This past Saturday, July 23rd, I fished with Luis and Tonya Garcia, their kids, William and Juliana Neel, and the kids’ cousin, Juliana Sauceda, who was visiting from San Antonio for the week.  We headed out on Lake Belton in pursuit of hybrid striped bass.

 

Juliana Sauceda not only took her first boatride this morning, but also caught the first fish of her life!

 

 

Juliana Neel excelled at casting with spinning gear this morning, tossing far and accurately.  She was handsomely rewarded with a number of white bass and hybrid stripers she caught from visible schools of fish feeding at the surface.

William’s specialty was keeping a close eye on our live bait rods.  He took note of every tell-tale sign of life on the end of his line and caught several keeper hybrid as a result of his attentiveness.
With a high-pressure dome now firmly in place over Texas controlling our weather, each day’s weather is essentially “cookie-cutter”, with overnight lows between 78 and 80, and late afternoon highs right around 100, with fair and cloudless skies and winds from the south southwest.

Each summer when the weather gets this way, the fishing gets very consistent and predictable. Today’s trip played out nearly identically to yesterday’s trip, which played out nearly identically to Tuesday’s trip, and so on.

After meeting up at 6:15 AM, we had downrigger lines in the water and were into our first fish, a pair of doubles coming over the side for the two Julianas, by 6:30 AM. We continued downrigging for about 45 minutes until the sun had risen to about 15 or 20° above the horizon and shut down that the downrigger bite. Soon afterwards, further offshore, in about 40 to 50 feet of water, open water surface feeding broke out over an area covering about 4 acres as wind began to ripple the surface and scatter the increasing light. The fish were not found throughout this area, but rather were found in distinct schools within this area.

The kids quickly learned to cast with the spinning gear and soon were launching their lures well over the schooling fish and retrieving their baits directly through the “sweet spot”. This top water action lasted until around 8:30 AM.

Next, I did some searching with sonar in the same general vicinity, and found a somewhat isolated school of hybrid striper in 37 feet of water. These fish were poised several feet above the bottom and looked to be in a feeding mode. I used the SpotLock function on my Minn Kota Ulterra. We got one rod baited her child, rods in the rod holders, and eyes on the rod tips. With the help of a little chum, a little thumping, and a little patience, we got these fish worked up within 10 minutes. Once the bites started, it continued for about 35 minutes until the blue catfish moved into our spread. At this point, thanks to an early wake up, and a morning of hustling for all of the fish we had boated, Luis let me know that they’d like to wrap up and head to lunch a bit early, so we shot for a 9:45 wrap up time.

This gave me just enough time to attempt to expose the kids to vertical fishing with slabs, and this worked out well. I was able to quickly find a very cooperative school of mixed white bass and short hybrid striper, we let our slabs down among them, and up came the fish. Over the course of the next 15 minutes each of the kids was able to land three or four more fish thus allowing us to end our morning on a very good note, with exactly 65 fish landed for our efforts.

Along the way, cousin Juliana not only enjoyed her first boat ride, but also landed the first fish of her life, a 15 inch hybrid striped bass that struck her Pet Spoon as we downrigged at the very first spot we fished this morning. Congratulations, Juliana.

TALLY = 65 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  9:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW9

Sky Conditions: Cloudless fair skies.

Water Level: 14.4 feet high and falling ~0.5 to 0.6 feet per day with a flow of ~5,300 cfs

GT = 55

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1788-1781 downrigging for low light fish just sub-surface

**Area vic 1790/1791 casting to fish schooling on the surface

**Area 1792 live bait

**Area 1789 – slabs for mixed bag of whites and hybrid

 

 

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