The Doctor & the Sailor — 130 Fish, Stillhouse, 29 Nov. 2014

This morning I fished on Stillhouse Hollow with Michael Szkrybalo and his 13-year-old son, Colton, of Round Rock, TX.

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Michael Szkrybalo with a pair of healthy Stillhouse white bass that fell to his slab worked tight to bottom right after sunrise.

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Colton worked out a few technique kinks over the course of the trip and, by trip’s end, was consistently detecting strikes, setting the hook well, and properly playing fish to the boat.

Michael is an emergency medicine physician with the Scott and White system out of Georgetown.  He and Colton had been fishing with me once before two years ago in May.  The family owns a vacation home on Lake Michigan where, during the summers, Colton attends a sailing school, learning to maneuver and race 12-foot-long Pico-type sailboats.

After really struggling over on Belton lately, I decided to switch back over to fishing on Stillhouse today, and I am glad we did so.  Usually by now there is abundant bird activity on Belton that helps lead the way to catchable white bass and hybrid striper, but that simply has not yet materialized.  If I have to find fish on sonar, I’d rather do it on Stillhouse as there is not near as much ground to cover.

We got on fish early today, stayed on them for about 2 hours, then experienced an hour’s lull, then found fish re-energized after the wind ramped up an extra 4-5 mph.

The first group of fish we found were mostly solid, 13-14 inch 3 year old fish with a few 2 year class fish sprinkled in.  We found these fish in 30-34 feet of water on a patch of bottom triangulated by Areas 1493/1266/988.  A silver/chartreuse Redneck Fish’n Jigs model 180 in 3/4 oz. did the trick on exactly 40 white bass here.  Although we threw in an “easing” tactic, most of the fish responded best to a straightforward vertical jigging technique.

The second group of fish we got on were in more murky 25-27 feet of water.  This was a tightly bunched, aggressively feeding school of fish with a “pyramid” structure including lots of 1 year class fish, a few 2 year class fish, and a sprinkling of 3 year class fish.  These smaller fish showed a definite preference for the white 3/8 oz. slab and fell hard for the easing tactic given that the most active fish were holding 2-3 feet off bottom, not laying belly-to-the-bottom like the larger fish were earlier in the morning.

We sat in one boat-sized area for 80 minutes and boated exactly 88 white bass and 2 freshwater drum, taking our tally from 40 fish up to 130 fish.  And, we actually left these fish biting as Michael and Colton mutually agreed to call it a day around 12:20p and head back in.

 

TALLY = 130 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  12:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  52F

Water Surface Temp:  57F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW10 at sunrise, increasing to SSW18-20 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: Cloudless fair skies.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1493/1266/988 spot-hopped several times within the bounds of this area for a total of 40 white bass in 2 &3 year class (BA = 4G)

**Area  1492 boated 90 fish in the 1, 2, & 3 year class in under 80 minutes (BA = 4G)

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

S.O.W.E.R.’s Onboard – Belton, 17 Fish, 28 Nov. 2014

This morning I fished on Belton Lake with long-time friends Mike Hoock of Morgan’s Point, TX, and Harold Snipes, who calls the road his home, and has ever since retiring (the second time).  Harold continuously tours the nation in his motorhome.

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Mike put the steel to this largemouth that raced off bottom over 20′ to nab his 3/4 oz. slab.

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Harold shows one of the several white bass & hybrid we caught today — mostly scattered and lethargic.

Mike and Harold first met while serving in the same organization caller S.O.W.E.R. which stand for Servants On Wheels Ever-Ready.  This is a non-denominational, non-profit, evangelical organization of RV-owners who go where help is needed to repair, replace, remodel, refurbish, and do anything else that needs doing at churches, camps, conference grounds, orphanages, schools, colleges, missionary retreat centers, missionary training facilities, refuges for neglected or abused children, recovery homes for adults, and the like.

I have to say the company I had today was much better than the fishing.  Despite extending our time on the water and fishing essentially a trip-and-a-half, we still just didn’t pull a whole lot of fish over the side today.  The fish were very deep, very scattered, and generally turned off.  We really just kind of pecked at them today, finding fish on sonar, buoying them, catching 1 or 2, only to have any schoolmates that may have shown themselves on sonar just drift off without engaging.

I heard from a fellow guide who was using live bait that he encountered essentially the same thing.

By the time we’d put in 6 hours on the water, we finished up with just 17 fish today including 1 largemouth bass, 1 blue cat, 3 white bass, and 12 hybrid striped bass.

 

TALLY = 17 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  1:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  42F

Water Surface Temp:  57.8-58.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S8 at sunrise until around 10:30, then shifting sharply to SW13-15.

Sky Conditions: 60-70% clouds.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1467 – a few loosely grouped fish

**Area  1488 – a few loosely grouped fish

**Area 1341 – a few loosely grouped fish

**Area 1374 – a few loosely grouped fish

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Thanksgiving Day Fishing with the Garcia’s, Belton Lake, 39 Fish

This morning I fished on Belton Lake with Israel Garcia and his wife, Mari.  I normally wouldn’t fish on Thanksgiving, but, this couple seemed really nice and, when weather forced a postponement of our originally scheduled date last Saturday due to rain, we agreed to make a second attempt today.

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Mari Garcia with a nice fish jigged up from 44 feet of water.

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Israel Garcia with a twin to his wife’s fish caught just minutes after hers came over the side.

Both Israel and Mari, who have been married for 7 years now, work full time jobs, so their options for fishing are limited to weekends and holidays.  Given that the water temperatures have fallen into the high 50’s now, I didn’t want to take a chance on one or more major cold fronts pushing temperatures down further, so we got out as soon as we could.

Israel was as interested in understanding why we were pursuing fish as we did as he was in catching fish.  If you’ve fished with me, you know I enjoy coaching/teaching, so, as opportunities allowed, I was sure to point out all I could to Israel today and answer all of his questions the best I could.

Despite fairly light NE winds that nearly diminished in our last 90 minutes on the water, we did pretty well, although much of our catch consisted of smaller fish today.

The approach was, without exception, the same at all 5 areas where we contacted fish.  First, I ran sonar very thoroughly over suspected fish-holding terrain, buoyed fish when we found them, hovered over them using i-Pilot technology, and then tried to lure fish in from a distance using a flashy “smoking” technique.  Typically, the most active fish would respond within a few minutes allowing us to catch several fish quickly, then, we “mopped up” on the more lethargic fish using a vertical jigging tactic.  We used Redneck Fish’n Jigs model 180 slabs in silver/white and silver/chartreuse interchangeably today.

I smiled when Mari commented to the effect that, by the time our 20th fish came over the side, she and Israel had already caught on this morning’s trip more fish than they had in all of their previous fishing trips combined.

When all was said and done, we boated 39 fish today including a mix of hybrid striped bass and white bass.

TALLY = 39 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  39F

Water Surface Temp:  58.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNE11 at sunrise and through 10:20a, then shifting to the NE and dropping off to 5-6mph

Sky Conditions: Cloudless bluebird sky.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1469 early with 2 spot hops

**Area  1486 thru 1485 mid-morning with 2 spot hops

**Area 1491 late

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Would You Like to Make it a Combo? 32 Fish, Belton Lake, 26 Nov. 2014

This morning I fished on Belton Lake with Steve Niemeier of Temple, TX, his grandson, Caleb Fowler, and his great nephew, Tevin Gilmore.

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Caleb Fowler with a deepwater smallmouth bass taken after noon today.

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Tevin Gilmore with a deepwater largemouth bass taken just minutes after we boated Caleb’s smallie.

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“The Team” worked together for a 30+ fish day resulting in cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes for all.

 

Long story short, I expected a better day than we had this morning.  Although the winds got off to a sluggish start, once they picked up, they came from a typically productive direction (SW, W, and WNW) and at a manageable speed (12-15mph), but the fish just never really turned on real strong for us today.  I noted that the few other anglers out chasing whites and hybrids were moving from place to place frequently, as well, indicating they were struggling, as well.

We caught no fish before the winds began.  As soon as a SW breeze picked up, the bite began, allowing us 2 fish at Area 1490.  After the wind had worked on the water for about 20 minutes, I moved us to what I felt, based on the past few trips’ results, would be the most productive area.  We found biting fish here at Area 1485/1487 in ~45 feet of water,  and caught 16 fish, but once the bite died after about 30 minutes, we could not find solid fish or bait elsewhere for quite some time.

Around 10:35-10:55am, I spotted 2 gulls and a flock of cormorants flying, 6 deer feeding, and a few crows moving about, all of which is unusual for this late in the morning.  I felt that perhaps a feeding window was about to open, so, we stuck with our pursuit, and, finally, around noon, got into another school of fish.  This time, we encountered a mixed bag of white bass, short hybrid stripers, largemouth and smallmouth all bunched up together in 49 feet of water at Area 1491.

As often happens on a late morning bite, these fish got excited for a while, but then turned off fairly quickly and the bite died.

To keep the boys engaged, Steve opened the bidding this morning offering a cheeseburger at a restaurant of the winner’s choice to whichever boy caught the first fish.  Once that milestone had been surpassed, the boys took it upon themselves to up the ante.  Caleb chimed in first, making a new “rule” that whoever got to 10 first would get fries, then Tevin voted to change that to a shake, and so it went.  Wisely, Steve, by executive order (those are popular lately), declared that if the “team” got to 30, the “team” would go get cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes.   Now, we were competing against the fish and not one another.

We stayed hard on it until we had cleared the 30 mark by 2 and then called it a day having had to work for each of the fish we caught this morning.

 

TALLY = 32 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  12:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  39F

Water Surface Temp:  59.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE3-4 at sunrise, turning quickly from the SSW and ramping up to 11mph by 8:30a, then shifting steadily through the W to NW at 13-15 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: Cloudless bluebird sky.

Other: GT=55

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1489 early

**Area  1383 mid-morning

**Area 1487 mid-morning

**Area 1488 late

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

There’s An Old Saying … 47 Fish, Belton Lake, 24 Nov. 2014

This morning, 24 Nov., I welcomed back returning guests Mike McLaughlin, and his son-in-law and grandson, Keith and Alex Duncan, for their fourth annual outing with me.  Each year Mike’s wife, Christa, has been nice enough to get him a gift certificate for Christmas, and, each year around late October or November my phone rings to set up the trip.  Today was the day.

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Keith landed our top two fish this morning coming right out of the shoot just after sunrise.

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Alex and grandpa Mike reeled these two fish in at the same time out of ~38 feet of water on a breakline around mid-morning.

We had an uphill battle facing us today thanks to the passage of a cold front late yesterday, leaving a north wind and high pressure in its wake today.  The fish will bite in such conditions as long as there is wind, but they are never overly aggressive and the bite often doesn’t last long on any given school of fish.

We encountered 4 distinct schools of fish today and pulled  about 10-12 fish from each before the schools lost interest and we had to start all over again looking for them, jigging to get them interested, then enjoying a few fish before having to repeat the cycle.

Our early fish came from the shallowest water, around 34 feet, and our fish caught late in the trip came from 48 feet.

All of our action came on smoked slabs, with a few fish caught on a slabbing tactic as the bite was about to die off.  The bite finally died for good around 12:10p after the N wind died to near calm.

Once again there was no helpful bird activity at all today, which is unusual for this late in the season — hopefully that will change soon.

We wound up with a mixed bag of keeper and short hybrid, keeper and short white bass, a drum, and a largemouth, all taken on a white/silver Redneck Fish’n Jigs 180 Slab in 3/4 oz.

I should note that Mike had quite a number of proverbs to pass on to young Alex.  He would initiate these with the phrase, “Alex, there’s an old saying that…”.   For example, Mike said, “Alex, there’s an old saying that a bad day of fishing is still better than a good day of work.”  In fact, Mike had so many of these sayings that we had to impose a rule that the person who spoke the most “old sayings” also had to buy lunch.  This reduced the number of “old sayings” going forward, but, the damage was already done … I believe they drove from the boat ramp directly to Schoepf’s BBQ!

 

TALLY = 47 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  12:10p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  46F

Water Surface Temp:  59.4-59.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NW13, tapering down to NW6, then shifting to N and increasing to 8, before dying around noon.

Sky Conditions: 10% high white bands of clouds on a bluebird sky

Other: GT=30;

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1489 early

**Area  1383 mid-morning

**Area 1487 mid-morning

**Area 1488 late

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

With Love, from Connecticut! — 39 Fish, Belton Lake, 21 Nov. 2014

This morning, 21 Nov., I welcomed aboard Anthony Vaughters of Killeen, and his mother and brother, Velvet and Karon Vaughters, both of Connecticut. Velvet and Karon are visiting for the Thanksgiving holidays.

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Anthony landed our largest fish of the trip this morning, a nice 21″, 4.00 pound hybrid.  That’s his proud mama, Velvet, looking on.

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Karon got the hang of smoking early and steadily caught fish throughout our trip this morning.  This was the second of our two legal hybrid, going right at 19″.

Anthony is the owner of Kids’ X-pression Child Care in Killeen, near Killeen High School.  I first met him early this past summer when his girlfriend bought him a fishing gift certificate because, according to her,  “he works all the time and needs a break”.  We had a good day catching hybrid on live shad at that time.  Karon had never fished from a boat before, and Velvet was just along for the ride and did not fish, so, we had 2 rods going, plus my own rod on occasion.

Now that the water has cooled, the fish are much deeper and vertical jigging is the ticket.  Unfortunately, we were greeted this morning with a thick fog — so thick in fact that I pushed our launch time back 30 minutes.  Foggy conditions don’t allow for a “normal” sunrise and brightening of the sky and deep water, and generally puts a damper on the fishing.

A number of times today we searched for and found fish, only to catch just a few out of the much larger schools of fish they came from.  Usually, once the most active fish are caught with a smoking retrieve, we can “mop up” with a standard vertical jigging tactic, but even that was not well accepted by the fish today.

So, we simply worked hard, covered ground, and slowly but surely put together a decent catch of 39 fish, including 2 nice hybrid of legal size and many more “short” hybrid and white bass.  The fish we caught were primarily the minority of fish that were willing to give chase to our slabs presented in a “smoking” style from amongst a generally disinterested majority.  I noted that the Redneck Fish’n Jigs 180 in silver halo and white did a bit better than the all-silver halo color today.

It was interesting to note that none of our fish regurgitated shad and that the two legal hybrid we boated both had concave bellies, indicating the fish population has not fed heavily very recently.

A little inside joke:  If you ever see Mrs. Velvet, just ask her about “jiggly” — you’ll be sure to get a smile!

 

TALLY = 39 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time:  1:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  61F

Water Surface Temp:  60F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE7-10

Sky Conditions: 100% clouded, grey skies with fog for first 2 hours

Other: GT=30;

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1290/1325 early

**Area  1485-1486 all along this breakline from when the fog lifted to trip’s end

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Threading the Eye of the Needle — 117 Fish, Belton, 15 Nov. 2014

This Saturday morning, 15 Nov., I fished with Tom Tharp of Temple, Texas, and 3 other family members including Tom’s niece, Jennifer Rand, Jennifer’s niece, 7-year-old Alyssa Rand, and Jennifer’s boyfriend, Jonathan Kusch.

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Jennifer landed our largest fish of the trip this morning, a nice 23″, 5.75 pound hybrid.

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L to R: Tom Tharp, Alyssa Rand, Jonathan Kutsch, and Jennifer Rand all worked over the white bass and hybrid striper this morning using TNT180 slabs in 32-38 feet of water.  This photo shows our 4 best white bass of the trip, ranging from 12.25 to 13.25 inches.

Tom and I first met at the Central Texas Boat Show last January where we spoke at my booth about sonar use and settings for Belton Lake and Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.  Tom is an internal auditor working at Scott & White in Temple, Jennifer is a student at the University of Texas in Austin, Jonathan works at a golf cart dealership in Austin, and Miss Alyssa is a 2nd grade student in the Austin area.  About 2 weeks ago Tom called and wanted to get on the calendar.  Fortunately, the weather cooperated for us today and we did quite well.

We’ve been plagued all week by high north winds that came in on Tuesday with the season’s most severe cold front thus far.  This cold front dropped our surface temperatures from 66-67F down to 61-62F in a matter of 4 days.  Today was the only day where a wind with a southerly component was in the forecast out of the previous four days, as well as for the next 3 days.  This return to southerly winds always makes for solid fishing, as does the wind shift through the west in advance of an approaching front.  We truly threaded the eye of the needle in regards to being on the water in these ideal conditions.

We caught fish from start to finish today.  As I waited on conditions to brighten after our 6:55a launch, we did a bit of downrigging for some “high-riding” white bass and hybrid striper, putting (go figure!) a single largemouth in the boat.  We  didn’t spend long at this as it brightened up pretty well (despite the cloud cover) once the sun rose.

With good wind and light conditions now in place, we used sonar to sweep deep-water areas in a search for active, congregated fish.  We did not have to spend long looking, as we found what we were after fairly quickly and got to work using a “smoking” technique to elicit a predator response from the active fish in the area we were fishing.  The action steadily rose to a peak at between 9:00a and 9:30a, then begin to fall back off again thereafter.

During this peak time, I observed the first bit of helpful bird activity of the season, sighting 6 gulls working over a suspended school of mixed white bass and short hybrid driving bait to near the surface.  We made a series of “short hops” with the boat using i-Pilot technology to “Spot-Lock” ourselves on top of active fish as dictated by sonar returns.  During this peak, it was not uncommon for 2 or 3 rods of our 5 rods to be bent with fish on at any given time.  Easily 40 of our fish came over the side during this window of high activity.

Although I experimented from time to time with a few variations on the vertical jigging theme, the smoking tactic beat them all, which is not surprising given that the water is still in the 60’s.

With the 117 fish boated on this trip, the average catch per trip on Belton this November now stands at 89.8 fish/trip with a total of 449 fish caught over the course of 5 trips taken on this lake thus far.  I expect this fishing will hold up at least until the Thanksgiving week and until the surface temperatures dip into the lower 50’s; things will then moderate and fishing will get a bit tougher as the fish get more lethargic.

We landed 1 largemouth, 3 drum, 9 legal hybrid striped bass, and a mix of 104 short hybrid stripers and white bass of all sizes up to 13 inches.  Since they kept track among themselves, Alyssa caught the most fish, Jennifer caught the biggest fish, Jonathan caught the first fish, and Tom got to pay for the trip!!

 

TALLY = 117 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:55a

End Time:  11:25a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  41F, increasing slowly to 47F due to thick cloud cover.

Water Surface Temp:  61-62F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE11-12.

Sky Conditions: 100% clouded, grey skies

Other: GT=60; BA = 6 G, 7T

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1403/1223 downrigging early

**Area 1288, 1482, 1483, 355/955, 1152, and 1484 (spot hopping to stay on top of fish with some bird assistance)

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Icing on the Cake – 5 Fish, Decker Lake, 11 Nov. 2014

This morning I fished with Dr. John Updike of Austin on Decker Lake (a.k.a. Walter E. Long Reservoir).

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In the face of the season’s strongest cold front to date, John still managed to put 4 nice hybrid stripers in the boat.  These fish were suspended at around 20′ beneath large schools of small shad suspended at 15-20 feet.

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Amongst the shad and hybrid, this largemouth also decided to join in for an easy meal of small baitfish.

John contacted me by phone about a week and a half ago.  He retired from a career in dentistry back in January and now wants to devote some time to fishing.  Because Decker Lake is a convenient drive for him, we wanted to get a good overview on what it takes to catch white bass and hybrid stripers in that body of water.  He emphasized that the learning, not the catching, was most important to him.  If we landed a few fish, he’d consider that “icing on the cake”.

With this in mind, I came prepared to demonstrate, if not employ, the five most common tactics I use throughout the year in pursuit of these two members of the the temperate bass family:  live shad, downrigging, vertical jigging, smoking, and the use of blade baits.  I also planned to provide clear guidance on the use and interpretation of sonar.

I had really hoped to catch the tail end of the west wind before it ramped up and transitioned to NNW, as that can offer some of the best fishing in this fall season.  The NOAA forecast actually showed we might have 2.5-3 hours worth of a chance at this as of the 3:00am forecast, but, no sooner did we launch and begin heading to our first area, then the wind shifted suddenly, almost violently, to the NNW and the temperature immediately begin to drop.  Our job just got much, much tougher.

We started off by throwing bladebaits in 15-20 feet of water after marking a single school of white bass, but, by the time we got positioned, they moved on.  We then tried live shad for about 30 minutes near this same area after marking fish on sonar holding at the base of a drop.  This did not produce, either.  Then, after observing 2 gulls working over open water over one of the cove mouths, we employed the downriggers to allow us to cover some water and see if these gulls were on to something.  This, too, failed to produce.

I left this area behind and headed out to check a deep-water area between two main lake points.  As we neared the area I hoped to search, I saw several swirls of feeding fish in the very heavy waves now on the water, and suspected these were white bass or short hybrids.  As I slowed down to inspect, sonar revealed heavy concentrations of small shad “balled up” about 15-20 feet beneath the surface, and, on occasion, beneath these balls, were the unmistakable sonar signatures of hybrid striped bass.  “Balled up” shad are in a defensive posture and are being threatened by something.  Whenever I see bait so regularly and tightly balled up, I slow way down an really look for the root cause, which is typically threatening gamefish of some sort.  We once again deployed the downriggers into this action and drew a near-instant response.

Using a pair of tandem rigs, each equipped with twin Pet Spoons, we placed the downrigger balls at 18 feet over the hybrid holding at 20-21 feet.  We scored 3 hybrid, followed by a largemouth, then another hybrid, all in about 45 minutes’ time.

As the wind got harder, the waves taller, and the temperatures colder, we decided to call it a day a bit early this go-round.  Before we wrapped up, though, we sought out a shallower, wind-protected area where I could do a hands-on demonstration with John showing him how both the smoking technique and the vertical jigging (or “slabbing”) techniques are correctly used.

We headed back in for around 10:15am and had quite the experience trying to get tied to the dock in a 20+ mph crosswind (think aircraft carrier landing in heavy seas), but, we managed, and by 10:30, John was warming his hands up in his truck, now a good bit wiser about the pursuit of these species on his “home lake”.

TALLY = 5 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time:  10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  54F (dropping to 46F over the ~4 hour span of our trip.

Water Surface Temp:  66-67F

Wind Speed & Direction:  W5 at 6:20a, shifting and increasing suddenly to NNW18-20 by 6:40a and staying at NNW17-20 for the duration of our trip.

Sky Conditions: 100% clouded, grey skies

Other: GT=50

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1470 through 1480 through 1481 through 1477

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

We Squashed ‘Em!! — 115 Fish, Belton, 10 Nov. 2014

This morning I fished with Jake Prishkulnik and Jeff Pollock, both businessmen from the Santa Fe, New Mexico area.  They signed up for a squash tournament in Dallas on Saturday and Sunday (in which they placed 1st & 2nd), and finished out their tour of Texas with a fishing trip on Belton.

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L to R: Jake Prishkulnik and Jeff Pollock teamed up to put together a catch of 115 fish today in the face of a stiff south wind generated by pre-frontal warming in advance of the season’s hardest cold front to date which hit around sunrise the following day.

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The pair landed largemouth, drum, hybrid, and white bass (shown here).  The white bass in Jake’s left hand (red jacket) taped 14 1/8 inches — very nice for Belton Lake.

I first got to know Jake (a.k.a. “Pinky”) through a connection with Casas por Cristo, a missionary organization in El Paso that focuses on providing adequate housing for the poor in Juarez, Mexico, and elsewhere.  We’ve built homes together on several occasions and talked about doing a fishing trip, so, the time was right today.  I’d never met Jeff before, but enjoyed his company, as well.

We had a stiff south wind today, starting at ~12mph pre-sunrise, and slowly working its way up to about 17-18 mph by the time we called it a day around 12:15p.

We caught fish the entire span of the trip, although the catch rate was moderate, allowing us to put 62 fish in the boat by around 11:30.  Then, once again, the fish put on the afterburners around 11:30, and from that time until ~12:15, we nearly doubled our catch, adding another 53 fish to our tally sitting on one boat-sized area, to bring our total catch today up to exactly 115 fish.

I did a bit of downrigging early in the vicinity of Area 1403/1223 hoping to see some early bird activity, but none materialized.  We picked up 5 white bass on the downriggers as we trolled – 2 doubles and a single on a a pair of tandem-rigged Pet Spoons.

After the sun brightened a bit, we headed out deep to search for schooled white bass and hybrid stripers.  We found fish as shallow as 32 feet and as deep as 46 feet, with most at the deeper end of that spectrum.

Nearly every one of our fish came via a smoking tactic using silver 3/4 oz. TNT180 slabs.  On a few occasions as Jake and Jeff used a smoking tactic, I’d experiment with vertical jigging, but that did not pan out well.  These fish are still in a chasing mood given the still-warm 66-67F water.

We boated a mix of short and keeper white bass and short and keeper hybrid, although the legal hybrid made up a small percentage of our catch (about 5 of the 115).  In our mix of fish we also picked up 2 largemoujth from out of 44 feet of water, and a single freshwater drum.

 

TALLY = 115 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  12:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  49F

Water Surface Temp:  66-67F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S12 at sunrise, increasing to and leveling off at S17 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: Cloudless, fair skies.

