This past Tuesday morning, April 12th, I welcomed aboard returning guest Carroll Hall and his wife, Nancy.  The Hall’s traveled in from southwest of Austin to fish with me this morning.

From left: Nancy and Carroll Hall paused just long enough in the middle of a hybrid striper feeding spree to snap this photo.  They then got right back on the shad-baited rods and kept bringing fish of this same caliber in the boat.

Although Carroll is quite an accomplished angler, especially in the realm of flyfishing (including Federation of Fly Fishers certification as a Master Certified Casting Instructor), it had been quite some time since Nancy had handled a rod, and she was not all that familiar with spinning gear.  So, I suggested we put the pursuit of hybrid off until later in our trip and pursue more numerous, but smaller, white bass casting blade baits horizontally up in shallow water.

 

This paid off handsomely.  With an entourage of about 50 laughing gulls to point the way to active fish, we were able to move along with the main body of white bass as they went on a feeding spree with grey skies overhead and choppy water all around.  I positioned the boat using the #Minnkota Ulterra upwind allowing us to cast downwind into the fish.  This served to lengthen our casts and keep the wind and drizzle to our backs.  The Halls managed 24 fish in right at an hour’s time using both the blade baits cast horizontally and slabs fished vertically.

 

As the feed began to wind down, we made our way into clearer, deeper water to seek out hybrid striped bass.

 

I looked for fish in areas impacted by the NNE wind which was blowing right at 12 mph.  In doing so, I found two distinct populations of fish holding about 150 yards apart atop the same N-S oriented breakline in about 40 feet of water.  The first area gave up numerous, but small, fish.  The second area was revealed to us by a small flock of 8-10 actively working laughing gulls and gave up the best quality fish we encountered all morning, including 12 legal hybrid striped bass.  All of these were taken on live shad.

 

As has been the case quite regularly this season, not long after we began catching good quality fish, smaller fish, attached by all the ruckus, moved in and began killing and stealing bait.  Our strike to land ratio dropped off substantially.  We actually wrapped up the trip by vertical jigging with slabs for the short hybrids and 1 and  2 year old white bass that were carpeting the bottom.  We finished up with exactly 68 fish for the effort we put in.

 

TALLY: 68 Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp:  66.5F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were ESE at 11-12 the entire trip with occasional drizzle.

Sky Conditions:  100% grey skies to the point of light rain for the entire trip.

Water Level: 594.69 and falling with 594.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 765 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.05 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 45

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1735/1736 casting to shallow whites with blades & easing with slabs

**Area vic 472 smaller fish on live bait

**Area vic 1608 legal hybrid stripers first evidenced by feeding birds, giving way to smaller and smaller fish as time went by.  Started with live bait and ended by easing 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

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