While Mom’s Away, Dad & Kids will Play! — 33 Fish, Stillhouse, SKIFF Trip #2014-3

This
evening I fished the third “SKIFF” trip of this 2014 season, but it had a little twist to it — soldier and father U.S. Army Corporal Daniel Leonard actually got to participate with his children on this outing!!  Daniel just redeployed from his third overseas tour (2 deployments to Iraq, and this most recent deployment to Afghanistan) as a combat medic with Delta Company, 1-5 Cavalry.  The family sent mom, who has essentially been a single mom for the last nine months, off to Colorado to visit friends, so, with beautiful weather at hand, I tried to provide Daniel an opportunity to decompress and the kids a bit of time to reconnect with their father.  Joining Daniel were his 4 children, 13-year-old Zachary, 8-year-old Zoe, 5-year-old Zaylee (who was born while Daniel was away on duty), and 3-year-old Zebadiah.

 

L to R: Zoe, Zaylee, Daniel, Zebadiah, and Zachary.

Daniel helps Zaylee bring in a small crappie that struck a crankbait.

Zoe and Daniel with her best fish of the trip caught just minutes before we wrapped up after sunset.

SKIFF stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved
in Fishing Fun.  Under the SKIFF program, any military child separated
from his or her parent due to that parent’s military duty qualifies for a
free, 4 hour fishing trip by boat.  Such duty can be something as
extensive as a deployment or unaccompanied tour, to something more
short-term like a trip to NTC, JRTC, or gunnery.

As Daniel and the kids made their way from their vehicle down the boatramp to meet me, I met them half way, and let them know that this was intended to be an “easy-going, kick back and relax kind of deal” and that if we needed to change plans from fishing to nature-walking or to make multiple bathroom breaks or have frequent snack times, that would all be just fine.

As a guide, whenever young kids are on board, you always hope you can provide instant gratification to get the kids’ interest right off the bat, and then hope for steady action to keep that interest up.  We came pretty darn close to that today, despite fairly heavy boat traffic thanks to postcard-perfect wind and weather.

For simplicity’s sake, due to the multiple kids and their ages, and because of where I’ve been finding fish lately, I planned to use a combination of flatline trolling and downrigging to catch our fish today.  As is typical on evening trips in stable weather conditions, things started off a bit slowly and gained momentum, with the last 35 minutes or so providing the best action of the whole trip.

We boated a total of 33 fish this evening, including 1 largemouth bass, 1 drum, 3 crappie, and 28 white bass, of which 25 were of legal size (10+ inches).

Along the way we got to talk about what the Army next has in store for Daniel, the newest “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” movie, yesterday’s big hail storm, the finer points of Oscar Mayer “Lunchables”, and how mom’s flight arrived safely in Colorado. 

Zebadiah caught the first fish of his lifetime on this outing, thus qualifying him for a Texas Parks and Wildlife “First Fish Award”.

TALLY = 33 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:00p
End Time: 8:00p
Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start..
Water Surface Temp: 61F 
Wind: E6-7
Skies: Fair with some high thin clouds in the western sky
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**   684 and NW to 405, and SE to 744 – trolling/downrigging for 17 white bass & 2 crappie
**   540-701 on 4 flatlined shallow crankbaits last hour of light for 1 largemouth, 1 drum, 1     crappie, and 11 white bass






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

Hail, Yes! We Caught Fish!! – 28 Fish, Stillhouse, 28 March

This evening, immediately in the wake of a severe Texas hail storm, I fished on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with father and son team Robby (father) and Brian (son) Doherty.  .
 

With white bass suspended and on the move, flatline trolling was hard to beat as the technique of choice this evening.  The Doherty’s boated 26 white bass and 2 white crappie (L to R: Brian and Robby).

