WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Monday morning I fished with three generations of the Oliver family, including “Paw” (age 87), three of his sons (Joe, Jack, and Jamie), and two of Jamie’s sons, Isaac and Eli. The fishing is still lagging a bit over what I traditionally encounter this time of year, thanks to still-low water temperatures and weather that just will not stabilize. Nonetheless, we caught fish, and some nice ones at that, but didn’t just “tear ’em up” today. Since Joe was fishing up in the front of the boat with Paw, he helped Paw on occasion with checking baits, etc. At one point in the trip when Joe was focused on assisting his dad, Joe’s rod got a nice pulldown. Instinctively, Jamie took a half-step right, flicked the reel out of freespool, and came tight on a fish — which turned out to be a nice hybrid. Joe protested, and the rest of the boat (save Jamie) acknowledged that, indeed, no good deed goes unpunished. Below, the first photo shows Jamie with “Joe’s fish”!
Why is Jamie holding Joe’s fish? See the narrative above.
Jack, the trip coordinator for this adventure, with a nice Lake Belton hybrid striped bass taken on live threadfin shad.
The aforementioned issue aside, Joe did get a few hybrid on his own.
Isaac Oliver with his first hybrid.
Eli Oliver with his first hybrid.
The patriarch, “Paw” Oliver” with one of the last hybrid we pulled in this morning.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a hybrid striped bass trip in which we focused exclusively on fishing for hybrid striped bass with live shad.
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday morning, 17 April 2018
HOW WE FISHED: From start to finish this morning we fished 6 downlines with various sizes of gizzard and threadfin shad, just to see if the fish had any real preference. I noted that the largest gizzard shad got completely ignored. The 4-4.5″ shad took the best quality fish, and smaller shad caught both hybrid and other, smaller species like largemouth and white bass.
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. 3) Thanks to yet another stiff cold front with high winds this weekend, this morning’s low was 46F in mid-April.
TALLY: 24 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:15a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 46F
Water Surface Temp: 64.4 to 65F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE2-3 at trip’s start, quickly tapering up to SSE 13-14 by 9:30a and leveling of there
Sky Conditions: Cloudless blue skies with just a slight bit of white haze.
Water Level: 2.01 feet low and slowly falling
GT = 100
Wx SNAPSHOT: Yes, that’s about 47F for a starting temperature this morning, 16 April!
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area vic 1556 – moderate, steady action on hybrid using live bait
**Area vic 1209/1294 – slow, steady action on hybrid using live bait
**Area vic 1381/1384 – slow, steady action on hybrid using live bait
**Area B0075C – moderate, steady action on hybrid using live bait
Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
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