Hybrid Fishing with the Goodnight Family — 45 Fish, Belton Lake

This past Thursday morning, April 28th, I fished Belton Lake with Ronnie Goodnight and his sons, Joshua, and John, fifth and sixth generation central Texans living in Salado.
IMG_2069
Ronnie (foreground) is now retired from the homebuilding business, Joshua (rear right) represents commercial property holders’ interests before taxing authorities to try to keep their property taxes in check, and John (rear left) is a student at Texas A&M University – Central Texas.
This morning’s trip proved a good bit more difficult than any trip over the last month. The Corps of Engineers finally opened the floodgates to release the 9-10 feet of water that had accumulated following recent heavy rains. This action brought fairly dirty water directly from out of the Cowhouse Creek arm down into the main basin causing some murkiness, and the same thing was observed up to where Cedar Creek comes in on the Leon River arm, as well. This amounted to a very significant environmental change that the fish were negatively impacted by. Typically, once the water runs for two or three days at the same release rate, the fish will get used to this “new normal” and fishing will improve.

Despite the difficult circumstances, we were still able to catch fish, although I had to visit many more areas than has been necessary recently in order to put together our catch. We found fish in three distinct areas today, including a mix of hybrid striped bass and white bass in 32 feet of water, moderately congregated white bass (only) in 15 to 22 feet of water, and a mix of small whites and short hybrid striper in the lower 5 feet of the water column in 50-55 feet of water.

Over the course of our trip today, whenever I observed what I believed to be small, congregated fish near bottom, we went with a slabbing approach, and whenever I saw larger fish, either on bottom or suspended, I went with the live bait option. All of the keeper hybrid we caught today came on live shad.

TALLY = 45 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time:  12:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp:  71.9-72.5F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were steady at SSE7-8

Sky Conditions:  Clearing skies after morning fog

Water Level: Despite running over 5,000 cfs out of the dam, Belton still rose 0.17 feet in the last 24 hours and is now 9.24 feet above full pool.

Other: GT= 30

 Wx Snapshot:

 28APR16

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1677 – suspended fish at 20-25 over a 32 foot bottom taken on live shad; mix of whites, short hybrid and keeper hybrid.

**Area vic 1668 – jigged for white bass in 17-22′

**Area 1079 – jigged/smoked for white bass and short hybrid in ~55′

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

3rd SKIFF Trip of the 2016 Season — Caleb Woodside & Jonathan Owens, 48 fish

This past Tuesday afternoon I had the joy of fishing with Jonathan Owens, the minister of music at Memorial Baptist Church in Killeen, along with Caleb Woodside, one of the youth at that church, and a member of the church’s band. The two share a common interest in music, and I offered to take the them out so they could continue to build on their new friendship. Though still a teenager, Caleb has risen to the rank of manager at the local Freddy’s Burger restaurant, and has plans to pursue a business administration degree, possibly at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.
 
IMG_2066
This was the third SKIFF trip I’ve conducted for the 2016 season.  SKIFF stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun, and exists to get soldiers’ kids out on the water while those soldiers are away from their families due to military duty.  Caleb’s dad, U.S. Army Captain Matthew Woodside, is a chaplain serving the First Cavalry Division in South Korea for a 9-month rotation.

We were plagued with heavy winds this afternoon. Winds were blowing 18 to 20 straight line, with occasional higher gusts. The white bass I have been finding on Stillhouse have been heavily congregated, but in very deep water. Wind and deep water are a difficult combination as less experienced anglers tend to have difficulty in detecting when their lure is or is not on bottom. This was the case for some of our trip today.
Nonetheless, we were able to overcome that issue and land a total of 48 fish, using both an “easing” and a “smoking” tactic.

The “smoking” tactic typically first comes into play as the water reaches 72°. We were just shy of that mark today, but the fish still responded fairly well. Our catch of 48 fish consisted of 47 white bass and one freshwater drum. Thanks to fairly heavy cloud cover, the evening bite wrapped up right at 7:50 PM.


If you are a military family and you or your spouse is away on duty of any sort, please call me if I can help your situation by providing a free fishing trip.  Parents are welcome to attend, and are equally welcome to take a break from their own kids and leave them in my care for the 4 hour trip.
 
TALLY = 48 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time:  8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  72.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were strong S18-20 with higher gusts

Sky Conditions:  Thin grey cloud cover the entire trip.

Water Level: ~5 feet above full pool with no release from the dam.

GT = 0

 Wx Snapshot:

 25APR16

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 088

**Area 1748/1059/1042

**Area  1030/1028/1267

**Area 1156/122

**Area 158

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

 

Belton’s Finest Aboard! — 64 Fish, Belton Lake Hybrid Fishing

This past Tuesday morning, April 26th,  I was joined by City of Belton Police Chief Gene Ellis and the Belton City Manager, Sam Listi.  The two obviously have a good working relationship that carries over into off-duty hours, as well.
IMG_2056
Gene has joined me on several previous occasions, and this was Sam’s first time aboard with my Holding the Line Guide Service.
IMG_2059
I chided Sam a bit as it seems he has a brother-in-law who guides professionally on both Cedar Creek Reservoir and Richland-Chambers, yet Sam has not availed himself of any”family discount” and fished with the fellow thus far.
The USACE began releasing water overnight after retaining it ever since the heavy rains fell ~8 days ago.  The fish bit well today, but their locations definitely shifted.  Several of the areas that have been producing scores of fish for over the past several weeks simply held no fish this morning.
Once we found the fish around 8:15a, it was game-on for over 2.5 hour of continuous action on live shad.  At times, though we tried to fish 2 rods per man, we could only get 2 rods in the water grand total.  No sooner would be bait up, get the bait to depth and get the rod rested in a rod holder than the bait clicker would go off alerting us to the presence of another quality fish.
By around 10:30, the winds had blown hard enough and long enough for swells to develop. Fishing with bait in swells is typically an unproductive bet as the baits get yanked very unnaturally up and down, thus wearing down the baits, as well.  We moved to more protected water and continued to catch fish, although not of the quality that we’d experienced during that first long bite of the morning.
When all was said and done, we’d caught and released 64 fish.

TALLY: 64 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  70.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds steadily increased and shifted from at SSE13 to SSW19 with occasional higher gusts.

Sky Conditions:  60% cloud cover

Water Level: Belton finally leveled off at nearly 10 feet above full pool.  The USACE is now letting water out at 5,000-6,000 cfs and we had a net drop of 0.01 feet in the last 24 hours. 

Other: GT= 25


AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 187/1288 — 2.75 hours of continuous action in ~47 feet of water catching all sizes of hybrid striper and white bass with ~40% of the catch being legal hybrid.  We departed this area with 48 fish boated.

**Area vic 1137 — jigged with slabs for smaller fish and then baited up for larger fish with live shad and fished until the action ground to a halt right at 11:20a.

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Happy 86th Birthday!! — 106 Fish, Belton, 25 April

This past Monday morning, April 25th, I fished with the Oliver family in celebration of Pa Oliver’s 86th birthday.

 

Present for the trip were Pa’s four sons: Joe, Jamie, Jack, and Jeff, as well as Joe’s daughter, Amber.  After a word of prayer and before my fishing instructions we took a moment to present Pa with a loaf of banana bread with a blue candle in it and then we all sang Happy Birthday to him.

IMG_2047

From left: Jamie, Jack, Pa, Joe, Amber, and Jeff all celebrating Pa’s 86th birthday.

IMG_2049

Jeff Oliver with one of two 6.75 pound hybrid we landed today on lively threadfin shad caught less than an hour before the start of the trip.

IMG_2052

Jamie Oliver with the second of the two 6.75 pound hybrid striped bass we landed today.

All but Joe fished this morning — good thing, too, because the action was such that I relied on Joe to perform first mate duties on a regular basis including netting fish, baiting hooks, untangling lines, and more.

 

I was excited to get going this morning because all the natural signs pointed to good fishing — a southerly wind at a manageable velocity, grey cloud cover, and a very strong shad spawn at first light.

