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.

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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.

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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