This morning I fished with Austinite John M. and his dad, Basil M. of Carrollton, TX. This was in celebration of both John’s birthday and Fathers’ Day.

We enjoyed a solid 2 hours of topwater action under grey skies and SSW winds. As the wind died, the fishing died down with it making our final hours much tougher.

After 9 straight days of very solid fishing under the influence of stable weather, that stability began to break down today as clouds, light precipitation, and an easterly component to the wind crept onto the scene. We caught fish well early on prior to the wind shift from SSW to SSE, but then really had to work thereafter.

We began our day looking in the vicinity of Area 061, but saw little and never even wet a line here due to the thick grey cloud cover limiting the light that has been a triggering mechanism for largemouth bass to feed here.

Instead, we shot directly over to Area 484/485 and found multiple, aggressive schools of white bass up and feeding on shad over open water. Due to the dark conditions, I traded out the silver bladebaits we’ve been using of late for white versions of the same to make our offerings more visible. We had a nice run here, boating the majority of the 63 fish we’d land today during this stint.

When the SSW died and went slack, the fish immediately left the surface, never to return in any appreciable numbers. We took up downrigging as our main approach from this point on, successfully boating fish at both Areas 458 and 453/671. As we downrigged at Area 453/671, we began to see very light topwater begin to recur. I suspected that Area 484/485 might light up again, so, we returned there only to find zilch on top and little more willing to go for our downrigged offering. We struggled for a bit, hitting Area 887 and finding nothing willing to strike there.

As this point (around 11:00am) we’d had our longest fishless streak of the morning. Not wanted to end on a dry note, we stayed a bit longer and returned to Area 458 with the hope of allowing both John and Basil to land just one more fish each. John had previously recognized a correlation between his eating jerky and fishing success. So, as we got on site, got lures and balls down and began to watch sonar attentively, I insisted that we all throw a piece of jerky in our mouths “just in case”. Well, before we could swallow, John’s rod went off — a double — 2 fish on one rod. Next, it was Basil’s turn — another double. By this time, John had “reloaded” and picked up one more. 5 fish in the span of 5 minutes after a lengthy lull. I believe at this point John called in an order to “Jacks Links” jerky company and put a rush on delivery!! We decided to be content with what we had at that point and called it a day so the boys could get a bite to eat before taking on the Mill Creek Golf Course in the Village of Salado.

Happy Birthday, John! Happy Fathers’ Day, Basil! Thank you fellows for booking with me!

TALLY = 63 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 11:30a

Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 83-84F

Wind: Winds were SSW6 until 8:15, then going slack, then picking up at SSE4-8 thereafter.

Skies: No direct sun shone during the entire trip; very thick grey clouds with very light sprinkles just prior to and during sunrise.

Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Salado, Texas

This morning I fished with Chris M. and Comptus D., both serving our nation as members of the U.S. Army Signal Corps currently assigned to an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) unit on Ft. Hood.

Comptus (L) and Chris (R) were consistent in quickly and accurately casting to surface-feeding white bass. This allowed them to take take full advantage of the potential the fish offered us today as they fed long and hard on shad in the upper third of the water column.

We regularly witnessed hooked fish being chased by multiple schoolmates. In this instance, one of those schoolmates took a swipe at the lure in his hooked schoolmate’s mouth and also got hooked.

Our first stop this morning came at Area 057/061. The low-light, early morning largemouth action here was significantly reduced over the past several mornings. I attributed that to the cloud cover in the east “buffering” our sudden brightening of the skies that seems to have been a light-related trigger for largemouth of late. We stayed in the area for about 90 minutes and steadily had “boils” to cast to, but they were well-spaced both time-wise and distance-wise. We picked up a total of 8 fish and moved on.

Our next stop at Area 205 saw the most aggressive topwater action I’ve seen from white bass in a long time, and certainly in this run of 9 excellent fishing days. We enjoyed constant topwater action for 2 full hours. Both fellows started with silver bladebaits (the Reef Runner “Cicada” in 3/8 oz., silver), then Chris got adventurous and began throwing a Rebel Pop-R and did well on it, too. Comptus kept right on going with his “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy and landed fish after fish on his Cicada. Basically any timely, well-placed cast got responded to positively. Many times we witnessed a hooked fish at boatside being accompanied by 5-6 other schoolmates aggressively pursuing after the lure in the hooked fish’s mouth. On one occasion, one of the pursuing fish got a bit greedy and also got hooked — two fish landed on one lure!

Chris said it well when he mentioned that this experience was no place for a new fisherman — they’d simply get spoiled and think it was this easy all the time. He noted that you’d need to have been out regularly enough to know you usually have to work to find fish in order to appreciate how special today’s conditions were.

After the fish vacated the upper third of the water column, we decided to try another technique for variety’s sake. This took us over to Area 458/1135. We began downrigging, were successful at that, and, as we approached the western end of this topographic feature, saw fish stacked up well in the lower third of the water column in 18-24 feet of water. With the fairly bright, and only slightly breezy conditions, I decided to try to saturate the area with horizontally cast bladebaits worked “lift-drop” style. We picked up both white bass and largemouth doing so, and rounded out our fish count at 168 here. It became apparent that as the winds lightened and the skies brightened that the fish had done about all they were to do this morning, so, around 11:15 we called it a day and headed back in.

TALLY = 168 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 83-84F

Wind: Winds were SSW6-8.

Skies: Partly cloudy at 50% on a hazy sky.

Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Salado, Texas