 

The fish did not disappoint.  In fact, this was the single best trip I’ve ever conducted on Belton Lake in terms of the quantity of keeper hybrid and the percentage of keeper hybrid we caught as compared to the whole catch.  As we prepared to leave the first area we anchored in 2.75 hours after arriving there, we had boated 67 fish, and of those, exactly 64 were keeper hybrid stripers.

 

As that incredible bite wound down, we located a school of smaller fish on another underwater feature and fished for them with spinning rods and slabs.  After adding another dozen fish to the tally, and with about 45 minutes remaining in the trip, we decided to take one more crack at the big hybrids, and succeeded in finding them despite the late hour.

 

We finished up by taking our tally to 106 fish landed.  This last area gave up about 40% keeper hybrid with the balance of the catch consisting of short hybrid and white bass of all sizes.

 

All of this took place with the water pushing over 10 feet above full pool and still rising thanks to recent heavy rains.  So far, none of this water has been released because other reservoirs on the Brazos River have been more critically flooded and the priority for release has gone to those bodies of water.

 

An excellent day with an excellent family!

 

TALLY: 106 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp:  68.3F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were steady at SSE10-11

Sky Conditions:  Light grey cloud cover the entire trip.

Water Level: Rapidly rising thanks to recent heavy rainfall; 604+ feet with 594.00 being full pool. No water is being released due to more severe flooding downstream (0cu. ft./sec.)

Other: GT= 25

 

 

Wx Snapshot:

25APR16

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

 

**Area 1742 — 67 fish by 10am of with 64 were keeper hybrid taken on live shad

**Area vic 1747 — jigged with slabs for smaller fish and baited up for larger fish with live shad

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

“Fish is what fishing’s all about!” – 195 Fish, Moore Party, 23 April

This past Saturday evening, 23 April, I fished with Garry Moore, his two sons-in-law, and two grandsons on Stillhouse Hollow targeting white bass with artificial lures.

IMG_2023

From left: Garry Moore, Sean Looney, Eric McMaster, and Connor Looney in the foreground.  Young Rivers McMaster was a bit camera shy.

IMG_2026

Grandpa Garry got the biggest fish at the very last stop, and within 5 minutes of the bite coming to an end.  He saved the best for last.

Garry’s son-in-law, Sean Looney, brought his 6-year-old son, Connor Looney; and Garry’s other son-in-law, Eric McMaster, brought his 3-year-old son, Rivers McMaster.

I’m normally a bit reluctant to take younger kids in this still-cool water season because the variety of tactics are limited, thus not allowing for much variety.  In the summer months, as sunfish invade the shallows, many more options open up.  Regardless, between fishing, snacking, and tending to a variety of chores that tend to be of interest to kids, both boys lasted for the full 4-hour length of the trip in good shape.

After a morning with calm winds and bright skies, this afternoon’s conditions improved with some SSE winds at a manageable speed and some high, thin clouds to take the edge off the bright sun.

After searching 4 areas without success, we checked out a deep ridge and there, at 60 feet on a sloped bottom, was a large school of white bass numbering in the hundreds.  And what was even better, these fish were already up off bottom, indicating an active, feeding posture.

We got right down to business working 3/4 oz. white slabs in the midst of the congregation of fish and spent 2.75 hours doing nothing but catching.  When the action slowed, I just did a “short hop” a few boatlengths away and we got right back into the fish.

The action finally slacked off right at 7:00p.  We cranked up, headed to a similar area sitting in about 40′ of water and kept right on catching until the failing light level finally brought the fishing to an end.

At some point while Garry, Eric, and Sean were regularly encouraging Rivers to try reeling in a fish or two aided by his father, Connor chipped in with his own words of wisdom telling his cousin that, “Fish is what fishing’s all about!”  Simple, but true.

When all was said and done today, we’d landed exactly 195 fish, including 5 largemouth bass and 190 white bass.

TALLY: 195 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  7:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp:  71F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were steady at SSE7-9

Sky Conditions:  Fair skies with increasing white haze forming as sunset approached.  ~15% white cloud cover.

Water Level: Water still rising to ~3 feet above full pool.

Other: GT= 125

 Wx Snapshot:

23APR16

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1042/1059 – deep easing and smoking with slabs

**Area  803/805- deep easing and smoking with slabs

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Healy Party boats 86 – Belton Lake Hybrid Fishing, 23 April

This past Saturday morning, April 23rd, I fished with Mr. Dennis Healy of Georgetown, TX, and his sons, Ben and Patrick, both from the Austin area.

IMG_2010

Dennis Healy is retired and has moved from Iowa down to Sun City near Georgetown, thus putting him near his sons.

IMG_2006

Ben Healy is married and works at National Instruments in Austin.

IMG_2012

Patrick is engaged, teaches chemistry to special needs students in the Del Valle Independent School District outside Austin, and both enjoys and makes music.

Flood water continues to backup in Belton, but the rate of rise is decreasing.  At launch time, we were between 8-9 feet above full pool.  The nice thing is that the water is not sufficiently discolored so as to shut down the fishing.

The weather, although far from ideal “fishing weather” (I prefer grey skies and wind), was pleasant to be outdoors in, with blue skies, cool temperatures for the first 2 hours or so, and near-calm winds.

We fished only 2 distinct locations this morning using live bait at the first to put just shy of 30 keeper hybrid in the boat near a deep breakline.  When the initial bite died down, we did a short hop just a few yards away and nearer to the breadline and continued getting bit.  Once the bite died at this location for good, we moved to a second area, on a similar breakline, and this time worked slabs for more but smaller fish.  In our final hour on the water, my 3-man party put 55 fish in the boat.

I’ve often commented in my logs in years past at this time of year how the rising water temperature and rising fish metabolism seems to trump all other conditions, including less than ideal weather like the post frontal weather we experienced this morning.

TALLY: 86 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Water Surface Temp:  70F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Surface was calm until 10:45 when a SSE breeze at 7-8 began

Sky Conditions:  15% cloud cover on a clear, dry sky.

Water Level: Rapidly rising thanks to recent heavy rainfall; 602.31 feet with 594.00 being full pool. No water is being released due to more severe flooding downstream (0cu. ft./sec.)

Other: GT= 40

Wx Snapshot:

23APR16

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1742 — good quality fish on early bite; multiple keeper hybrid

*Area 1277/1209/1554 — good quality fish on mid-morning bite; multiple keeper hybrid

*Area 346/1318 — worked slabs vertically in ~50’ for short hybrid and white bass

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

The Maine Event — 106 Fish, 22 April, Lake Belton

This past Friday evening, April 22nd, I fished with Harry and Lisa Irving of Fairfield, Maine, their daughter, Taija, and their son-in-law, Joshua LeClair.  The LeClair’s are also originally both from Maine but are now stationed at Fort Hood where Joshua is assigned to a civil affairs unit.

 

IMG_1978

From left: Lisa Irving, Taija LeClair, Joshua LeClair, and Harry Irving, all from the great state of Maine.

IMG_1987

Harry Irving with the big one that didn’t get away.

The Irving’s flew down to visit “the kids”, giving Harry a break from his medical practice and Lisa a break from her work as a nurse. The Irving’s decided to give fishing a try after seeing the forecast for ideal weather slated for Friday.

 

That weather did indeed materialize and we were able to enjoy excellent fishing under blue skies with light winds and pleasant temperatures in the 70’s.

 

Getting launched has become a bit of a trick given that the rapidly rising water from all of the rain earlier this week has put all of the courtesy docks underwater.  Nonetheless, we got launched and began hunting for fish.

 

We enjoyed a solid bite by smaller hybrid striped bass and white bass for the first 3 hours of our trip, finding fish in two distinct locations at both 50 feet and then at just 25-30 feet.  The fish responded aggressively to slabs worked vertically.

 

For the final 75 minutes of the trip I suggested, for variety’s sake, that we pursue fewer but larger fish using live shad as bait for mature hybrid striped bass.  This got the thumbs-up from the whole crew, so, we shuttled over to the third and final area that we would fish this evening.  This turned out to be a good move.  Despite the presence of hundreds of laughing gulls, it was a handful of terns diving over fish that helped me identify the spot on the spot that held big fish.

 

By the time darkness fell, everyone had the opportunity to land several large, 18+ inch long hybrid stripers.

 

 

TALLY: 106 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time:  8:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp:  71F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were steady at NE6-8.

Sky Conditions:  10% cloud cover on a clear, dry sky.

Water Level: Rapidly rising thanks to recent heavy rainfall; 601.60 feet with 594.00 being full pool. No water is being released due to more severe flooding downstream (0cu. ft./sec.)

Other: GT= 25

 

 Wx Snapshot:

 22APR16

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 152/1385 — short hybrid and mixed white bass easing with slabs

**Area 1745 – 2-3 year class white bass and mixed hybrid easing with slabs

**Area 355/1187 – low light bite by keeper hybrid on live shad

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Oliver Family Reunion – 58 Fish, Belton, 21 April

This past Thursday morning, 21 April, I fished with three generations of the Oliver clan, including the patriarch, “Pa” Oliver, three of his sons, Jeff, Jamie, and Joe, and one of Joe’s sons, Thomas.

IMG_1962

From left:  Jamie, Jeff, Thomas, Pa, and Joe Oliver with fists full of fish!!

IMG_1973

Joe Oliver managed to land the largest hybrid striper caught by any of my clients so far in this 2016 season.  That fish was a 6.50 pounder taken on live shad.

A line of storms impacted central Texas beginning around 5:30am with thunder, lightning, wind, and rain.  Our planned start time was 7:45am, and by that time the weather had very much settled down.  As we launched on time, we had a light NE breeze of 5-6mph and desirable grey cloud cover.

Shad were nowhere to be found as is often the case when the weather is turbulent, so I relied on bait I’d captured previously and had cared for since.

We experienced a strong bite by quality fish as long as the conditions that existed as we launched persisted.  Once the grey skies began to clear from west to east around 9:45am, the fishing became more sporadic.

We fished 3 areas over the 4 hour duration of our trip, finding and catching fish at all three.

We had an atypically high percentage of our total catch of 58 fish come in the form of “keeper” (18+ inch) hybrid striped bass.  Over half of our catch fit this description.  Since this bite began in late March, I’d been running roughly 15% of the catch consisting of such larger fish.

 

TALLY: 58 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time:  11:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 62F

Water Surface Temp:  69F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were steady at NE6-8 until the grey skies and sprinkles left in the wake of the stormfront’s passage began to clear.  As it cleared, weather and winds became wildly varied with winds from every compass direction but north and at speeds from 8 to 16mph.

Sky Conditions:  100% cloud cover the entire trip, clearing to bright and sunny as we concluded.

Water Level: Rapidly rising thanks to recent heavy rainfall; 600.31 feet with 594.00 being full pool. No water is being released due to more severe flooding downstream (0cu. ft./sec.)

Other: GT= 25

 Wx Snapshot:

21APR16

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1743 – moderate action on whites, short hybrid, and keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area vic 738 – fast action on white bass in the 1, 2, and 3 year class by easing with slabs

**Area 1744 – last light bite by whites, short hybrid, and keeper hybrid on live shad

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

A Guy Named Utah — 97 Fish, Belton, 19 April

This past Tuesday afternoon I fished with fishing buddies Jeremy Crawford and Utah Harris.  Utah is a resident of Temple, TX, and Jeremy drove down from Toledo, Ohio, to visit him.

IMG_1955

From left: Utah Harris of Temple, TX, and Jeremy Crawford of Toledo, Ohio, paired up for some mixed bag action tonight on white bass, and hybrid striper of all sizes.

IMG_1958

Jeremy boated this healthy hybrid just before sunset on live shad fished down at 27 feet over a deeper bottom.  Toward sunset, we watched the fish draw closer and closer to the surface to take advantage of the remaining light.

We experienced consistent action on both live bait and artificials this afternoon, thanks, in part to grey skies and moving water pushed by a light SE wind.

We fished 5 areas this afternoon, finding good results at 3 of them.  We began and ended the trip targeting hybrid striped bass using live shad, and, for variety’s sake, used artificials for about a 50 minute run under some laughing gulls that pointed the way to some easy white bass action in about 23 feet of water.

TALLY: 97 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:30p

End Time:  8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp:  72.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were SSE6-8 the entire trip

Sky Conditions:  70% cloud cover

Water Level: Rapidly rising thanks to recent heavy rainfall; ~595.40 feet with 594.00 being full pool. Very little water is being released due to more severe flooding downstream (631 cu. ft./sec.)

Other: GT= 45

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1743 – moderate action on whites, short hybrid, and keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area vic 738 – fast action on white bass in the 1, 2, and 3 year class by easing with slabs

**Area 1744 – last light bite by whites, short hybrid, and keeper hybrid on live shad

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Good People, Good Business — 86 Fish, Belton, 19 April 2016

This morning, Tuesday, April 19, I fished with a party of four from Bagliore Concrete Company.  It is no wonder why this company has been so successful – – they have, and associate with, quality people.

IMG_1952

From left: Mike Baker, Ken Wilkins, Greg Graham, and Donovan Graham with 5 of the many large, hard-pulling hybrid stripers that came over the gunwales this morning.  We did best early and late in the morning, with a slow period in the middle while the winds went flat.

IMG_1945

Mike Baker’s big 6.25 pound, 23.75 inch hybrid was a thick, solid, hump-backed and wide-bellied fish – only the second this season attaining this weight.
Every time a crew from this company comes aboard, everyone is helpful, courteous, good-natured, and generous. As a guide, those things make you want to hustle that much more to put people on fish to make sure they really enjoyed themselves.   Today I was joined by Greg Graham and Mike Baker, both from the company’s sales staff, Ken Wilkins from Tex-Mix Concrete (a supplier to Bagliore Concrete), and Greg’s son, Donovan, who is currently an assistant project manager.

Things were a little iffy this morning as the lake had risen overnight thanks to recent flooding rains, and we experienced a very heavy fog, as well.

We actually began fishing around 8:15 AM once the fog had cleared and the lightest of ESE winds begin to ripple the surface.

At the first area we fished, we no sooner got four live baits down just shy of the bottom then all four rods were bowed over with nice, keeper hybrid stripers. The bite at this deepwater break line continued for 75 minutes, allowing us to catch 26 fish, over 75% of which were keeper hybrid stripers.

Between 9:45 and 11 AM, we struggled.  Nature was just dead. There were no birds singing, no gulls flying, no baitfish rippling the surface, and very little showing on sonar. We stuck with it, searching place after place until finally, around 11 AM, the lightest of west winds began. We now had great cloud  cover and moving water, so I moved us onto an underwater feature that was being impacted by the light wind. Sonar revealed three strong marks right on bottom in 42 feet of water. As the first of our four baits descended, I could see very aggressive fish come up toward the bait.  When the second, third, and fourth baits followed, the fish seemed to materialize from nowhere and nearly instantly flooded the screen with color. It was game-on for nearly 2 straight hours. During this time we took our fish count from 28 up to 86, again with at least 40% of these fish consisting of keeper hybrid stripers.

Mike landed the single largest fish of the trip, a 6.25 pound hybrid striper measuring 23.75 inches. This tied for the single largest fish caught this season.

When all was said and done we had landed 86 fish. It was now 1:15 PM, the sun was beginning to break through the clouds, and the surface had once again gone dead calm. The fishing ground to a halt, and we knew it was time to head to the dock.

 

TALLY: 86 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  8:15a

End Time:  1:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  64F

Water Surface Temp:   67.3

Wind Speed & Direction:   Light ESE winds from 8:15 – 9:45, then calm until 11:00, then light west ripple until 1:00p

Sky Conditions:  Grey overcast the entire trip

Water Level:  Rapidly rising thanks to recent heavy rainfall; ~594.70 feet with 594.00 being full pool.  Very little water is being released due to more severe flooding downstream (631 cu. ft./sec.)

Other: GT= 80

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1742/1540 from 8:15 to 9:45 just a few yards back from the breakline

**Area  vic 1012 from 11a to 1p on a light W. wind following a lengthy period of calm

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle