On Assignment — 19 Fish, Belton Lake, 28 April 2015

by Bob Maindelle
On this unusually cold late April morning I was joined by an all-lady crew consisting of Bonnie Mobley, Sandy Blevins, and Elizabeth McLane.
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Sandy Blevins took the prize for most and biggest today.

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Bonnie Mobley holds a hybrid striped bass that took a large, 5″ gizzard shad fished around 22′ over a 35′ bottom.
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Elizabeth McLane jumped out with an early 2-fish lead with faith that the right side of the boat was the “right” side to fish on.
These three ladies are friends from Sunday School at their church, First Baptist Church of Belton.  They were all very pleasant to be with, were dressed adequately for the cold, damp weather, and were fast learners.  I commented during the trip how I always enjoy having groups of ladies out because they tend to listen so much better than men when it comes to using circle hooks, and, as a result, put more fish in the boat.  As evidence of this, over the course of this morning’s trip, we had exactly 21 “pull downs”.  A “pull down” is where a fish takes a bait aggressively enough to pull the rod tip towards and/or into the water and moves off far enough to cause the bait clicker to make the audible noise it is designed to make.   These ladies boated 19 of these 21 opportunities; that’s an unusually high 90%+.

A damp cold front is always tough to contend with, and today was no exception.  I anticipated the cold front conditions, but the dampness was not in the forecast to the extent that we experienced it this morning.  Shad were tough to find and net, and the fishing was a bit soft, as well.  The wind velocity made getting on and staying on some of the open water areas I’ve been fishing a bit tough, but, we caught fish at 3 of the 4 areas at which  we stopped and put baits down.  I noticed that we would arrive at an area, get bait and chum going, catch a few fish, and just as soon as the fish fired up, they would cool back down again, allowing just 5-7 fish per stop.  We never really got a good feeding frenzy going beneath the boat.

Although Elizabeth jumped out in front with an early 2-fish lead, Sandy’s rod got the most attention today, and she wound up catching the largest fish of the trip.

Elizabeth told a great story about a businessman she once knew who was also a successful Belton Lake fisherman.  He named his boat “Assignment” and then trained his receptionist to tell those who called during business hours while he was away fishing that he was “on Assignment.”

I just doesn’t seem right to wear long underwear and gloves in Texas on April 28th!

 

TALLY = 19 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 8:15a

End Time:  12:40p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  56F

Water Surface Temp:  71F on lower lake; 72-73F in upper Leon River

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNW14-16

Sky Conditions:  Heavy grey skies with occasional light rain and constant light drizzle

Other: GT=40

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 835

**Area  1383

**Area 1482

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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