WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Friday evening, April 20th, I fished with Jerry Morgan, and his relatives, Mike and Charlotte Morgan. This crew fished with me once before in the warm months on Stillhouse in pursuit of white bass and largemouth bass. This evening’s focus was on hybrid striped bass. The tough conditions which impacted our fishing this morning moderated this afternoon in that the air warmed a bit, the wind throttled back to a manageable 13mph or so, and, most importantly, we got some cloud cover. As it turns out Jerry is neighbors with Jim Mason who fished with me on today’s morning trip. As our morning trip came to a close, Jim ribbed me a bit, letting me know how “nice” it would be if Jerry caught no more than 67 fish (so as not to exceed the 68 fish Jim’s party took in the morning).
Jerry Morgan of Morgan’s Point Resort with a very nice Lake Belton hybrid striped bass taken on live shad. Note the Atlanta Falcons shirt — Jerry is the proud papa of his son Chris, who is the offensive line coach of the Falcons.
Charlotte Morgan with one of many hybrid she took using good technique on getting her rod out of the rod holder without lifting the tip vertically.
Mike Morgan took his fair share of hybrid and then led the charge to exceed 68 fish as the white bass aggressively took our slabs during the final, low-light bite.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This trip was focused strictly on hybrid striped bass.
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Friday evening, 20 April 2018
HOW WE FISHED: After discussing our options at dockside, my crew was sure they wanted to pursue hybrid only this afternoon, and pass on opportunities for white bass. With this in mind, I hit an number of areas, got bait down, observed sonar for a response, and moved on if no response was forthcoming. We did not hit fish until our 4th stop, but, once we got those fish going, they stayed turned on right through sunset, allowing us a total of 75 fish landed. With local sunset (given cloud cover and terrain) around 8:00pm, we had 57 fish with about 40 minutes of fishing light left to go, and the vast majority of those fish were legal hybrids. Jerry kept the Mason/Ray party total of 68 in his mind, and, when a large school of white bass moved in and showed up on sonar around 7:30p, I shared the the only clear path to exceeding 68 fish would be to jig for those abundant white bass. Everybody was okay with the change of pace and did quite well at working their slabs vertically to the tune of another 18 fish to end our trip with a total of 75 fish landed for the evening.
OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 1) Thanks to more favorable afternoon weather, the afternoon catch exceeded the morning catch today, which is out of the ordinary. 2) As is often the case in this March-May hybrid fishery, the bite was bottom-oriented and worked up from very little initially presenting on sonar to a steady pick of fish with near constant, multiple sonar returns of a mixed bag of gamefish under the boat.
TALLY: 75 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:00p
End Time: 8:25p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 69F
Water Surface Temp: 65.7F
Wind Speed & Direction: ESE13-14
Sky Conditions: 30% cloud cover on blue skies
Water Level: 2.08 feet low and slowly falling
GT = 95
Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area vic B0075C – strong hybrid bite on live shad from ~5:40p through 7:30p, then white bass moved in and were easily taken on smoked slabs
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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