This morning I fished a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip with Christian and Lexi, the children of Sergeant Major Tray S. who is currently home on R&R from Afghanistan.

Christian hold two of our four largest white bass boated this morning.

Yes, Lexi is grinning, but I was never sure if it was because she was fishing, or because she got to be with her daddy.

As we headed out this morning our first order of business was to look for topwater action. We idled slowly in the vicinity of some likely locations and even did a few listening stops, but to no avail, so, on we went in search of suspended white bass.

We first caught up with the white bass at the very first location we searched, generally from Area 1085, through Area 453, and on to Area 822. As we worked over a large area to zero in on the best action, we quickly discovered the fish had a definite preference for the larger #12 Pet Spoon (doctored) versus the smaller one we had on one rod. Once we changed both downrigging rods over to the larger lure we had consistent action on both rods for about 90 minutes. During this time we put 13 white bass and 2 largemouth in the boat, and missed 2 others that were hooked, played, but escaped near boatside.

After the white bass action died down (as the skies brightened around 9:15am), we headed to Area 1098 and focused on sunfish, both for the fun of catching sunfish, and to retain some of these as bait for largemouth for the final hour of the trip. We boated exactly 25 sunfish here over a mix of wood and rock with a bit of aquatic vegetation mixed in.

Our last hour or so was spent looking for largemouth. We tried weedbeds, standing timber, and rocky areas and didn’t get a single strike. Conditions were getting tough with an increasing wind velocity at this time, but, I still thought the conditions were suitable to bag a few fish. Obviously, the fish disagreed.

So, we called it a good day around 11:30 and headed on in … but, the day was just beginning for this bunch! Next, a planned stop at Subway for at least one meatball marinara sub was in order, as was a nap, followed by a visit to the movies to check out “Avengers”.

Thank you, Tray, for investing some of your valuable leave time on the water with me. From the kids’ reaction to our fishing success, you hit a home run!

TALLY = 40 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:35a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 82.1F

Wind: Winds SSW10 at sunrise, then picked up to around SSW13 by 10:30am

Skies: Skies were overcast and bright grey.

This morning I fished with father and son Ray and Carlos W. of Harker Heights, TX.

This was one of 5 pairs of hybrid Ray and Carlos brought on board. It seemed every time one of our rods went down, another would accompany it, allowing for lots of “doubles” today.

We met at the recent Harker Heights Memorial Day Parade where I had a small booth set up as a part of the Farmers’ Market to advertise the free trips I offer to deployed soldiers’ kids.

When Ray and I first spoke and coordinated this trip, his goal was to improve his own fishing efforts by seeing how I went about locating and fishing for fish on Belton. Ray, who is an active duty NCO, keeps his boat at the BLORA marina, but has had a string of poor luck on trips of his own.

Starting off today, we had very calm, bright conditions (never good on Belton). We encountered a bit of topwater action at between Areas 014 and 010. The fish moved from east to west as the skies brightened. We boated 18 fish from this fairly aggressive topwater action before boat pressure and the intense sun put the fish down. The fish we caught responded well to Cork Rigs.

Next, we searched far and wide for signs of suspended fish now that the thermocline is definitely setting up around 31 feet. We managed 1 hybrid from above the thermocline in open water, but saw little bait in this particular area, and so moved on.

We found solid gamefish and baitfish marks on sonar in the vicinity of Area 844, down around 24 feet. We began working these fish over with downriggers. We found small Pet Spoons did the best job of imitating the very small, young of the year shad that the fish we caught were regurgitating. I initially had one Pet Spoon and 1 umbrella rig on, but we went with tandem Pets and did well once we made the adjustment. We boated a total of 9 fish here before the loose school dissipated. When this happened, and given the surface was still calm and the sun was still bright, we switched over to live bait and slowed down to match the mood of the fish.

We picked up 3 hybrid right on Area 844 before that, too, slowed down.

We ended our trip with a bang, finding a very active school of hybrid near a breakline at Area 1097 in 28 feet of water, and at a time when the wind began to blow. These fish were in feeding posture — grouped together, and about 18″ off bottom. We got in a hover over top of the fish, and before we could get the 2nd of our 4 bait rods down, the first rod went down very powerfully. Long story short, over the next hour, we boated a total of 18 fish here including 15 hybrid, 2 largemouth, and 1 drum.

We had more bait on board and I was ready to keep fishing, but, a previous engagement meant the fellows had to be back on the dock at noon, so, we called it a day at high noon with 48 fish to show for our efforts. Ray was very appreciative of the time we spent going over how the sonar and downrigger system works together, and how all the “details” of the lure selection, downrigger release clip setup, setback distance, etc., etc. all work together to allow for consistent success.

TALLY = 48 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 12:00 noon

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 82.1F

Wind: Winds were calm at sunrise, then picked up from the ENE at 7-8 around 10:30am

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless as our low pressure moved to the east.

This morning I fished our monthly trip with John M. and his son, Matthew. These trips have served as an incentive for Matthew to keep his grades and attitude up, and have provided an opportunity for others to join in on the fishing fun, too. Today’s lucky guest was Matthew’s cousin, Bennie, from Rogers, TX.

This hybrid would be our largest fish of the trip, weighing in at 4.25 pounds. The white bass, though dwarfed by the hybrid, was a solid 14″ fish.

This 3 pound blue cat nailed one of our live shad later in our trip. It took the boys approximately 62 attempts to net this fish. Talk about teamwork!?!

Matthew enjoyed catching different species today. This smallmouth also came on a live shad fished over a rocky bottom.

I knew from the forecast that we were in for a tough go of it today — not impossible, but tough. We had a high pressure system (with some great fishing) break down and be replaced by low pressure and characteristic damp winds from the north.

Fish, when they feed under low pressure conditions, always seem to feed in short spurts, and those spurts never seem to be very enthusiastic.

So it was today … we experienced two distinct periods of activity. First, at Area 788, we tried downrigging so we could have baits in the water as I looked the area over with sonar. There was a ton of bait in the area, and gamefish, too, but nothing was interested in moving fast enough to hit a downrigged lure. I came prepared with live bait as a safeguard after seeing the forecast prior to our trip. We got live bait down and working and began to pull fish. We boated white bass, a few hybrid, a few catfish, and a few largemouth, all on shad and all just off bottom in about 25′. As we sat over top of these fish, we saw several short eruptions of schooling activity by white bass forcing shad to the surface. Some were within casting distance, so we picked off a few white bass as we maintained our position while fishing the bait. Rarely did the fish stay up long enough to allow for more than 1 or 2 to be caught. We boated a total of 18 fish here.

Now, this is where the “statistician” part comes in. Matthew is a baseball stats nut. He has taken to running numbers in his head about other things he enjoys, too, including fishing. So, after our first hour had gone by, we’d boated 7 fish. He was planning on a 4 hour trip, and so confidently reported to all of us that we were on track for a “definite double-digit 28 fish day”. I had to chuckle at that one. Despite their pea-sized brain, fish are often not such linear thinkers…

After this area played out, we struggled a bit doing more sonar searching than fishing until, finally, we located a suspended, loosely congregated bunch of fish hanging at mid-depth along with baitfish at around 27-29 feet at Area 365/192. We first downrigged for these fish with doctored Pet Spoons and got our first fish of the day using this tactic. This told me we were dealing with more active fish than we’d encountered up to this point. We worked these fish over with pass after pass of the downrigger, picking up a fish each time. We found suspended largemouth, hybrid, and white bass here. After the downriggers failed to produce, but while fish still showed on sonar, we immediately slowed down and switched over to live bait to try to tempt the fish as they got increasingly disinterested. By 1:00pm, we’d managed to work our way slowly but surely up to a tally of 40 fish thanks to the live bait action.

I really enjoyed fishing with these young men. They were both respectful, considerate of one another, and appreciative of the opportunity that John was providing for them. John and Matthew have now fished with me in all seasons and have seen most all of the techniques I commonly employ. We’ve had great days and not so great days. This one was somewhere in the middle! Thanks, fellows!



TALLY = 40 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 1:00p

Air Temp: 71F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 81F

Wind: Winds were NNW5-8

Skies: Skies were heavily overcast following a night of rainfall due to a low pressure system sitting over Central Texas.

The following blog entry appears in the form of a report to those who support the Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (S.K.I.F.F.) program which serves to put the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on the water at no charge to their families…

(L to R) Ivan, Jason, and Robbie (and their moms!) braved the sprinkles and cashed in on a mixed bag catch this evening!!

07 June 2012

Dear Friends of S.K.I.F.F.,

This evening I welcomed aboard Jason (10 yrs.) and Ivan (6 yrs.) Venne, accompanied by their mom, Olga; and Robbie (6 yrs.) Rodriguez, accompanied by his mom, Teri. These ladies’ husbands, Major Jason Venne and Lieutenant Colonel Rob Rodriquez, are deployed together in Kuwait with 2-8 Cavalry. They were (literally) the last Americans out of Iraq and still have not made it back to the U.S. as they wrap up all the loose ends.

Mrs. Venne with her son, Jason Jr.

Mrs. Rodriguez with her son, Robbie.

I met Mrs. Venne at the Harker Heights Farmers Market over the Memorial Day Weekend when, instead of battling hordes of recreational boaters, I set up a booth to advertise SKIFF during the Memorial Day Parade.

Our weather was quirky today. An early June low pressure system brought 3/4″ of rainfall overnight along with a NNW breeze, heavy cloud cover, and light rain during our trip. The boys were so excited about this trip, however, that a monsoon would not have deterred them.

All 3 boys had little or no prior fishing experience, so, we started off simply, and increased the level of complexity (and patience) required as we worked our way through the trip.

We began by targeting sunfish in shallow water. At Area 200 we found abundant, willing sunfish in less than 4 feet of water and used poles (without reels) to fish for these fish. We boated exactly 35 fish here before the novelty began to wear off.

Next, we “took it to the next level” and downrigged for larger fish. We used Pet Spoons set down around 22-24 feet at Area 820, just above the thermocline, to boat 15 more fish, including a mix of white bass, largemouth bass, and an unusual number of drum which, based on the fact that we saw eggs oozing out of the females, must have been congregated heavily in this area for spawning.

Our final attempt at “really big fish” came as we used live bait to tempt largemouth bass. We began working over top of some open water hydrilla at Area 057 and landed one largemouth almost immediately, but then things quickly quieted down (beneath the boat, that is, as with 3 young boys it was never quiet on the boat). We shifted to rock at Area 042/433 instead of weeds and, in the last 15 minutes of the trip caught 4 additional fish per boy as a very nice way to end our day with a total of 55 fish boated for our efforts.

The majority of our Fort Hood men and women in uniform have, thankfully, been in a bit of a down cycle as far as deployments are concerned so far in 2012, but, it looks like the Fall will see the deployment of a significant force from here.

Thanks to all of you, we’ll be ready to lend some aid to their kids and spouses when duty calls. Thank you for your ongoing support!!

Sincerely,

–Bob Maindelle

_________________________________

TALLY = 55 FISH all caught and released

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Start Time: 4:45p

End Time: 9:05p

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 81F.

Wind: Winds were NNW7 entire trip.

Skies: Skies were 100% cloudy due to a low pressure system which moved directly over us bringing 0.75″ rain overnight.

This morning I met husband and wife Kirby and Eryn Logan on Belton Lake for some “shoulder to shoulder” time away from the kiddos.

Kirby and Eryn landed these hybrid out of the same school at the same time. One fell to an umbrella rig targeting hybrid and the other to a Pet Spoon intended for white bass and hybrid.

Kirby and Eryn are married with two boys, 6 and 2. Eryn works for Dell Computers and Kirby is a full-time farmer working the land to raise maize and cotton on their farm near the Little River. Kirby had done a good bit of fishing and Eryn very little. Eryn and I worked on some quick casting lessons at dockside so we could take advantage of any topwater action that cropped up, and crop up it did.

We had nice weather conditions today — manageable S. winds, some cloud cover, and a high pressure beginning to break down.

We began our day chasing topwater white bass with some juvenile hybrid mixed in. The action was spotty and moderate, but enough to keep us busy and in the fish for a little more than an hour. We used a Cork Rig and boated 24 fish (21 keeper white bass and 3 short hybrid) during this feed in the vicinity of Area 210/483.

After the topwater died, we continued fishing in the same area and boated 3 more white bass on downriggers before some more distant “popcorn” surface action led us elsewhere. By “popcorn”, I mean action that erupts and then immediately sounds (just enough to get your blood pumping, and then disappoint you!). In the vicinity of Area 506/846, we found mostly 17-19 inch hybrid stripers hanging just above the thermocline beginning to set up around 31 feet. We fished our downrigged baits (umbrella rigs and Pet Spoons) at 25-27 feet and caught at least one fish on each circuitous pass we made over the course of just shy of 2 hours, boating 11 more fish (9 hybrid and 2 white bass).

By around 10:15 the action was dying pretty quickly. I looked around for natural “sign” (birds, bait, fish hitting the surface, deer feeding, etc.), but that was scarce. We wound up fishing another 45 minutes or so eventually boating 3 more fish in the vicinity of Area 154. These all came on Pet Spoons after I dropped the umbrella rig out of our setup due to the lack of sonar signatures indicating hybrid in this area.

One of Kirby’s desires on this trip was to learn about downrigging, so, we really focused on that technique so that if he chose to equip his own boat with these very effective devices, he’s have all the basics down and more based on what he learned on the water today.

Thanks for all the tips on good Austin eateries, Eryn!!

TALLY = 41 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:25a

End Time: 11:05a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 77F

Wind: Winds were S8 tapering to SSE4

Skies: Skies were grey and bright with a thin layer of overcast.

This morning I met long-time client Mr. Thom G. and his two boys, Garrett and Carson, and family friends, Mr. Brad M. and his son, Miles, for a kids’ fishing trip on Stillhouse in celebration of Garrett’s birthday.

This shot was taken at our last stop over open water where some light topwater led us to much more action going on beneath the surface. We boated a nice mix of 13 white bass and largemouth here. (L to R – Miles, Garrett, and Carson).

We had ideal weather conditions today — dry, stable weather with manageable winds from just W. of S.

We began our day up shallow at Area 200 where a nice mix of rock, weed, and wood come together to form great habitat for sunfish. We fished with poles and slipfloats using maggots and did very well. The boys landed exactly 50 fish between the 3 of them before the sunfish wised up to our tricks. We caught quite a variety of sunfish here including bluegill, longear, green (officially); then, unofficially, we also boated dumbfish (those that hit a hook with no bait), headachefish (those that glanced the side of the boat as they were lifted out of the water), wahoo (those with coloration resembling that saltwater species), and more. That was fun!

Next, it was off to the white bass grounds to add some variety to our trip in terms of technique, size of fish, and species of fish. We headed to Area 1085/822 and downrigged at 25-27 feet over scattered white bass in this area. We picked up 9 fish (3 per boy) on the ‘riggers using doctored Pet Spoons. We put 7 white bass and 2 largemouth in the boat here. Thom put a $1 bounty on the head of the first fish caught and on the largest fish caught. As we began downrigging, a 13 5/8 inch white bass took large fish credit, but was quickly bumped by a 15.5 inch largemouth.

Act III began as we left the tapering white bass action behind and headed out to open water to fish for largemouth with live bait. We looked over a hump, a saddle, and a hydrilla-covered breakline before we hit paydirt. As we sat on the breakline, I saw a school of topwater-feeding fish disturb the surface about 80 yards away. We brought our lines in and headed over to the ruckus and hovered over the action for about an hour at Area 1096.

Now, here’s where things got interesting. I’ve got 3 young elementary-aged kids on board. The fishing has been good up until now, but we’ve just struck out at 3 consecutive spots, so the whole impatience and short attention span thing is kicking in. Kids have a way of compensating — such as by reliving old memories by re-catching the fish already in the livewell, such as by assigning pet names to the fish in the livewell, such as by creatively snacking with sun-melted chocolate covered donuts, and the list goes on. It was at this time that the fish decided to cooperate again. It was all we could do to keep 3 rods baited and another couple of slabbing rods working the active fish to pick up a few bonuses. Despite what appeared to be a floating carnival taking place above the water complete with music (the constant slamming of the livewell lid), fish actually continued to feed below the surface and, in the end, we put an additional 13 fish in the boat (and probably missed at least that many more as can happen when you mix kids and live bait on circle hooks).

As the fish began to settle down and the tempo on the boat began to ease back, I looked at Thom and informed him I would definitely need a nap this afternoon!

We really had a good time; the boys did great; they were rewarded for their efforts and, I do believe each went home with at least one pet sunfish in a cut-off Gatorade bottle.

Thom informed me that Garrett, when asked what he wanted for his birthday, told him he wanted to come out fishing with me every year on his birthday until he turned 19, at which time he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese instead!

I’m looking forward to next year’s carnival!! We may even get little sister Peyton in the mix by then.

TALLY = 72 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:35a

End Time: 11:30p

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 77F

Wind: Winds were SSW8-10.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.