WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Friday morning I fished with the crew from Pride of Texas Irrigation & Landscaping from the north Austin area. With me was company owner, Justin Pride, trip coordinator and long-time client Rob Ramey, and a former co-worker of Justin’s and Rob’s, Brian Badour.
From left: Brian Badour, Rob Ramey, and Justin Pride. Rob’s fish measured 24.50 inches and was the largest fish of the trip this morning.
Rob Ramey with our second largest hybrid striper of the trip, a well-proportioned 23.50 inch fish.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: We targeted hybrid striped bass for 3.5 hours, then spent our last half-hour looking for white bass.
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Friday morning, 11 May 2018
HOW WE FISHED: We enjoyed the single longest run of hybrid fishing thus far this season with a full 3.5 hour-long bite taking place on top of one area. We used live shad of various sizes, as well as cutbait, to boat 111 fish by 10:30am when the bite finally died. Easily 75% of the fish we landed in this area were healthy, hard-pulling 3 to 4 year class fish, with a few older fish caught, as well. The incidental white bass we caught were all 2-year class fish. After the bite died at 10:30, we went searching for “jiggable” populations of deep white bass, and found only small pockets of fish, not the large shoals of fish I’d found a few time earlier in the week. The scattered fish and high winds put a damper on the white bass fishing, giving up only 3 fish as we closed out our trip and headed (on a wet ride!) back to the dock.
OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 1) No spawning shad at Areas SHAD 16 or SHAD 17 2) This was the longest-lasting hybrid bite of the season thus far. It lasted a full 3.5 hours.
TALLY: 114 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00a
End Time: 11:15a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 3F
Water Surface Temp: 71.6F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE12 at trip’s start, slowly tapering up to SSE17+ by trip’s end
Sky Conditions: Blue sky with 40% cloud cover
Water Level: 1.98 low and steady.
GT = 105
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area B0089C – 111 fish on live shad and cutbait in 3.5 hours of fishing, incl. 75% legal hybrid striped bass
**Area vic 717 – 3 white bass from a small, disinterested school in high wind conditions
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