I fished a half-day morning trip with Mary L. of Lima, Ohio, accompanied by her son, Jason, of Austin, and her dad, Bob, of Temple. This trip was planned in celebration of Bob’s 89th birthday which fell on this date!! Happy birthday, Bob!

Mary traveled in from Lima, OH, and took her dad, Bob, fishing for his 89th birthday. He loved his 4 1/2 pound present!!

We intended to get going at 7:15am, but, Mary warned me that 89, sometimes the plan is not what becomes reality, and, in fact, we didn’t get launched until about 7:45, but, as it turned out, as I was waiting, I did a bit of scouting for fish and bait and came upon a nice concentration of both, landed 3 fish in quick succession, put a buoy down at Area 676, and returned to pick up my guests, very confident that were were ready to have a good fishing trip.

Once everybody was onboard, we headed out to the marked area, found fish near the buoy, and decided to first shoot for them by way of downrigging. Since Jason was just along for the ride, I handed rods to Mary and Bob and they started feeding out the lines to the proper distance behind the boat. As luck would have it, Bob caught a fish within seconds of having his lure hit the water before we even set the lines down at depth. Once we did get both lines down we caught 1-2 fish on each pass, but as I studied sonar as we slowly moved about, I noticed multiple heavy concentrations of fish along a 25-30 foot breakline here, so heavy, in fact, that I knew we could tease them into striking with a smoking technique using slab spoons.

So, down went the slabs (TNT180’s) and up came the fish. Over a 75 minute span spent jigging, we boated 35 fish here at Areas 676 and 677. About 3/4 of the fish were short whites and hybrids and the remainder were solid whites. We didn’t find any keeper hybrid here.

By 9:38 these fish were tapering off and so we made a move to Area 346. We encountered only one school of fish here passing through beneath the boat on the move, but managed 6 fish out of the school including a larger, but still short, hybrid as well as the fish that anchored our string today, and, the largest fish that Bob had ever landed in his 89 years — a nice 4.50 pound hybrid striped bass.

After this we fished here a bit longer, and came up empty handed. We went and looked at a few areas and found little until motoring over Area 098. I found abundand shad here both suspended and along the bottom, so, we put lines down and came up with a nice blue catfish. By now it was around 11:30 and Mary felt it wise for Bob’s sake to call it a good trip right there, so, we made a special trip over to the waterfall to use it a a backdrop as the trio each held up two of the larger white bass we’d landed.

That accomplished, we settled in for the ride back to the dock, safely transferred Bob from boat to dry land and bid one another farewell.

Today’s tally was 42 fish. Bob shook my hand before he got back into the car and told me this was the best fishing trip that he’d ever been on. I thanked him for the compliment and we parted ways.

TALLY = 42 FISH

Today’s Conditions:

Starting Air Temp: 70F

Water Surface Temp: 76F

Winds: SSW8

Skies: 20% cloudy on fair skies

I fished a weather-shortened afternoon trip with father and son Paul and Ty S. of Belton this afternoon.

Ty with a shad-caught hybrid that took the bait just as the rumble of thunder could be heard to the west.

We’d had a very productive morning trip, boating 42 fish, and then, as I scouted around in advance of this evening’s trip, I boated an additional 25 fish, all from right around Area 678.

Paul and Ty were able to shake loose a bit early, so we got out on the water around 2:45p. We no sooner got set up to vertical jig at Area 678, then the fellows pulled up a pair of twin blue catfish on their slabs. We continued to fish here until things slowed down and then turned to downrigging from here over to Area 472 and back, accounting for 13 fish in all before we left this area behind as the winds went calm “before the storm”.

We now headed out a bit deeper to Area 346. Given the slack wind conditions (typically spelling tough fishing on Belton) I put out 3 downlines with live shad for Ty as Paul continued working a slab. In short order, we boated a keeper white, a fair hybrid, and another blue cat on the shad with nothing coming on the slabs. About this time, the rumbling of thunder we’d heard to the W and SW became a bit more distinct, so, I thought it best we head back toward the boat ramp. I’d planned on staying in the vicinity and fishing, but, things began deteriorating quickly. We tied the boat up to the courtesy dock and I handed Ty a bream pole with which he quickly subdued two green sunfish, and then it happened … big, cold drops of rain began to fall and the wind began to stir from the NW. We headed to our vehicles and spent the next 90 minutes hoping against hope that the skies would clear so we could get on the sunset bite we’d been anticipating, but, it was not to be.

We played in safe and settled for the 18 fish we’d boated before the weather turned sour and decided we’d try it again before too long.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS

Start Time: 2:40p

End Time: 5:30p

Air Temp: 84F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~76.4F

Wind: See narrative.

Skies: Skies clouded quickly from W to E with an approaching storm cell.