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.
Dennis Healy is retired and has moved from Iowa down to Sun City near Georgetown, thus putting him near his sons.
Ben Healy is married and works at National Instruments in Austin.
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:
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.
E-mail: Bob@
Facebook: www.facebook.com/