activity last Monday, 02 April.  2) Hybrid activity has been spotty and unpredictable.

TALLY: 85 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED 

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 11:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 48F

Water Surface Temp:  62.9F

Wind Speed & Direction:   S7-12

Sky Conditions: <10% cloud cover

Water Level: 1.98 feet low

GT = 15

 

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area B0073C – 3 hybrid and 1 white bass on live shad

**Area B0066C – aggressive white bass action for 81 fish

 

 

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

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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