“Dawg’ed” by an East Wind — 22 Fish, Belton, 11 April 2015 (AM)

This morning I fished with Josh Welch, his uncle Tracy Welch, and Tracy’s two sons, 12-year-old Caleb, and 10-year old Matthew, all of Copperas Cove.

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From left: Copperas Cove High School “Dawgs” football coach Tracy Welch and his son, Caleb Welch, with our largest hybrid of the morning.

Fishing has been excellent for the past two weeks, but a wrinkle in the weather caused a speed bump this morning. Today we woke up to the first easterly winds I’ve encountered since the hybrid bite turned on on Belton. Skies were heavy and overcast to the point of light drizzle, with a very light northeast wind.
Although we encountered fish in many of the same areas I have been fishing regularly, instead of these areas teaming with fish, what appeared on sonar this morning was much more sparse.

On a number of occasions we had multiple fish or even sizable schools of fish approach our baits and give no response whatsoever. On one occasion, with four live bait rods out in the four corners of the boat, we had several schools of hybrid come by and simply ignore our bait. I put chunks of bait on two additional rods and sent them down between the two live bait rods on each side of the boat. The hybrid stripers responded to this and we wound up replacing our live baits with chunk baits only, leading us to the best fishing of the morning, albeit short-lived.

Unfortunately, the boys were up against an 11:30 deadline to depart for a soccer game, so extending the trip a bit to continue hunting for fish was not an option.

The old saying “Winds from the E\east, fish bite least.” was definitely a truism for this morning.

For our efforts today we boated 20 hybrid striped bass, one small mouth bass, and one freshwater drum.
TALLY =  22 Fish, all caught and released

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 11:30

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 61F

Water Surface Temp: 66F @ lower lake, 68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: ENE3-4

Sky Conditions: Grey and overcast @ 100%

Other: GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1545

**Area 1547

**Area 346/976

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

A Classic “64” Olds — Belton Lake, 66 Fish, 10 April 2015

This April 10th morning I welcomed back Brian Olds and his father, Mr. Ransom Olds.  Joining me for the first time was Brian’s sister, Brandi.  Brian and Brandi teamed up to take their dad fishing in celebration of his 64th birthday.

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From left: Brandi Lujano, Ransom “Birthday Boy” Olds, and Brian Olds.

Brian works for Dell in Austin, Brandi teaches 5th grade, and Ransom is now retired.  The whole family does a good bit of fishing in both freshwater and salt  — it is their way of celebrating and reuniting.

After a night of wind and brief, intense rainfall accompanied by a significant temperature drop into the high 50’s, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Cold front fishing is always a big question mark, but, as I’ve remarked many times in this spring season, the fishes’ increasing metabolism tends to trump environmental conditions that would otherwise shut down a bite in other times of the year.

Fishing was once again very straightforward.  We found ’em, put down baits, put down chum, and proceeded to reel in the fish.  In fact, the very first shad I dropped down this morning got hit during my “circle hook demo”!!

The cold front definitely did make a negative impact, but there were still plenty of fish to be caught.  The two behavioral things I observed that were different today than during the past week of fairly stable weather with southerly winds was that 1) fish would mouth the baits more frequently, feel the pressure of the rod, drop the bait and not return whereas during the stable weather, they would regularly return for the bait and take it until they hooked themselves.  2) I noted that as the bite began to fade around 11am, cut bait got more attention than live bait.  I think the fish were willing to eat, but not necessarily chase hard after a healthy live bait to do so.

A classic sibling rivalry burst forth at about fish number 2 with Brandi and Brian constantly (albeit good-naturedly) comparing stats and accusing one another of fudging.

Our “fish count” stood at around 53 fish by 11am, with a tentative end time of noon.  We all agreed it would be pretty cool for the group to land 64 fish in honor of Ransom’s 64th birthday, so, we made that our goal.  By 11:50, we’d cleared that hurdle.  Brandi suggested we add “one more to grow on”, so, we put fish #65 in the boat.  Then, as we were clearing lines and reeling in to head back to the dock, Brian coaxed one to strike, making it an even 66 fish boated today.

 

TALLY =  66 Fish, including 1 white bass. 4 blue catfish,  and 61 hybrid striped bass

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 8:00a

End Time: Noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 57F

Water Surface Temp: 65F @ lower lake, 68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: NE9-11

Sky Conditions: Grey and overcast @ 100%

Other: GT = 40

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1543

**Area  346

 

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

 

Now “Weight” Just a Minute! — 112 Fish with the Oliver Clan, Belton, 09 April 2015

This morning I enjoyed being on the water with yet another combination of Oliver family members.  Of course Joe, who arranges all of these trips, was present, as was his dad, who we all call “Pa”.  Setting foot on my boat for the first time was Joe’s brother, Jeff, and Joe’s wife Dicque.

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From left: Joe, Dicque, Pa, and Jeff.  Twice during the trip we had a quadruple-header, where all four of the Olivers caught fish as the same time!

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Dicque “Wet Britches” Oliver and her husband, Joe, with one of our largest fish of the trip.

We enjoyed yet another day of very easy fishing for hybrid striped bass.  In fact, lately, more effort has been required to find the bait than to find the fish that eat that bait.  We made just 2 stops today, both in about 27 feet of water.  The process that has been working for us goes like this:  find active fish on sonar, then Spot Lock on top of them, get live baits out, get chum down to cause a stir, then sit back and enjoy the results.

As the 10 o’clock hour came, the winds began to increase, as did the size of the swells.  Dicque chose the front starboard rod and rod-holder as “hers” and therefore had the luxury of sitting on the rear edge of the front casting deck.  As I saw the wave size growing, I let everyone know that we had a special “early warning device” for dangerous wave height aboard, and her name was Dicque.   I explained that the first 63F wave that broke slightly over the bow would so thoroughly soak through the seat of her jeans that she would surely let out an audible noise.

Well, sure enough, in crashed a wave and, just like clockwork, Dicque let us all know about it.  Problem was, we now had water collecting on the floor of the boat sufficient to soak the shoes of Pa and Jeff who were fishing in the stern.  It was then that I made the observation that no matter how many other people stood on a given side of the boat, the water only seemed to collect on Joe’s side.   Joe (a pretty big, athletic guy) said he resembled that remark.  All other Olivers concurred.  As for me, I kept my mouth shut and bailed!

We wound up with 112 fish including 108 hybrid striped bass and 4 white bass.

TALLY =  112 Fish, including 4 white bass and 108 hybrid striped bass

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp: 65F @ lower lake, 68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: S11-13, increasing to S14-15 by 10:30a

Sky Conditions: Grey and overcast @ 100%

Other: GT = 40

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1546

**Area  1545

 

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

Red Dot Inspector – 172 Fish, Belton Lake, 07 April 2015

I awoke around 4:30am, stepped outside to see what kind of weather I’d be facing today, and had that “sixth sense” feeling we were in for a good one!  It was warm, moist, grey, and with just a bit of breeze from the south.


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Today’s father-and-son trip with Rodrick & Oliver Rhoads included a “behind the scenes” look at bait-netting before a very productive 172 fish day, consisting of a mix of short (<18″) and keeper (18+”) hybrid striped bass.

I was joined at around 6:45am by Mr. Rodrick Rhoads of Georgetown, TX, and his 9 year old son, Oliver.  Roderick has fished with me twice before, once bringing Oliver, and once bringing his oldest child, his daughter April.  Since I suspected the shad-catching would not be the chore it has been, I invited Rodrick and Oliver along to observe this bait-gathering process.  As dark turned to early morning grey, the shad began to show themselves.  I threw the net a few times and attempted to narrate as I did so.  We got what we were after fairly quickly and were on our way to the fishing grounds.

Not only was the shad netting easy, the fishing today was even easier.  We wet our first line at exactly 7:35am and fished until 11:45am.  We never moved the boat a single time and caught exactly 172 off of this single area.  I crunched the numbers — that is one fish landed every 1.47 minutes for over 4 hours straight.  These fish are simply in overdrive thanks to an increase in their metabolism.

A funny thing happened as I was taking a hybrid off the line for Oliver.  He noticed this particular fish had a red dot on it.  After we released the fish, I baited his line and he let it down.  His bait clicker went off indicating another hybrid had struck his shad and was moving off with it.  He reeled it in and swore it was the exact same fish.  I told him that once a fish is caught, it won’t bite again for a while because it is stressed.  But, Oliver just knew it was the same fish.  I asked him how he knew this.  He said because this fish had the same red dot in the same place as the last one did.  I asked him to point this “red dot” out to me.

You guessed it!  He pointed right to the fish’s anus.  Dad and I grinned and informed him that every fish has one of those!  He was okay with that.

Our 2-man haul today consisted of 4 white bass and 168 hybrid striped bass.  All were released to fight again.

There are only a few open slots remaining between now and the end of this annual “peak bite” for hybrid on Belton.  Those dates are:

Thursday, 30 April – AM
Tuesday, 05 May – AM
Thursday, 07 May – AM
Thursday, 14 May – AM
Monday, 18 May – AM (Memorial Day)
Tuesday, 19 May – AM

 

TALLY =  172 Fish, including 4 white bass and 168 hybrid striped bass

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:35a

End Time: 11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp: 63F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: S11-13

Sky Conditions: Grey and overcast @ 100%

Other: GT = 115

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  Vicinity 1374

**Area  1544 in ~27 feet of water

 

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

Personal Best – 53 Fish, Belton Lake, 06 April 2015

On Monday, April 5th, I was joined by Kevin Yuille and a fishing buddy of his  for a morning of hybrid striped bass fishing on Belton Lake.

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Kevin Yuille with two fistfuls of 3 to 4 pound hybrid stripers caught on live shad from Belton Lake.

I first met Kevin at the recent Cabela’s Great Outdoors Days event at the Buda, TX, location when he came in shopping for an upgrade to his black & grey sonar unit.  Kevin has a 17′ boat with a 50 hp motor and fishes on the weekends, mainly throwing artificial for largemouth bass

As it typically is during this 7-8 week “window” of prime hybrid striped bass fishing, fishing was pretty straightforward this morning — find bait, catch bait, find fish, catch fish.  That’s it!

Although we found no spawning shad this morning, about a half hour worth of throwing provided ample bait for the morning, mainly for smaller threadfin shad.  Once the bait was on board and being “babied”, we headed to the fishing grounds where we were greeted by some stiff winds at 18mph with higher gust and swells sufficient to make it a bit dicey for the first hour or so.

We located fish in two distinct areas, got them excited with chum, and then caught them for about 60-75 minutes at each location as the action rose, peaked, and fell off.

As is often the case in this super-productive season, it was actually harder to find and catch the bait today than it was the gamefish we used that bait to catch!  Our catch of 53 fish today was a personal best single-trip total for Kevin.

As of this writing, I only have one April date left open, and only five dates left open in May before what is the traditional end of the treadfin shad spawn and the awesome hybrid fishery that accompanies it.  The Lord has truly blessed Rebecca and I with your business this season — thank you!

Those dates are:

Thursday, 30 April – AM
Tuesday, 05 May – AM
Thursday, 07 May – AM
Thursday, 14 May – AM
Monday, 18 May – AM (Memorial Day)
Tuesday, 19 May – AM


TALLY =  53 Fish, including 4 white bass and 49 hybrid striped bass

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 8:15a

End Time: 12:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 66F

Water Surface Temp: 63F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE16-18 with higher gusts in first hour

Sky Conditions: Grey and overcast @ 100%

Other: GT = 30

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  Vicinity 1374

**Area  1543

 

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

4 Men, 2 Days, 261 Fish — Belton Lake, 03-04 April 2015

This past Friday morning and Saturday morning I fished with the Buchholz party.  For 21 consecutive years these four men have met up for an annual fishing reunion.  The patriarch is 78-year-old Mr. Don Buchholz of Killeen, Don’s son, John Buchholz, John’s friend, Greg Horton, and Gary Cheer who is related to the Buchholz clan by marriage.

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A 21-year tradition: from the left: Don Buchholz, John Buchholz, Greg Horton, and Gary Cheer.

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Gary, an Englishman and 737 airline pilot, took big-fish honors on this 2-day effort with this hybrid weighing in at 4.25 pounds.

On Friday, we enjoyed ideal, pre-frontal fishing conditions as warm temperatures, southerly winds, and humid, cloudy conditions were within hours of being ushered out by an approaching cold front.  Over the four hour span, we only fished two areas with very little “search time” involved in finding fish at either area.  The action occurred, as it often does, in a bell-shaped curve, with the build-up being aided by steady chumming, the peak being fueled by the fishes’ own aggressive competitiveness and rising metabolism, and the taper-down as the school is thinned out by effective angling. We fished live shad on downlines for 178 hybrid striped bass and 5 white bass.

On Saturday, the cold front had passed and high pressure was building in.  The 7:30am starting temperature was only 55 degrees and the wind blew at a stiff 14mph from the NNE.  We had a slow start, with only 5 fish boated by 8:50am.  At this time, the sun began to break through the otherwise solid cloud cover, and, after beginning to taper off for about 30 minutes down to ~11mph, the wind ramped up again.  This seemed to trigger the fish, as we began to catch fish steadily from this time right up until 11:30am when they finally shut down.  We boated 78 fish on this trip, including 76 hybrid stripers and 2 blue catfish.

 

TALLY = Day 1 = 183 Fish; Day 2 = 78 fish; total catch = 261 fish, all caught and released

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

DAY 1:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp: 62F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: S6-9

Sky Conditions: Grey and overcast @ 100%

Other: GT = 20

DAY 2:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 12:00 noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 55F

Water Surface Temp: 62F @ lower lake

Wind Speed & Direction: NNE13-14

Sky Conditions: Grey and overcast @ 100% until 8:50, then gradually clearing to 40% clouds on a fair blue sky

Other: GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

DAY 1:

SHAD: **Area 616

**Area  835

**Area  151

DAY 2:

**Area Vicinity 1399/651

**Area Vicinity 1293

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

First Fish of His Lifetime — 18 Fish, Belton Lake, 02 April 2015 (PM)

This afternoon I fished an afternoon trip on Belton Lake with first time guests Larry Mitcham, his adult son, Randy, and Randy’s 17 year old son, Trent.  Larry lives in the Austin area, and Randy and Trent drove down from Dayton, Ohio on Trent’s spring break to visit.

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Trent with the first fish of his life — a shad-caught Belton Lake hybrid.

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And, not to be outdone, Randy boated his fair share, too.

If you’ve read my articles any length of time, you’ll know that I try to fish mornings whenever possible.  The morning bite, all else being equal, always seems a bit stronger and longer than the morning bite on both Stillhouse and Belton.  In this situation, Trent and Randy were only in town for a short window of time and, with all of my mornings booked this week, we went with what we had to work with and fished in the afternoon.

The main focus of this trip was to help Trent catch the first fish of his life.  He’d been fishing once before and was not able to “seal the deal” on that excursion.  We fished with live shad on a number of areas that have been producing well in the mornings, and we tried a few other areas, as well.

We had our best action right at the beginning of our trip, and again right before dark.  In the “middle” we struggled to get bit, pulling just a single here and a double there.

We wound up with 18 fish, including Trent’s first fish, a hard-pulling Belton Lake hybrid striped bass.

 

TALLY = 18 FISH, all caught and released

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time: 8:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp: 62F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE18 with higher gusts

Sky Conditions: Partly cloudy at 40% coverage on fair blue skies

Other: GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  835

**Area  1208

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

Four Dollars Waitin’ on a Dime — 81 Fish, Belton, 02 April 2015

This morning I fished with the Oliver clan – Grandpa Joe, Jamie, Jack, and Joe, in pursuit of hybrid striper on Belton Lake.  Grandpa is retired and resides in Temple, Jamie is a psychotherapist from Cedar Park, Jack is an electrician and realtor living near Marble Falls, and Joe is the Athletic Director at Central Texas Christian School in Belton.

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From left: Jamie and Pa Oliver.

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Above: Jack Oliver

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Above: Joe Oliver

At 4:30am I awoke to a worst-case scenario; after gathering enough shad for this morning’s trip back on Tuesday and babysitting them for 2 days, I found every last one of them dead thanks to a failed battery charger.  So, by 5:05am I was out the door speeding to the lake to blind cast in the dark for a minimum of 120 shad to make sure the trip went right.

It is no coincidence that in my church Small Group this past Monday we looked at the life of Joseph of the Old Testament and how God saw him through a crisis.  I got reassurance from this and refused to be rattled.  I just kept throwing the net and every throw brought in a few shad such that by 7:30 I had enough to see us through.

On my last trip with this foursome, one of the brothers was late.  When he arrived and walked down to meet us at the end of the boat ramp, one of the punctual brothers remarked, “It’s like a dollar waitin’ on a dime.”   I always remembered that saying and couldn’t help but wonder who the “dime” was today as I arrived a bit tardy.

As we met up, I told the fellows what happened and then spoke out loud to the Lord, asking Him to help me settle down and get my mind on doing a good job finding fish for them.

In right at 4 hours of fishing, we put 81 fish in the boat, with the majority of them coming off of just two areas.  Chumming was critical in getting a bite started.

TALLY = 81 FISH, all caught and released

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 8:00a

End Time: 12:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp: 62F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: S9-10

Sky Conditions: 100% overcast the entire trip

Other: GT = 50

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1540

**Area  1270

** Area 967

 

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

Hybrid Season Begins with Solid Scouting Trip – 26 Fish, 31 March 2015

This morning I met up with returning client Tony Bagliore of Belton to conduct a “reconnaissance” of the shad and hybrid situation on Belton Lake.  We met up at 6:45am with Job #1 being to locate and gather threadfin and/or gizzard shad with castnets.  Job #2 would then be to locate and catch hybrid striped bass with those shad used as bait.

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Belton Lake resident Tony Bagliore with a nice 3.75 pound shad-caught hybrid —  a result of this morning’s scouting trip.

 

In a typical year, the weeks from the end of March to roughly the 3rd week of May offer the fastest and best quality hybrid striped bass fishing of the year with both quantity and quality of fish being excellent, and with live shad far out-producing all other methods.
The first job went longer than I had hoped, but still helped me gauge where we are in the season and how much time I will need to allot for this chore in the upcoming days and weeks.  It took the two of us approximately 2 1/2 hours to gather 360 bait-quality shad.
After the bait was gathered and properly being cared for, we then probed a number of areas with sonar in an attempt to locate catchable populations of hybrid striped bass.
We fished exactly 7 areas in 3 hours’ time, finding strong fishing at 3 of these areas, marginal fishing at 1, and no fish present at 3.
In all cases, chumming definitely helped get the bite going and sustained the bite.
So as to cover water and find as many productive areas as we could in the morning “window”, we opted to fish an area only until we’d caught ~5 fish, and then to move on.  If fish did not cooperate in the first 10 minutes on an area, we moved along.
For our efforts this morning, we boated exactly 24 hybrid striped bass and 2 white bass.  Of those 24 hybrid stripers, approximately 1/3 were keeper-sized fish, going right at 18 inches, with 2 of those keeper-sized fish exceeding 20 inches.
These fish had a definite preference for smaller threadfin shad.  Our large gizzard shad were totally ignored.

 

TALLY = 26 FISH, all caught and released

 

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 1:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp: 62F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW11-13

Sky Conditions: 40% white clouds on fair blue sky

Other: GT = 80

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1540

**Area  1270

** Area 967

 

 

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

Pushing Buttons — Sonar Session, 27 March 2015

Today on was joined on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir by brand new boat owners Mr. and Mrs. R.C. Stephenson of Sun City, TX.

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Mr. & Mrs. R.C. Stephenson of Sun City, TX, with one of several white bass we “trolled up” after finding abundant, suspended fish on sonar.
The Stephenson’s just purchased a new Carolina Skiff “Sea Skiff”, which is a very nice, V-hulled center-console.  R.C. had this equipped with a 24 volt, 80 pound thrust trolling motor and a Lowrance HDS-9, Gen 2 Touch sonar unit with StructureScan and Insight mapping.

 

Today’s goal was to do a bit of a “shakedown” on all the equipment and introduce the Stephenson’s to the capabilities of the sonar they purchased.

 

We began out of the water with a “class” in the parking lot using some “training aids” I’ve developed to help them understand how the unit sends out sound.  I also inspected and adjusted both transducers.

 

Next, we launched and went screen by screen through the charts, through StructureScan, and through traditional colored sonar, demonstrating the features of each, and making necessary adjustments to the settings on each.

 

We then began to combine multiple capabilities on the screen as the same time using 2 and 3 panel displays.

 

Once the basics of the sonar were understood, we used the Spot Lock feature of the Minn Kota trolling motor equipped with i-Pilot to hold in the strong wind and go our lures to show up beneath the boat, as well as fish and bait.

 

Along the way we picked up a few cooperative white bass by flatline trolling along a windblown shoreline after seeing abundant bait and gamefish showing on sonar.

 

As we closed out our time on the water, I set the default screen we had customized for R.C. with some overlay data that he desired, including speed over ground, depth, temperature, time, and date.

 

Along the way, I gave “pop quizzes” regularly to make sure R.C. had comprehended the instruction and could independently make commonly needed adjustments to his various screens.