They Should Write a Song About This!! — 81 Fish, Belton Hybrid Fishing Guide Report, 09 May 2013






This morning I fished Belton Lake with returning guests Joe O., Eddie D., and Larry H. Our target species was hybrid striped bass caught using live shad.


L to R — Joe, Eddie, and Larry. That fish of Eddie’s was our largest fish of the trip, a 25.5 inch, 7.50 pound hybrid. It is also the 2nd largest hybrid a client of mine has ever boated. Congratulations!!


I had a really good feeling about today. Today was the day of the new moon, and we had a southerly wind, grey skies, and a weather system headed our way. Any one of those factors can improve hybrid fishing, but, to have them all together was like the “perfect storm”.

We fished only 3 areas in 4 hours and found ample, quality fish at each location. We began our hunt at Area 959 in about 32 feet of water. It was still a bit dark due to the cloud cover and so the fish took a little coaxing to get going, but, once we got some baits and some chum in their vicinity, they were ready to go. We caught a mix of short hybrid, legal hybrid, white bass, and blue catfish here on shad. Most of the hybrid came right away then drifted off leaving only bottom-hugging white bass behind. We began to have a lot of baits killed by the white bass, so, before we left to look for hybrid elsewhere, we did a little vertical jigging until each of the men had caught at least one fish using that technique, just so they had exposure to that and could put it in their own “bag of tricks” in the future when fishing on their own.

We pressed on to Area 683/489 – more keeper hybrid with a few white bass and a few blue cat sprinkled in. We would generally start with our baits near bottom, then, as hybrid struck and were hooked and reeled in, the entire school would rise up off bottom, allowing us to keep our baits suspended up higher and thus cutting down on the amount of baits killed by smaller white bass and blue catfish.

Eddie learned that I’d graduated from West Point, so, he said he’d like to hear a few stories about cadet life if I didn’t mind. As I started to tell one, I’d get a half sentence out and a fish would bite, and so it went to where it took me about 25 minutes to tell a two minute story. Later, we observed that when Eddie told a story (about writing country and gospel songs) the fish did not bite, thus allowing him to tell his stories uninterrupted. Larry tried to piece things together and concluded that Eddie was evidently the better story teller (even the fish were intrigued), but, even so, gave me permission to tell stories any time so long as the fish bit his bait as I did so!! All kidding aside, Eddie had strung together some very thoughtful lyrics which he shared with us as we anticipated our next bite.

Our last bit of success came just before a wind shift which would signal the approach of a storm from the west. We stopped right on top of Area 835 and no sooner did we get our 4th line down than we had a fish on, then another, then another, then another — 4 fish on at the same time! This flurry lasted for about 20 minutes until, very suddenly the wind shifted and the fishing died nearly instantly. One of the fish in that initial frenzy would not only be the largest fish of the trip, but the 2nd largest hybrid striped bass a client has ever landed on my boat. At 25.5 inches and 7.50 pounds, Eddie’s fish qualifies for a TPWD “Big Fish Award” which is an award which recognizes anglers catching quality fish by setting minimum qualifying lengths on a species-by-species basis.


TALLY = 81 fish, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:


Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 11:15p

Air Temp: 68F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 65.5F

Wind: Winds were SSE8-10 from sunrise until 11:15a, at which time they shifted ENE3-4.

Skies: Skies were heavily overcast the entire trip today as we had active weather in advance of a dryline’s approach which would bring T’storms and 0.8 inch of rain around 2pm.


Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Salado, Texas








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