Jigging on Belton, Spring Break Trip #3, March 11th, 38 Fish

This afternoon I fished with Drew Sims of Austin, TX.  Drew is an electrical engineer working for Dell who needed a break from the keyboard and monitor.
 

Drew with two typical Belton white bass.  As you can see their bellies are plump with ripening eggs.  We’re just a few degrees away from seeing these fish really turn on after a long, cold winter.

We got going around 3pm and over the first 70 minutes managed to boat 8 white bass and 1 short hybrid striped bass.  We were fishing in the vicinity of Area 1352/3/4 and were trolling very slowly (<2mph) with 2 downriggers and 2 flatlines, all rigged with shad-imitating crankbaits.  We found fish in the warming upper layer of water, above 20 feet in water from 40-60 feet deep.

After getting the “skunk” out of the boat but picking up no hybrid stripers, and seeing no targets on sonar that appeared to be hybrid stripers during our time spent trolling, we moved on.

The remainder of the trip was a “run and gun” affair where we moved from area to area, first looking with sonar, then, if fish were found, buoying them and turning around to hover over them and fish with slabs.  We never picked up more than a handful of fish at any given location until our last stop where we added an even 10 fish to the count in the last 25 minutes of daylight.  The areas we successfully jigged at were: Areas 295/211, 1009, 618, and 084/1355.  At each of these location the results were about the same, with these areas giving up average white bass and short hybrid stripers.  We ended the day with exactly 38 fish boated.


TALLY = 38 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:15p
End Time: 7:50p
Air Temp: 56F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 53-54F 
Wind: SSW5-10 and puffing
Skies:
Low 100% cloud cover for first hour with
light SSW breeze, clearing to 20% cloudy by 9:45a
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**  Flatline trolling/downrigging: Area 1352/3/4
**  Vertical jigging: Areas 295/211, 1009, 618, and 084/1355






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas