This is one of 5 reports for a 5 day vacation trip made to Canyon Lake, TX from M-F, 11-15 August, 2008.

WEEK’S SUMMARY:

To summarize the weather, Monday was heavily overcast and unseasonably comfortable up until around 11:00am when the thick blanket of clouds burned off. By that evening the temperatures had climbed back to mid-August norms with partly cloudy skies and hot, humid conditions.

On Tuesday, we woke to rain and occasional lightning right up until around 2pm. The skies then cleared out and again, by that evening the temperatures had climbed back to mid-August norms with partly cloudy skies and hot, humid conditions.

Wednesday and Thursday were photocopies of one another, with fair skies, unobscured sunrise and sunset, and hot, nearly windless conditions during the day with temps in the high nineties.

Friday was much like Monday with heavily overcast skies and unseasonably comfortable up until around 11:00am when the thick blanket of clouds burned off. By that evening the temperatures had climbed back to mid-August norms with partly cloudy skies and hot, humid conditions and a light SE breeze with thunderheads building in the SE.

In reviewing the entire week, morning success far exceeded evening success, and Areas 230 and 224 were by far the most productive during that morning time.

MONDAY’S REPORT:

Monday’s trip was spent in two distinct areas. The first half of the trip, to around 10am was spent in a very successful pursuit of white bass. I found fish up shallow in ~20-22 feet of water as soon as the light conditions were just right at Area 219, and up as shallow as 16 feet deep to the SW within 80 yards of this area. 3 large schools of white bass briefly broke and worked the surface after small shad, about 1 inch long. This schooling was so unpredictable that stuck with the sure bet of smoking through bottom oriented fish seen on sonar. After the light level increased and until exactly 9:09am, light surface feeding continued over 42-50 feet of water along a line from NE to SW of Area 230. These white bass were mixed with occasional largemouth, and were feeding near the surface, but not on it. I took several whites on a fly rod, including the pending lake record. Once the surface action died, I saw heavy schools of suspended white bass at 32 to 36 feet deep, and so worked a ½ oz. Cicada over these in a smoking fashion, and racked up the fish. I departed this area with 72 fish caught.

I headed to Cove 237 and caught 10 sunfish to attempt tightlining for stripers, and then headed to the vicinity of Areas 221/224 to search for stripers.

Most stripers were found in heavy suspended schools adjacent to the old river channel in 60-72 feet of water, over 100+ feet of water. These fish simply did not respond to my downrigger tactics with Pet Spoons, Lunker Lickers, Sassy Shad, or Wildeyes. I finally just left these fish alone and looked for more white bass around noon time.

I located a sluggish school of whites at Area 226 and picked up 3 whites and a small striper here on a smoked ¼ oz. silver Rattle Snakie. We then broke for lunch.

I returned in the evening and again focused on stripers, this time with a vertical jigging approach. I caught 4 nice stripers from 3-6 pounds each on both a white and chartreuse TNT 180 ¾ oz. slab, as well as on the black and silver version of that slab. The trick was to locate fish on the console sonar while idling through the area, then to stop and hover the boat with the trolling motor while keeping the fish on the bowmount sonar. I dialed the sonar’s flasher dial into the 30-70 foot range by setting the upper and lower depth limits, and then smoked the slab from beneath the fish right through them and watched for a response. This action only lasted about 45 minutes, then the stripers, still present, refused to respond any longer.

I noted the 2 largest stripers showed ruptured blood vessels on their face and around their anal vent. 1 was difficult to revive. The smaller fish did not seem to have any problem with the trip up out of deep water.

I headed to Area 220 and managed 2 nice largemouth with live sunfish on a tightline rig.

TALLY TODAY: 92 FISH, all gamefish 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

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 1:15p

Air Temp: 76F

Water Temp: 84.3

Wind: Dead calm at trip’s start, with a steady SSW breeze of about 11 mph

Skies: Skies were mostly clear under the influence of increasing high pressure following the passage of Tropical Storm Edouard.

I fished a half day Kids Fish, Too! trip this morning with little Robbie D. of Harker Heights. Robbie’s dad is in Iraq and his mom works hard at the VA, so we spared him a little day care time today by going out in God’s creation.

Since Robbie just turned 6, I gave him some fundamental casting lessons using a closed face reel while at dockside. He caught on pretty well and we headed out after the big ones.

Our first stop was in the Area 204, 205, 206 region, and, right at the crack of dawn, good schools of white bass began pushing shad to the surface.

Robbie and I fished over these aggressively feeding schools until 8:34a, when the last school disappeared. Over this time, Robbie managed 32 fish all by himself on a Tiny Torpedo.

We hung around this area a while longer hoping for some minor resurgence on top, but none was to be had. We did managed a 12″ white bass and a ¾ pound drum on a minnow-rigged tightline as we just hovered in the area.

After figuring the fish weren’t going to rise to the surface any longer, we headed to Area 209 and took a hard look at sonar as we downrigged with Lunker Lickers. These lures did their job fluttering down at 25-30 feet and allowed us to tag another 10 fish in short order, including a nice 3.5 pound largemouth, and a 15.75 inch white bass.

As we downrigged, I glassed over the surface and soon picked up on some topwater feeding by pods of largemouth between Areas 32 and 217. Robbie and I headed over to the action and, with a combination of topwater presentations when the fish were showing, and vertical jigging when they were not, managed to finish off the day with an even 50 fish after boating 4 blacks and 2 whites here.

TALLY = 50 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

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 10:00a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start, up to 101F by day’s end. This would be the 11th straight day of 100+ degree highs, only to be broken by Tropical Storm Edouard’s passage.

Water Temp: 86.5F

Wind: Light from the SE at 6-8.

Skies: Low, scattered morning grey clouds at about 20%, then clearing to fair for the rest of the day.

T

I fished a ½ day Kids Fish, Too! trip with Christy T. (mom), big brother Egan T., and little brother Justin T. of Harker Heights.

As we began our trip, we started off downrigging between Areas 207 and 208. Sonar showed occasional gamefish mostly solo but occasionally in pods, but a lack of bait over the entire area. After two unsuccessful passes we left here just as the sun had risen.

What took place next turned this into just a perfect kids’ fishing trip. As we motored into the vicinity of Areas 204, 205, and 206, multiple large schools of white bass began breaking the surface pursuing shad. 5 year old Justin had never really cast before, and Egan was just starting to learn. To keep everyone catching fish, I put Egan in the clear to my right on the front deck with a closed face reel and a cork righ, and Justin on my left. Egan got the hang of things quickly, and was catching fish on his own in no time. I went ahead and cast a baitcaster with a cork rig for Justin so he could concentrate on retrieving through the active fish.

We used this teamwork approach the (rather rare) two and a half hours that the fish stayed on top, and wound up putting 50 fish in the boat, most right at the 10 ½ inch mark with little variation in size either way.

We took occasional drink and snack breaks and shake-out-the-sore-wrist breaks, and by 9:38am, when the last topwater feeding school had disappeared from the surface, mom and boys had had a wonderful trip with many good photos taken and were ready to head home, clean up, cool off, and send nearly real-time photos back to dad in Iraq so he could see their prizes. Great trip, kids!! Great kids, Christy!!

TALLY = 50 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

Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a half-day evening trip today with Dan and Hilary P. of Castro Valley, California. Both were above-average anglers with some multi-species experience, but with a heavy concentration on black bass.

Conditions:

Start Time: 1:30p

End Time: 9:00p

Air Temp: 95F at trip’s start, warming to 102F by mid afternoon

Water Temp: 86.5F

Wind: SE at 7 by sunrise, increasing to 12-14 by afternoon, and tapering back to 10 by sunset and thereafter.

Skies: Skies were clear and bright all day under the influence of building high pressure.

After dropping off my guests from this morning’s trip, I freshened up, ate lunch, and headed back out on the water to do a little pre-trip scouting hoping to find a few additional concentrations of bait and gamefish for my afternoon guests.

While on this scouting run, from approx. 1:45p to 2:45p there was a heavy topwater feed by multiple large schools of white bass over open water bounded by Area 212 to the E and Area 213 to the W. After schools sounded, sonar revealed them traveling at or shallower than 22-24 feet over much deeper water. The forage size was ~1.25 inches in length. I managed 38 fish in less than an hour’s time. A small flock of ~8 Artic terns (2 white, 6 grey) helped keep track of surfacing schools at a distance when close by schools disappeared. As fate would have it, by about 3pm the action had died, just prior to the arrival of my clients.

After I picked up my guests we headed back out to the Area 212 location and searched with sonar, but the feasting fish were gone. We scored 1 quick white bass on a downrigger and that was it.

Realizing we were now going to have to grind it out waiting for the fish activity level to pick up again, we went to slabbing around Area 155. I explained both lift-dropping and smoking, and we managed 6 fish here at our first stop, but without seeing any schooled fish or any aggressive fish.

We headed to Area 214 and encountered some really positive sonar returns from loosely congregated white bass and abundant small, tightly grouped pods of shad. This demanded a downrigging approach, which paid off handsomely, and got us the majority of the fish we were to catch this trip with a total of 24 fish coming over the side at this location on twin Lunker Lickers.

After we had run the balls and cables through the fish for a number of passes, they dispersed, and we again went hunting. We looked hard at Areas 212 to 213, but the wind was up at its peak and the fish and birds just weren’t there.

We again vertical jigged at Area 216 and picked up 3 dink white bass and 1 drum by lift dropping off bottom in 22 feet of water

We headed over to Area 210 and found fish beginning to push bait toward shore here, but they were very reluctant to hit. We did downrig for one white bass here. When the sun disappeared behind the horizon here and no topwater appeared, we made a final run to Area 147 / Area 27 in hopes of finding some low-light topwater there. We gambled right and did find abundant fish, including some on topwater, but the fish were very reluctant to strike despite clouding sonar from 17 to 12 feet deep along the slow taper here. Hilary had the right touch on a slowly, steadily retrieved blade bait, and managed 3 good whites before the action died. Dan got one additional white on topwater with a popping cork rig.

TALLY= 77 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

Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a half-day morning trip today with Casey (dad) and 14 year old Ryan R. (son) of Cy-Fair, Texas. Ryan was quite an accomplished angler already having a bit of experience in the Junior Bassmaster organization. He was accustomed to fishing cover-laden lakes of east Texas, so Belton’s relative lack of cover and the fact that we pursued primarily white bass and hybrids gave him some welcome exposure to new techniques and species.

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 12:20p

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start, warming to 102F by mid afternoon

Water Temp: 85.5F to 86.5F

Wind: SE at 7 by sunrise, increasing to 12-14 by afternoon, and tapering back to 10 by sunset and thereafter.

Skies: Skies were clear and bright all day under the influence of building high pressure.

After getting acquainted at dockside, we set out keeping a close eye on the surface for early morning schooling activity, but that just wasn’t in the cards this day.

While waiting on the sunrise and the hope that it might bring topwater activity with it, we slabbed in 25-32 feet of water over a hard bottom in the vicinity of Area 155 and managed a mixed bag of 14 fish in about an hour’s time including white bass, hybrid stripers, 1 largemouth bass, and 1 drum. As the sun rose, this area quieted down.

We moved into Area 210 and noted sporadic individual gamefish topwater feeding without seeing any schooling activity. We blindcast with Spook Jr.’s while waiting on blowups, and then cast to the blowups when they occurred. We managed 2 largemouth on topwater here and moved along after about a half-hour.

We headed to Area 215 and spotted our first school of white bass on topwater as we motored there. These fish were smallish, and only stayed up briefly, but they gave us a clue to capitalize on. We remained in Area 215 for about 40 minutes casting to white bass and largemouth feeding on top and managed 4 more fish. As my guests worked the top, I kept a sharp eye on sonar. After a while a trend began to emerge wherein gamefish were suspending at 21-23 feet deep under or among thick schools of shad. The fish were also tending to move offshore a bit at a time.

Seeing this, we went with a downrigging approach and really began to put fish in the boat for over an hour straight. All but one fish (a hybrid) were average, healthy 13 inch white bass with occasional fish larger and smaller. We downrigged the contour of the shoreline just trying to keep bait and or gamefish on the sonar constantly and did very well at this. After many passes, the fish began to disperse.

Casey and Ryan had to join the rest of the family for a checkout of their accommodations in Salado, so around 11:45 we made one final stop at Area 155. This yielded 8 more fish (6 whites, 1 crappie, 1 hybrid) for us, all coming on a smoking approach through bottom-oriented, schooled fish. By 12:30 we were headed to the dock.

TALLY= 46 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