Other: GT=140

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1403/1223 downrigging early

**Area  187/1287 smoking

**Area 171/1290 smoking

**Area 1468/1463 smoking

**Area 1469 (most productive area and the last fished, smoking)

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Mr. Low Maintenance — 76 Fish, Belton, 08 Nov. 2014

This morning I fished with Tony Bagliore, owner of Bagliore Concrete, on our fifth trip together on Belton Lake this year.

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Tony Bagliore with a just-legal hybrid taken from 39 feet of water on slabs as a approaching dry cold front brought westerly winds and good fishing today.

As the season progressed from spring through summer and now into fall, I introduced Tony to the particulars of live shad fishing (spring) and downrigging (early summer).  This morning’s weather offered an excellent opportunity for yet another introduction, this time to multiple vertical techniques, including easing, jigging, and smoking.

Tony is a rare sort in that he is a middle-aged man who is still both eager to learn AND willing to be coached.  Many middle-aged men think they are eager to learn, but are not willing to be coached and so never really actually learn (and then you have those that don’t want to learn or be coached — they usually get their fish at Red Lobster!).  Anyway, this trip was originally scheduled for next Friday, but when I saw near-perfect weather conditions forecast less than 24 hours out, I suggested to Tony that we bump the trip up.  Here again, instead of stubbornly sticking with “the plan”, he took his guide’s advice and benefited from it.

As we got going this morning, a mild, dry cold front was due to make its way into central Texas during the morning hours.  We kind of “piddled” around for the first 30 minutes targeting some suspended fish with downriggers waiting for the skies to brighten and the wind to build.  The only reason we didn’t start a bit later is because I had hoped some birds (terns and gulls) might have shown up with this week’s mid-week cold front, and such birds often begin working at first light.  No birds yet, so, we downrigged, missing one fish on a tandem-rigged Pet Spoon setup trolled at 38 feet along a breakline between Area 511 and 1304.

By 7:15 I judged the clear skies to be bright enough for the deepwater bite I suspected would be turned on today to crank up.  We headed out to graph our first area with sonar and were fortunate enough to find deep, concentrated fish on our first sonar pass.  We buoyed these fish, set up on top of them with Spot Lock and went to work.  We spent 3 hours on these fish, putting 53 in the boat, consisting of hybrid of all sizes up to 18″ and white bass of all sizes up to 13.25″.  Over the course of our time spent over these fish, we used a smoking retrieve (primarily), an easing technique, and a jigging technique, all with TNT180 slabs in both 3/4 and 3/8 oz., and in both white and silver.  The 3/4 oz. bait edged out the smaller version, and white and silver performed just about equally.

As the action at this first area began to decline (indicated by fish no longer responding to a smoking retrieve when they previously did so) we spent a few minutes searching elsewhere for more fish in a similar scenario (deep water on a bottom feature being wind-impacted).  We found more fish almost immediately, and spent our final 30 minutes atop an aggressive school of fish that contributed another 23 fish to the count in short order.  Mrs. B. gave us an 11:00am curfew so as to be on time for a wedding this afternoon, so, we “left ’em biting” at 10:45 and headed back in.

I enjoy all of my trips with all of my clients, but I particularly enjoy fishing with more advanced anglers because with the “basics” already under their belts, we are able to take full advantage of the opportunities the fish present.  Such was the case with Tony.  Although we both missed a few fish, we just about maximized the potential we had before us today.

One thing I did specifically to help Tony improve his own efforts when fishing from his own boat was to configure my sonar and position the two of us in the boat in a way he could replicate with his boat, trolling motor, and sonar setup.  This placed us both in full view of my console-mounted sonar unit and allowed us both to observe our baits and the fishes’ reaction to them nearly 100% of the time.  A lot of learning takes place by simply observing the sonar screen for an extended period of time.

For our efforts today, we boated exactly 76 fish, including 3 drum, 4 legal hybrid striper, and a mixed bag of 69 legal and short white bass and short hybrid striped bass.

 

TALLY = 76 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  10:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  48F

Water Surface Temp:  68.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  W7 at sunrise, slowing tapering up to NW14 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: 10% clouds on a bluebird sky.

Other: GT=80

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   551/1304 downrigging early

**Area  1325 (53 fish over ~3 hours)

**Area 1468 (23 fish over 0.5 hours)

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com