MAY 2008 SUMMARY






MAY 2008 SUMMARY

30 MAY = 51 FISH

27 MAY = 70 FISH

26 MAY = 84 FISH

24 MAY = 62 FISH

22 MAY (PM Trip) = 91 FISH

22 MAY (AM Trip) = 90 FISH

20 MAY = 69 FISH

19 MAY = 29 FISH

17 MAY = 80 FISH

15 MAY = 151 FISH

13 MAY = 43 FISH

12 MAY = 51 FISH

09 MAY (PM TRIP)= 124 FISH

09 MAY (AM TRIP)= 60 FISH

03 MAY = 71 FISH

02 MAY = 104 FISH

TOTAL CATCH FOR MAY 2008 = 1,230 FISH

AVERAGE CATCH PER TRIP = 76.8 FISH

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








30 MAY 2008






Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a half-day morning trip with Keith W. of Belton and Lance B. of Pflugerville.

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:10a

End Time: 1:50p

Air Temp: 69F pre-dawn climbing to 89 by trip’s end

Water Temp: 78.4F

Wind: SSE at 12-15

Skies: Bright and partly cloudy

We began the day with a tank full of shad intended for hybrid fishing later in the morning and headed out to look for surface feeding white bass prior to sunrise. What had been a fairly consistent bite never materialized this morning despite decent conditions. While hovering in the vicinity of Area 178 we did pick up a single white off bottom on a slab and a smallmouth on a topwater hardbait.

After this we spot-hopped adding 4 more fish to the tally here and there until finally getting into a fair concentration of fish between Areas 154 & 155. Here we caught a mix of white bass and short hybrids all on slabs. The fish here seemed to be patrolling back and forth along the 28-32 foot breakline. Always before schools of fish appeared, schools of shad preceded them. We used primarily a smoking retrieve to boat 13 fish in this locale.

We did a little more spot hopping and struck out a 2 areas before locating fish once again in Area 188. We found a mix of largemouth bass and decent white bass in this area, as well as a stray channel cat. Most were suspended but rather inactive given that positioning in the water column. We used a smoking technique to catch as many as we could until they began to ignore that presentation, and then switched over to live shad and continued to catch fish up until around 11:15a. We rolled the dice and decided to leave fish to find (hopefully) bigger fish in the form of hybrids, and departed this area with the tally standing at 46 fish.

We tried Areas 151 and 152 and the general vicinity around them for hybrid but didn’t see much in the way of bait or fish here and departed. We made our final stop in the vicinity of Areas 98 to 187 and finally did get into a few hybrid tight to bottom in 41-45 feet of water. We caught a total of 5 fish, 3 of which were keepers with the largest going 4.5 pounds.

After a brief lesson on downrigging at Lance’s request, we wrapped up the day. The tally stood at 51 fish, and every last one of those was worked for. Kind of a tough but rewarding day.

TALLY= 51 FISH, all caught and released.

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








27 MAY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle


Fished just 2 1/4 hours this morning to see if the topwater bite of Memorial Day was solid or just an anomaly.

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:00a to 8:15a

Air temp: 72F at launch time

Water surface temp: 80.1F

Wind: SSE at 11-13

Skies: Low, thick clouds for the duration of the trip, dissipating by 9:30a

Fished only one area this morning and did well. Again located fish in rather shallow water between Areas 555 and 38. At exactly 6:35a the whites began to feed on top in small packs throughout this area. Schools of black bass also joined in a few minutes later and the action was very fast and furious until 7:15. Due to the heavy chop on the water, a subsurface presentation did much better than a topwater presentation, with 62 fish landed on a blade bait by the time the action left the surface. I stayed until 8:15 and added 8 short largemouth to the tally on a popping cork before leaving for good. The popping cork was used as the bass were a little closer to shore than the whites, and thus were in a bit of a lee from the wind as compared to the whites located out in more open water.

TALLY = 70 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








26 MAY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle


Fished just 3 1/2 hours this Memorial Day morning to get in some catching before the recreational crowd whipped the surface to a froth.

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:00a to 9:30a

Air temp: 71F at launch time

Water surface temp: 79.5F

Wind: SE at 13 and slowly tapering up to SE at 17 by noon.

Skies: Partly cloudy conditions the entire trip; fairly humid

Fished only two areas this morning and did well at both. First stop came in rather shallow water between Areas 555 and 38. At exactly 6:24a the whites began to feed on top in small packs throughout this area. Schools of black bass also joined in a few minutes later and the action was very fast and furious for about 50 minutes. Due to the heavy chop on the water, a subsurface presentation did much better than a topwater presentation, with 55 fish landed on a blade bait by the time the action died at exactly 7:11am. I stayed in the area until about 8:15 and added 10 mostly short largemouth to the tally before leaving for good.