Robby and I first got to meet in person in early March this year at the Cabela’s “Great Outdoors Days” in Buda, TX, where I was presenting seminars on both sonar use and basic dock fishing for kids.  Robbie had viewed my website and had seen that I’d worked with a lot of children and felt I might be a good fit for offering a trip to him and Brian (who has some special needs associated with Down’s Syndrome).  Robby is an Air Force veteran now working as a contractor with the Texas Workforce Commission out of Austin.  Brian is a citizen at the Brookwood Community in Brookshire, Texas, where he resides in one of eight group homes arranged especially for people with autism spectrum disorders; intellectual disabilities; developmental disabilities, traumatic brain injury, and other adult special needs.  He is a sports enthusiast (basketball, baseball, and football, in that order), and works in the “Horticulture Enterprise” at Brookwood, helping to propagate over a half-million plants each year including poinsettias.

After driving through quite a hail-rain-thunder-and-lightning storm to get to the ramp, we all linked up around 3:45p, and, undeterred by the weather (which was now clearing from west to east), we launched right at our planned start time of 4:00p.

Fishing was best in the first 90-120 minutes as the pressure was climbing following the storm’s passage.  After calm, bright, warm conditions set in, the fishing got very tough until right at sunset when a short, low-light feed took place.

I had planned for a very low-tech approach today by using downriggers and flatlines to troll crankbaits amidst loosely schooled congregations of white bass slowly making their way up the little current now flowing in the Lampasas River.

We used Storm ThinFins on the downriggers, a #5 Rapala ShadRap RS on one flatline, and a 2″ Storm Deep Rattlin’ ThinFin on the other.  As a result, we were fishing with 4 lines down, and covering 4 different depths until trends emerged on what depths were producing the action.  I then changed up baits and downrigger depths to zero in on what worked best.

We boated a total catch of 28 fish this afternoon.

TALLY = 28 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:00p
End Time: 8:10p
Air Temp: 65F at trip’s start, rising rapidly into the low 80’s as the skies cleared following the storm.
Water Surface Temp: 61F 
Wind: ESE6-7 as storm cleared, then calm, then N11-13 just before sunset, then going calm again as the sun set.
Skies: Clear blue cloudless skies following clearing of hail storm.
Other Notes: GT100

Areas Fished with success:

**   684 and NW to 405, and SE to 744 – trolling/downrigging for 24 white bass & 2 crappie
**   074 for 2 white bass on downriggers






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

Keep Your Eye on the Bird; 28 Fish, Stillhouse, 27 March 2014

This morning I fished on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with Jeremy Whitaker of Salado.  Jeremy is a kayak owner and regularly successful bank fisherman who typically pursues largemouth bass with artificial baits, but today I welcomed him aboard in pursuit of white bass.
 

We boated 27 white bass and this “lone wolf” largemouth.  Largemouth caught from deep water, like this 16.25″ fish was, are typically much more pale than those taken in the shallows.



Fat and sassy white bass with bellies full of eggs and milt were common today.

Jeremy and his wife have four children, ranging in age from 4 to 13.  Jeremy is a construction worker currently working on a renovation of the famous “Bell Tower” on the University of Texas (UT) campus in Austin.  He works nights, fishes mornings, and sleeps afternoons.

We were blessed today to encounter gulls feeding over top of active gamefish.  Marauding schools of white bass were working over a large, mid-depth flat feeding on shad.  As they do so, they often encounter sunfish still holding deep due to the cool water.  As the hyped-up schools of white bass encounter anything that moves and is smaller than they are, they attack.  This often results in crippled sunfish too big for the white bass to swallow being stunned and floundering on the surface where gulls make an easy meal of them and circle over the scene of the crime hoping for more.

We spent our first 2 hours on the water fishing under such bird activity with jigging spoons, and then, when the birds were done feeding, began trolling to cover more water.  When the birds finish feeding, this usually marks the beginning of the end of the morning or evening feed.  In fact, while the birds fed, we boated 24 fish.  Once the birds stopped feeding, we only boated another 4 fish in the last 90 minutes of our trip.

TALLY = 28 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 8:15a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp: 60F at trip’s start
Water Surface Temp: 57.8F 
Wind: SSW12
Skies: 100% grey and clouded, heavily at times
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**   401 to1364 – slabbing for 23 white bass and 1 largemouth bass
**   684 and NW to 405, and SE to 744 – trolling/downrigging for 4 white bass






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

“Principals” of Fishing, Stillhouse, 43 Fish, 22 March 2014

This
afternoon I was joined on Stillhouse Hollow by father and son team Brian and Colby Jost of Copperas Cove, where Brian serves as an assistant principal at S. C. Lee Junior High School.  Go Cougars!!

 

Father and son did equally well this evening, boating exactly 37 white bass, 4 crappie, and 2 freshwater drum.



This beautiful white crappie landed by Colby was in full spawning colors with deep blues and dark black flecks.  White crappie are distinguished from black crappie by the parallel vertical “bars” of black flecks extending from the base of the dorsal fin down toward the belly.

I had hoped to get Brian and Colby on the water this morning before the cold front arrived just because the impact of springtime coldfronts on the fishing can be very unpredictable, as can be the winds and the temperature drops that accompany them.  However, Colby’s baseball schedule dictated an afternoon trip so, we dealt with the coldfront and, all things considered, got off pretty easy as the front arrived without much precipitation, manageable winds, and a mild, slow temperature drop.  The icing on the cake was that the fish fed right through the front’s arrival.  I believe the increasing water temperature and the corresponding increase in the metabolism of the fish population is responsible in large part for that.  Simply put, the fish now need to feed.

We split our time between two locations.  We began in 25+ feet of water near a breakline that falls into the old Lampasas River channel and found small bunches of white bass here.  We caught a total of 7 fish using a combination of light slab spoons fished vertically and Cicada bladebaits fished horizontally.

After about 90 minutes, we moved just as the north wind was picking up and the temperature began to fall.  As we were fishing another deepwater location, I observed gulls and terns working tentatively over a patch of water spanning ~60 yards.  We quickly ran to the “scene of the crime” in time to see exactly where these birds were working and run sonar over the area before the birds dispersed. 

Sonar revealed multiple, small schools of white bass holding and moving at 7-12 feet down over a 15-20 foot bottom.  We first attempted to target these fish with Cicada bladebaits used both vertically and horizontally, but, when I saw how mobile these fish were (again, thanks to the increasing water temperature), I decided a trolling regimen would work better.  And it did!!

We put out 4 flatlines with ShadRap RS’s and Rip Shad 200’s and went to work trying to keep these baits above the fish.  Eventually we transitioned to 2 flatlines and 2 downriggers.  On the downrigger lines we ran ThinFins, again, to limit the depth at which our lures ran in an attempt to keep them running over top of the fish.

We stayed on these fish for over 2 hours, putting an additional 36 fish in the boat as they hit everything we trolled by them.

TALLY = 43 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:45p
End Time: 8:05p
Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start, falling to 64F as the N. wind pushed in
Water Surface Temp: 61.4F 
Wind: Winds today swung from SSE through W, NW, then NNE as a mild cold front arrived
Skies: 100% grey and clouded, heavily at times
Other Notes: GT10

Areas Fished with success:

**   036 to 372 along the channel break – 5 whites, 1 drum, 1 crappie
**   684 and NW to 405, and SE to 744 – 3 crappie, 32 white bass, 1 drum






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

Fishin’ Belton with Grandpa Jack — 32 Fish, 20 March 2014

This
afternoon I was joined on Belton Lake by Mr. Jack Sims and his two grandsons, 10-year-old Kyle Sims, and 12-year-old Jackson Sims.  Both boys are from Houston, TX, and were on their Spring Break.  They traveled to Temple with their mother, Diane, to visit with their grandparents.

 

Kyle boated the largest fish of tonight’s outing, an 18.25″, 3 pound hybrid striped bass.



Everyone did their part to “get on the board” tonight.  Vertical jigging was the key to success.

Everyone caught fish this evening, but everyone also had to really work to make that happen.  Our first hour started off slowly, as afternoon trips typically do.  We boated 3 white bass on downrigged crankbaits set at 12-14 feet deep over open, deep water but did not see abundant bait in this area and so we chose to head elsewhere.

From around 5:15p to sunset, we “spot-hopped” picking up a few fish at each of 4 locations, finally enjoying a “run” of 11 fish caught in short order at our final stop just as sunset gave way to dark.

The fishing was made a bit tough by both the low wind speed and the easterly direction from which it came.  This time of year, stronger southerly and westerly winds tend to yield the best results.

TALLY = 32 FISH, all but one caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:45p
End Time: 8:00p
Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 57.7F 
Wind: SSE6-7
Skies: Fair and cloudless
Other Notes: GT35

Areas Fished with success:

**   1354 downrigging – 3 white bass
**   1363 vertical jigging – 4 whites/short hybrids
**   295 vertical jigging – 13 whites/short hybrids/1 keeper hybrid
**   1355 twilight bite on jigged/eased slabs – 11 whites/short hybrid






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

Sun City Strikes Again! 31 Fish, Belton, 18 March 2014

This afternoon I was joined by Pat Sprague of the Sun City Hunting and Fishing Club for a white bass and hybrid striped bass fishing trip on Belton Lake.
 

This nice 5.25 pound hybrid striped bass struck Pat’s slab in 27 feet of water.  It was mixed in with a school of whites on a bottom with limestone and some old submerged cedar trees.



We also picked up some unusually large white bass for Belton.  The fish on the left measured 14 3/8 inches which is pretty rare on this fairly infertile water body.

Pat sat in on my recent presentation at Sun City where I compared and contrasted the fishing through all four season on Belton and Stillhouse.

Pat hails from “up north” where walleye and pike rule the water and where fishing in and around visible cover (weeds, timber, etc.) is the norm.  So, today’s trip out in open water which was anywhere from 22-27 feet deep, and where we never once laid eyes on the bottom features holding the fish we caught, was a real learning experience for Pat.

Over the course of our trip we used a variety of vertical jigging tactics combined with the use of sonar, we used bladebaits, and we used a combination of flatline trolling and downrigging to put together our catch of 31 fish.

Vertical jigging was definitely the standout technique today and accounted for the lion’s share of our success.  We found that a combination of jigging and “easing” did the trick for these still-cold fish which were generally unwilling to move very far or very fast for a bait.

Although birds are still abundant on Belton, no helpful bird activity took place this evening.  All the fish we caught we caught by first finding them with sonar and then fishing for them.


TALLY = 31 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:45p
End Time: 8:10p
Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 55.7F 
Wind: S17-20
Skies: Fair and cloudless
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**   1015/1126 – jigging/bladbaits, 2 whites, 1 keeper hybrid
**   1362 – jigging, mix of 9 whites/short hybrid
**   1361 – jigging/smoking, 1 keeper hybrid/17 white bass
**   507 – downrigging, 1 white






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

Austin Stay-cation, 12 Fish, Belton Lake, Spring Break Trip #8, 15 March

This morning I welcomed Jeffrey and Robyn Knight aboard, along with their two kids, 13 year old Jaelyn, and 10 year old Jace.  The Knight’s live in Georgetown where they make a living in the irrigation industry.
 

Everyone was all smiles when daddy pulled in this 8.25 pound yellow cat that grabbed his jigging spoon for breakfast in about 20 feet of water.

And everyone was all smiles again when gripping onto their “family photo fish” after enduring a downpour on our way back to the boat ramp. L to R: Jaelyn, Jeffrey, Robyn, and Jace.

You could tell this was a close-knit family right from the time they walked from their vehicle, down the boat ramp, to where I was waiting at the water’s edge to start our trip.  First of all, they were all doing something together as a family, dad had is arm around mom as they walked down to the boat, and the little brother and big sister who were 3 years apart were actually speaking with one another!

Come to find out, mom (Robyn) had planned out a local family adventure for every day of the week of this Spring Break, so, I was honored to be a part of that plan and a part of strengthening the bonds of an already strong family.

Over the course of the week the Knight’s had ventured to the Austin Junk Cathedral, to scenic Mount Bonnell overlooking the Colorado River, to TopGolf (a modern twist on the driving range), and, later this evening, indoor skydiving!!!

Our fishing was tough today.  We had a wet east wind to start off with, followed by fog that came and went and some extended periods of calm.  After last night’s bird extravaganza, this was a bit of a let down as we never saw a single bird this morning dip to the water’s surface after bait.

We searched far and wide and burnt a lot of gasoline and, in the end, picked up exactly 12 fish, so, at least everyone got to get their string stretched a few times this morning.  With what I figured is her typical positive outlook on things, Robyn said, “Well, that’s 12 more fish than we would have caught sitting at the house!”.   Well said!!

We caught quite the mixed bag of fish even if we didn’t catch a boatload of them.  In fact, our first 5 fish consisted of 5 different species: white bass, hybrid striped bass, yellow catfish, freshwater drum, and largemouth bass.

We used primarily jigging, downrigging, and flatline trolling to land the fish we caught this morning.

Jigging accounted for 7 fish, the downriggers for 3, and the flatlines for 2.

It was a joy to have this family on my boat!!


TALLY = 12 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:50a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp: 60F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 55F 
Wind: S8-10
Skies: Heavy overcast and fog to the point of light drizzle late in the morning
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**   1000/1077 Jigging
**   1000/1010 Flatlines and Downrigging
**   1009/327 Jigging
**   691/369 Flatlines and Downrigging






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

They Got it “Wright”! — 54 Fish on Belton, Spring Break Trip #7

This evening I welcomed Curtis Wright aboard, accompanied by his father, Dale, and his son, Joshua.  Dale is in Texas for a Spring Break visit from Utah where he makes a living remodeling homes.
 

The Wright boys definitely got it “wright” tonight, racking up an impressive catch of 54 fish consisting mainly of white bass taken on jigging spoons.  From L to R:  Joshua, Dale, and Curtis.

This was Curtis’ fourth trip out with me, Joshua’s second, and Dale’s first.  All previous trips have been on Stillhouse, so fishing Belton offered a change of scenery and a shot at some hybrid stripers.

Over the past several days the first ninety minutes of the afternoon trips have been pretty quiet, and, today pretty much followed that trend.  We boated a few fish by jigging over fish we’d located on sonar, but, the real show started around 6pm when a mix of terns and gulls started to get “antsy” over patches of water where white bass and hybrid striper were slowly getting in the mood to feed.

From roughly 6p to 7:30p, we encountered non-stop bird action, although it was not all located in one area.   In fact, the birds were quite transient, moving from area to area, although after  90 minutes of observing the birds and catching fish, it became clear that both were primarily concentrated in 3 distinct areas, each ~60-70 yards in diameter.

Once I got the boat over these fish by trolling into them (note I did NOT run into these fish with the outboard), we used jigging, easing, smoking, and casting techniques to seal the deal, although the jigging near bottom was the most consistent of these methods.

Due to the cloud cover, the fishing wrapped up about 15-20 minutes earlier than over the past couple of evenings.  Once the birds were done feeding, the fish bit another 10 minutes or so and then that was it for the night.
 


TALLY = 54 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:45a
End Time: 7:50p
Air Temp: 65F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 55-56F 
Wind: S8-10
Skies: Light overcast.
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**   1359 – vertical jigging in ~32 feet of water
**   211 – vertical jigging in ~29 feet of water
**  507-1360 – working slabs in a variety of ways under birds
**  1362 – working slabs in a variety of ways under birds






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

Sun City Sportsmen — 34 Fish, Spring Break Trip #6, 14 March

This morning I fished Stillhouse with fishing buddies Jim Key and Jim Grier, both now retired from corporate America. living in Sun City, TX, and getting outdoors as much as time will allow..
 

Jim Key (R) and Jim Grier (L) heft a nice catch of mature, spawn-ready white bass taken on bladebaits in 17 feet of water this morning.


I first met “the Jims” when Jim Key invited me to speak at the Sun City Hunting and Fishing Club about a month ago, in his capacity as one of the Club’s officers.

Both gentlemen were already accomplished fishermen with a breadth of experience in various water types and for various species, so, my job was made easier as we got to concentrate on catching fish and not so much on the mechanics of how to use the gear, etc. as is the case with those less experienced.

As they have for the past 4 days, the fish fed aggressively for the first 2 hours of the trip up shallow and attracted birds from above thanks to the baitfish these fish forced to the surface.  This made locating the fish and keeping up with them fairly straightforward.  We all used Cicada bladebaits to target these bottom-oriented white bass and caught fish steadily.

The combination of a sensitive graphite rod and braided line allows the angler to literally feel every movement of the bait and, of course, the never-subtle strike of these white bass as they overtake and swipe at the lure.

We boated a total of 24 white bass at our first area fished before we had to move on after the action died.

We tried two other softly sloping areas without success before “heading deep” to vertically jig in clearer water for the remainder of our trip.  We made a number of stops and picked up fish at 3 of these from as shallow as 26 feet to as deep at 42 feet.  Each stop we executed in the same way — vertically jigging with a 3/8 oz. slab held in a perfectly plumb orientation and giving plenty of “pause time” for the fish to find the bait and strike it.  We added another 10 fish to our tally in this way and called it a day after a full 4 plus hours on the water.
 


TALLY = 34 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:45a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp: 49F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 53-54F 
Wind: SSE4-6
Skies: Mostly overcast grey.
Other Notes: GT25

Areas Fished with success:

**  1194-1351 – casting Cicadas
**  1201, 103/746, 1308 – vertical jigging with TNT180 slabs, white, 3/8 oz.






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

Belton Turned On!! Spring Break Trip #5, 108 Fish, 13 March 2014

This afternoon I fished with the Newsome and Mitchell families of Central Texas and enjoyed what was my most productive fishing trip of the year thus far as we boated exactly 108 fish on Belton Lake this afternoon.
 

Charles took “high stick” honors tonight with this 24.5″, 6.5 pound hybrid striped bass taken on a slab in 35 feet of water.

Everyone shared in the catching this evening as the fish really put on the feedbag around 5:15pm and fed well until after sunset around 7:40p.  L to R: Jacob Mitchell, David Mitchell, Gladys Newsome, and Charles Newsome.

We worked through a very slow first 90 minutes, only boating 3 fish with 2 downriggers and 2 flatlines set out.  I noted the water was a bit off-colored in this area due to high winds yesterday, so, we moved on to clearer water and fared much better when we did.

Our first success came at Area 1356.  I noted some birds working over this area on Tuesday evening but couldn’t find what they were interested in.  Thinking that the feed there may have just wrapped up, I went there a bit earlier this evening and was glad to find tightly bunched white bass and short hybrids mixed together right on the bottom and ready to eat.  The water here was the highest I’ve encountered thus far this year — 55.7F.  This, plus a nice mild southerly breeze which began around noon, kicked things into high gear.  Most of the fish here were smallish, but the action was steady, so, we stuck with these fish as long as they bit us.  We boated over 70 fish from this roughly 30′ x 30′ area — amazing!

Around 6:50pm we noted a concentration of gulls getting “antsy” in the vicinity of Area 1357.  We poked around for about 10 minutes waiting to see if anything was going to coalesce out of this activity.  Well, it did!!  We put a final 30+ fish in the boat at this area, including our largest hybrid of the trip, a 6.5 pounder boated by the patriarch, Mr. Charles!  The average white bass caught here was substantially larger than at the site of our first success.   By the time dark was falling, we’d boated exactly 108 fish.


TALLY = 108 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:15p
End Time: 7:50p
Air Temp: 65F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 55.7F 
Wind: S10-12
Skies: Cloudless fair skies.
Other Notes: GT15

Areas Fished with success:

**  Vertical jigging/easing/smoking at Areas 1356 &1357






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas