This past Tuesday morning, June 21, I targeted hybrid striped bass on Belton Lake with Luis Garcia and his friend, Mark Lozen.

Luis Garcia displays one of the many keeper-sized hybrid striper we caught on live shad this morning, both near bottom (early) and suspended (at mid-morning).

Mark Lozen had some prior experience using circle hooks from having fished live and cut bait in the Gulf of Mexico.  This helped flatten the learning curve and helped us convert more strikes into fish landed.

Luis, his wife, and two kids fished with me this past Spring Break at which time we targeted white bass using slabs on Stillhouse Hollow. This week, the kids were at camp and so Luis and Mark decided to make this an all-guys trip.

We started our trip downrigging under low light conditions before sunrise, but did not do all that well given the number of fish I saw both schooled together and suspended. This is typically a feeding posture which should lead to more success than we were experiencing. For this reason I switched us over to live bait, and it was “game on” from that point forward to around 9:15 AM.

The bite started off fairly intensely, allowing us only to get one rod per man in the water, and then as the action slowed we bumped up to 2 rods per person.  We fished only two areas this morning.  The first area had fish concentrated on and near bottom, and the second area had fish suspended at 22-24 feet down over a 36-37 foot bottom.

Mark and Luis both work for Austin-based law firms, and as they explained it, the Austin law community is a fairly small and tightknit group. The two have been friends since the 80s. Mark originally came down from Michigan where he fished for walleye, pike, perch, and bluegill both in open water and through the ice. When Mark learned of Luis’ familiarity with the Texas Gulf Coast fishery, the two hit it off and have been friends ever since.

By 9:40 the bite had really wound down, and it was clear any further action would be anticlimactic compared to what we’d just experienced, so, we wrapped up a bit early and the two went hunting for a late breakfast in downtown Belton.

TALLY = 47 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  9:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp:  83.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S8 at trip’s start, shifting to SSW12 by trip’s end.

Sky Conditions:  Variable clouds from 40-60% on a fair sky all morning.

Water Level: ~23  feet above full pool with a release of 5,744 cfs ongoing.  Lake is now rising again due to even heavier flows out of Lake Proctor upstream from Belton.

GT = 40

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1765 –  live shad fished near bottom

**Area 1766 – live shad fished at 20-22′ for suspended fish over ~36-37 foot bottom

 

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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