Day: March 2, 2016

Don’t Fence Me In — 58 Fish, Stillhouse, 01 March

by Bob Maindelle

This past Tuesday, March 1st, I fished with Mr. Tom Griego who lives out near Bastrop, TX.

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Pre-frontal weather conditions kept the white bass biting for a full 4 hours this morning, allowing Tom Griego to catch fish on bladebaits and slabs from 17 to 35 feet deep.

Tom is a Texas National Guard air defense artillery veteran who has made a living installing chain link fence for over 30 years.  He primarily fishes the Colorado river in his own 16′ aluminum boat, targeting catfish, but wanted to expand his horizons and pursue a different species using different tactics while still staying fairly close to home.

 SInce Tom is retired and has a very flexible schedule, I told him I’d wait to contact him went I saw excellent conditions.  We passed on two previously scheduled dates during which the close-in forecast changed unfavorably between the time we scheduled his trips using an extended forecast, and the actual date of these trips.  Tom was rewarded for his patience, as we got into a good number of quality fish today for the entire 4 hours on the water as we fished under pre-frontal conditions and during the wind shift in advance of the front’s arrival.
We started under birds as has been the case since early January.  Today’s low-light action was a bit soft because the brightening that normally takes place under clear skies just wasn’t there to suddenly trigger the fish to feed.  We used a combination of casting bladebaits horizontally in 17′  or less and vertical jigging in 20′ or more to put together a nice string of fish today, including several in the 14″ range.
We closed out our trip with a little over 4 hours on the water once the winds went NNW and the last of the pre-frontal clouds gave way to clearing skies.

TALLY = 58 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp:  60.0F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9, shifting through the W and increasing to 16, to NW17 by trip’s end in advance of a mild, dry cold front

Sky Conditions:  Fully grey skies at trip’s start, clearing to 40% white clouds on a blue sky as the front rolled in.

Water Level: 622.18 with 622.0 being full pool.  0.07 feet of water was released in the last 24 hours.

Other: GT= 10

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   531/1703 – Casting blades for shallow whites under birds at first light — slow action due to a slow brightening of the skies

**Area   103 – Solid action vertical jigging slabs in 25-27′ under birds

**Area  419/985 – Moderate action on slabs out in deeper 30-35′ water as the shallow bite died and just before the birds quit

**Area  092 – Moderate action on slabs in 20-25 feet — had to move frequently to go to fish that refused to move even short distances to come in to the commotion we created

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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