After this action died, I headed to Area 177 and fished the top of the breakline there and managed a mixed bag of 19 fish over the next hour and fifteen minutes. These fish all came on a ¼ oz. slab fished lift-drop style and were moderately active. The catch here consisted of 4 solid drum, all right at the 2 pound mark, 6 keeper largemouth, 1 sunfish, and 9 white bass of mixed sizes. By 9:30 this action slowed to a crawl as the skies brightened and the boat traffic began to increase. Called it quits at that point with 84 fish landed. I patrolled to the east along the breakline and found fish and shad showing for about 80 yards. Some bass fisherman were working up shallower but in the vicinity and I didn’t want to crowd them, so I just left those fish alone.

TALLY = 84 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








24 MAY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle


Fished a brief 2 ½ hour trip this evening to stay in touch with the fishing on Stillhouse now that the water is rapidly warming up.

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:00p to 8:35p

Air temp: 91F at launch time

Water surface temp: 79.5F

Wind: SE at 15 and slowly tapering to SE at 8 by sunset

Skies: Partly cloudy conditions the entire trip; quite humid

Fished 3 areas tonight and caught fish at all 3.

First stop was at Area 176. There was not much showing on sonar here, but there was a number of single fish and bait holding suspended over top of this area. I dropped a slab down and began working it and managed to smoke a small white bass and a barely keeper largemouth. No real evidence of a congregation of fish appeared here after spending several minutes, so I continued the search.

Headed to Area 186. Found just 3-4 fish arches on bottom on sonar here, but they were grouped together and were right on the breakline. I dropped a slab down and began using an easing technique, with an occasional opportunity for smoking presenting itself, as well. Caught one fish after another here for the next hour, putting 53 fish in the boat. This catch broke down to 3 drum (each ~2 pounds), 4 largemouth (all solid and right at 16 inches), and 48 white bass, of which all but 2 were keepers, with 2 of these going 15+ inches. At 7:50p this fishery shut down hard and suddenly.

I then headed shallow to Area 159 and encountered some light topwater action from smallish fish. Caught 7 fish here including 3 largemouth bass and 4 white bass. All 7 of these fish were short.

TALLY = 62 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








22 MAY 2008 (PM)






Fished two ½ day trips today, one in the morning from 6:15a to 11:30a and one in the evening from 4:15p to 8:45p. The results of these trips are listed separately.

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 4:15p to 8:45p

Air temp: 92F at launch time

Surface temp: 78F

Wind: Strong from the SSE at 22 with gusts stronger for the majority of this evening’s trip, then tapering off to 12mph beginning around 7:45p.

Skies: Partly cloudy conditions the entire trip

Fished a ½ day evening Kids Fish, Too! trip with Tony, Stephanie, Emily, and Evan B. tonight.

The kids did not have a lot of fishing experience, so we started off “plunking” for sunfish at Area 184 and Area 185 and wound up catching 34 fish including a mix of green sunfish, bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, and blacktail shiners. Each child landed a pending lake record for these diminuitive fish, Emily’s being a longear sunfish, and Evan’s being a blacktail shiner.

By around 5:45p, we gauged the wind and the kids’ interest level and headed out after some larger fish using a slabbing technique that suited the kids’ abilities.

We found a good concentration of fish in 24-26 feet of water, schooled on bottom between Area 164 and Area 165. Over the next two hours the kids steadily slabbed up very solid white bass (some exceeding 14 inches) as well as small hybrids of the same length). In all, aided occasionally by their dad, the kids put 51 fish in the boat.

By around 7:45, the wind was knocking off a little, and I could begin to see white bass pushing bait to the surface here and there. We decided to put topwater gear on and give the kids a shot at seeing fish strike their presentation. We moved to Area 183 and found this area a little more sheltered from the wind than I had anticipated and immediately spotted surface action here, albeit very light. Dad (Tony), Emily, and Evan each caught 2 fish on their surface presentations and were very excited about experiencing that.

We called it a day at that point, buttoned down for the windy ride back and headed in to the dock.

TALLY = 91 FISH, including 2 new Junior Angler Records; all fish were caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








22 MAY 2008 (AM)






Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle


Fished two ½ day trips today, one in the morning from 6:15a to 11:30a and one in the evening from 4:15p to 8:45p. The results of these trips are listed separately.

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:15a to 11:30a

Air temp: 70F at launch time

Surface temp: 74.5F

Wind: Strong from the SSE at 15 until around 9a, then building to 22 with gusts stronger for the remainder of this morning’s trip.

Skies: 100% grey overcast until 11:30, then clearing and brightening with partly cloudy conditions.

Found fish this morning at 3 areas.

Right at the trip’s start, barely discernable in the heavy chop of the waves, there was abundant surface activity at Area 178. These schooling fish consisted of primarily white bass with some small hybrids mixed in, as well as two short black bass. The fish averaged 11.5 inches and were solid, healthy fish. These fish readily hit a popping cork rig. They were spread over ~100 yards in a fairly narrow band parallel to the shore. Picked up 46 fish here over the hour and a quarter that this activity lasted.

When this action tapered to zero, I moved to Area 179 and found fish of the same caliber tight to the bottom, but willing to chase an eased slab and occasionally a smoked slab. These fish were holding at 30-32 feet near the breakline feature located here. I experimented with a chrome slab at one point, but the fish definitely preferred white still. Picked up 29 fish here, bringing the tally to 75 boated by 9:30.

Made a final stop at Area 181 after checking other areas without result. Found larger but fewer white bass on bottom here at about 30′ atop the breakline. Slabbed these fish with a straightforward lift-drop approach and picked up 15 more fish. These fish quit quite suddenly, as they do when they are done for a good long white. Taking that hint, I wrapped up the trip at that point.

TALLY = 90 FISH; all fish were caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








20 MAY 2008






Stillhouse Fishing Report by Fort Hood Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:25a to 9:05a

Air temp: 70F at launch time

Surface temp: 74F

Wind: Light from the SSE at 1-2 for a majority of the this morning’s trip.

Skies: Fair skies

Fished a short stay-in-touch trip this morning.

Started the morning out with some great, albeit short lived, surface action. Both schooled white bass and largemouth bass were feeding heavily on young of the year shad in a pretty good stretch of water roughly between Area 555 and Area 173. Early on I caught a 6:1 ratio of whites, then, as the skies brightened, the whites tapered off and the catch became 100 % short largemouth. Got 36 fish in about 75 minutes of fishing, although the most intense time was the first 25 minutes following sunrise.

After this action died off, I did some more exploring in the 35-40 foot range and found a fairly widespread, deep school of white bass located at Area 176. Using a ¾ oz. slab, I tried to keep these fish teased up the best I could, and stayed with them for about 35 minutes from around 8:25a to 9:00a. During this time I boated 33 fish, of which 32 were whites (all but 2 keeper size), with a drum thrown in. One time a good ~4 lbs. largemouth pursued one of the hooked whites up to the surface and was nipping at it as I reeled it in. All of these fish came on an easing technique. I specifically stopped successful easing to try standard lift-drop jigging and the results just paled in comparison.

I noted that the Corp of Engineers was working today to right the upside-down courtesy dock at River’s Bend Park. Thanks, Rangers!!

TALLY = 69 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








19 MAY 2008






Stillhouse Fishing Report by Harker Heights Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6p to 8:45p

Air temp: 92F at launch time

Surface temp: 76F

Wind: SSE at 6-7 for a majority of the this evening’s trip, then dropping off to S at 3-4 after sunset.

Skies: Fair

Fished a short stay-in-touch trip tonight.

Found fish in two new areas tonight.

First, I identified an area topping out at ~36-38 feet surrounded by deeper water and with abundant quantities of shad in the vicinity. This area, Area 175, was fished with an easing vertical jigging technique with occasional instances where a smoking technique was appropriate. I put 20 fish in the boat here including 16 whites of all sizes up to 12.5 inches, as well as 4 short largemouth bass. By the time the twentieth fish came up, the school had about played out.

I left here and searched the east side of D.E.I. but came up with nothing and saw no manner of sign indicating fish.

Returned uplake and made a stop at Area 177, right at the transition topping out at ~25 feet. With about 40 minutes until sunset, I found fish on bottom (small largemouth) but an unusual occurance of fish suspended at 7 feet or shallower in the water column. Picked up 1 bass on bottom, and 1 bass and 2 whites from up high.

With sunset fast approaching, I headed to Area 159 expecting some topwater white bass action. The S wind, albeit light, put a chop on this area that made both seeing and hearing topwater fish very difficult. I managed only 5 whites here, but was often casting late to old nervous water instead of casting to fresh boils, all due to the wind.

TALLY = 29 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








17 MAY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle


Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:30a to 1:00p

Air temp: 65F at launch time

Surface temp: 71F

Wind: WNW at 4 to 6 for a majority of the this morning’s trip, spiking briefly up to 10, then shifting WSW and dropping back off to 6-8.

Fished a half day morning trip today with Pat and Lynn T. of North Georgia, and John S. of Salado.

Today’s early morning conditions were a little tough. We started off patrolling in the vicinity of Area 173 looking for some easy topwater. We did find fish feeding on top, but they were well-spread, sporadic, and small. After about an hour’s time spend we’d boated 6 fish, none of legal size. For a brief period about 4 Bonaparte gulls began to work over fish-forced shad, but that was very short-lived.

Our next bit of action came on live bait fished on downlines in the vicinity of Area 61 in 22-28 feet. We caught 7 additional largemouth bass here, 3 being keeper size. We fished this area about 40 minutes and apparently combed out all the active fish during that time as the action then slowed to a crawl.

Our final successful stop came just a few yards SSE of Are 122 at the top of the hump in 38′, surrounded by 40-44+ feet of water. No doubt turned on by the highest winds we would have all day, very aggressively feeding white bass and largemouth bass kept us busy at first on live bait, and then on slabs. Over a period of approx. 90 minutes, we boated 66 fish including 3 drum (one going 4.75 pounds), 1 channel catfish, a largemouth bass weighing in at 5.00 pounds (Lynn’s personal best fish), and multiple other largemouth, as well as (a majority of ) white bass of all sizes from sub-legal to 14+ inches.

Things slowed to a crawl by 12:30p and we called it a day. After dropping the crew back off at the dock, I experimented with shad on the shallow flat to the NE of Area 161. Got 3 shad twanged, and managed one average drum.

TALLY = 80 FISH

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing