A Return to Stillhouse — 53 Fish, 09 July

This past Saturday morning I fished with Angela Edelbrock’s two sons, 14-year-old Joseph and 10-year-old Dylan, all of Temple, TX.

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From left: Joseph and Dylan Edelbrock, each with a pair of solid white bass taken by downrigging Pet Spoons on Stillhouse Hollow after it reopened to boat traffic following weeks of closure due to May flooding.

Angela, who came along as a non-fishing chaperone, is a surgical tech at Baylor Scott & White Hospital in Temple, where she works on occasion with Dr. David Clark, another client of mine, who referred her to me (much appreciated, David!).

After having all boat ramps shut down due to flooding for several weeks now, the Union Grove launch on Stillhouse Hollow (with a 4-lane ramp) reopened on July 6th.

My plan was to introduce some variety into today’s trip by fishing for open-water white bass under the lower light conditions in the first half of our trip, then head up shallow and target sunfish under brighter conditions in the latter half of our trip.   As it turned out, this approach worked well.

As the sun was rising, we got two lines in the water, both equipped with Pet Spoons and both attached to the downriggers.  There was a definite “band of life” set up horizontally between 25 and 31 feet, and most of the suspended shad I found on sonar were in that band.  We fished one area with only one white bass to show for it, then moved to what would be a very productive area.  Funny thing was, despite all of the bait found in that “band of life”, the aggressive white bass I found were up higher in the water column.

We set our downrigger balls at between 15 and 22 feet, and did all the catching at 15-18 feet beneath the surface.  We landed one triple, one double, and 13 singles for a total of 18 white bass by the time we left them biting to change over to panfishing.  I like to note the ratio of triples, doubles, and singles, as it is indicative of the fishes’ activity level and typical school size, both of which vary over the summer months.

The sunfishing was pretty straightforward.  Once the boys got the hang of allowing the wind to help them place their presentations in the nooks and crannies of the flooded brush the sunfish were hiding in, they were hard to stop.  The boys amassed a catch of 35 sunfish of all sizes, and including longear, bluegill, and green sunfish, all taken on ultralight slipfloat rigs.

 

TALLY = 53 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

09JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:25a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE8 at trip’s start; shifting to SSW 11 over the course of the morning

Sky Conditions:  Low grey cloud cover at dawn burnt off to hazy skies with 30% cloud cover by 8am

Water Level: ~9.50 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~1900 cfs

GT = 105

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 454/1782/1783 – downrigged for 18 white bass in this triangular area; Pet Spoons @ 15-17′

**Area 1098 – Sunfish on slipfloats

 

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

Never Too Old to Learn — 34 Fish, Belton, 07 July

This past Thursday morning, July 7th, I fished Lake Belton with Mike Pappas and his friend, J.C. Wall.

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Mike Pappas with some “icing on the cake” — an aging female largemouth past her prime, which weighed in at 5.25 pounds taken on a live shad.

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Mike with our best hybrid of the trip, going right at 4.25 pounds taken on a large, lively threadfin shad which was about 4.5″ in length.

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J.C. wall with one of the first hybrid we boated on bait this morning, after finding our fish using sonar and downriggers.

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Any doubt these guys both own their own businesses?

Both fellows are long time, local small business owners;  Mike co-owns Best-Way Carpets, and J.C. owns his own construction company. Mike contacted me about three weeks ago and explained how he had become increasingly interested in pursuing hybrid striped bass. Knowing that hybrid stripers and white bass are the species I focus on year-round, he contacted me not so much to go fishing, but to learn my approach to fishing for the species, as well as the method for catching, and keeping, shad which is such an effective bait for hybrid striped bass.

As they have since about five days prior to the new moon, white bass and hybrid striper went on a very strong near-surface feed from roughly 6:15 AM to 6:40 AM. During this time the fish were very aggressive and moving rapidly as they pursued the shad they were foraging on. This allowed us to pick up several fish on downriggers, and more importantly for Mike, provided an opportunity to see how I use the downriggers in conjunction with sonar, as well as some of the accessories that I have folded into my downrigging technique. Both fellows were quite surprised at the small bait size I was using on the downriggers, but I explained that this did the best job of imitating the young of the year shad which was the focus of this near-surface and frenzied feeding activity.

By 6:45, the aggressive action had pushed downward and became more scattered, and less aggressive. I explained that this is typically my cue to switch over to fishing with live bait. Using the Ulterra trolling motor, we chose an area with a slight break line at 30 to 36 feet, and put four large, healthy, threadfin shad baits down at about the 26 foot mark. We stayed on these fish for about an hour and 45 minutes, taking our tally up to 25 before the wind became so strong, and the swells so deep, that our live bait presentations were negatively impacted as the baits moved unnaturally upwards and downwards with the swells.

Being forced off of an area by strong winds is a tough proposition, because whites and hybrids are typically turned on by the wind and moving water. In my mind, I started to go through a catalog of areas where wind would still be impacting, but not to the degree where boat control would be compromised. We struck out at the first area I checked, but as we approached the second potential fishing area I had in mind, the screen lit up with white bass and hybrid striper holding at between 25 and 28 feet deep on a breakline. We once again locked onto this area using the GPS-driven Spot Lock feature of my Ulterra. We put four baits down and it was not long before the bait clickers started sounding off indicating hybrid striper moving away with our live shad. We added another 9 fish to our count here in the closing hour of the trip. By 11 AM, the bites were coming few and far between, and solid bites were rare. I explained to Mike how, as the morning by winds down, the fish grab baits more tentatively then when they are feeding aggressively.

With 34 fish landed, and all of the questions on Mike’s yellow pad of paper answered, we decided to call it a good morning and headed back in.

Over the course of the trip, and as I did things in real time, I pointed out to Mike and explained to him what I was doing and why. From how I handled the bait, to how I conditioned the water, to how to snell a hook, to interpreting various targets on sonar, every step along the way as I saw something or did something that I thought might be useful to Mike on his next hybrid–focused outing on his own boat, I was sure to point it out.

 

TALLY = 34 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

07JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S12, building to S17 by  8:30a

Sky Conditions:  30% white cloud cover on a Fair sky most all of the morning.

Water Level: 23.2 feet high and falling ~0.3 feet per day

GT = 145 🙂

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1781 Downrig for low light bite, then fished bait in same area

**Area 1780 Shad for a mixed bag on a breakline at 25-28′

 

 

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

Kids Fish, Too! — 12 Fish for Skylar and Molly

This past Tuesday morning, July 5, I conducted a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip for Mr. Ed Parsons granddaughters, Skylar and Molly.

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Mr. Ed Parsons with granddaughter Molly and our first fish of the morning caught on a downrigged Pet Spoon.  This was the first fish Molly ever landed in her life, thus earning her a TPWD First Fish Award!!!

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Ed and Dorothy Parsons’ grandaughter, Skylar, took a liking to downrigging, and landed two white bass in the closing minutes of our trip using these devices.
Skylar is from McKinney, Texas, and Molly is from New Braunfels, Texas. Grandma Dorothy Parsons also joined us, primarily to keep Ed from getting too rowdy, and make sure the girls had enough sunblock and snacks.

My preference for “Kids Fish, Too!” trips in the summer is to fish Stillhouse, but due to the impacts of recent flooding, the entire lake is still closed to boat access, leaving Belton as our only local alternative.

The fishing was pretty slow this morning for white bass and hybrid striper. There was a moderate, first light feed from about 6:30 to 6:45am, but after that the action died hard and fast. During this brief feed, we were able to land Molly’s first fish  – a hybrid striped bass, followed by a white bass for Skylar. Both of these came on the downrigger using three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons.

After this, I searched five additional areas, and found no feeding activity at any of them. At this point, I shifted gears and took the girls up shallow to target sunfish a bit earlier in the trip then I normally would have, and we stuck with it for as long as the girls stayed interested.

To target these sunfish, we went to the very backs of two quiet, flooded coves and fish amidst the natural and man-made cover there.  Hiding in the shadows we found both green sunfish and longear sunfish willing to cooperate.  The girls quickly picked up on the importance of setting the hook and paying attention to their float.  Skylar even got pretty good at presenting her small bait with the bream pole she was using which had a fixed length of 9’ of line attached to the tip (and no reel).

Skylar was intrigued with using live bait (the shad I had in my livewell), and so for our last 45 minutes on the water, I sought out some opportunities to catch fish on live bait. I found a moderate-sized school of white bass in about 30 feet of water and we put baits down over these fish. We got three pull downs, but none resulted in a fish being landed. I suggested we spend our last 10 or 15 minutes on the water using downriggers in an attempt to close out the trip on a good note. This worked out great, as we were able to put two more white bass in the boat in the closing moments of our morning on the water.

 

TALLY = 12 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

05JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE15

Sky Conditions:  80% white cloud cover on a hazy sky most all of the morning.

Water Level: 23.9 feet high and falling ~0.3 feet per day

GT = 15

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 016 Downrig for low light bite

**Area 1754 & 184 for sunfish

** Area 1769 downrigging for scattered white bass

 

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

Fishin’ on the Fourth! — 30 Fish for the Salas Family

This past Fourth of July Monday morning I fished Belton Lake with Mike Salas, his wife Sandy, and their twin 8-yearl-old girls, Sophia and Grace, all of El Paso, Texas. Mike and his family traveled in from Waco to visit Sandy’s sister and her brother-in-law, Steven. Steven also joined us this morning.

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Mike Salas with his twin 8-year-old girls, Sophia (blue life jacket) and Grace (red life jacket) with one of the 30 fish we landed today on downriggers and live bait.

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Mrs. Sandy Salas held her own today, showing one of the larger hybrid stripers we landed this morning.

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Uncle Steven chipped in with a nice hybrid of his own later in the trip.
This morning’s atmosphere was turbulent, with gusty winds, gray cloud cover, and lightning flickering at the tops of thunder heads up north of us in the Waco area. Turbulent conditions made for tough bait netting this morning, and I took it right down to the wire throwing the net up until just minutes before I was due to meet Mike and his family at the boat ramp.

Once we made introductions and I went over a few safety conciderations, I discovered neither of the girls had ever caught a fish before. I told the family that landing the girls first fish was job number one. Under gray and fairly dark skies, we headed for the fishing grounds.

Just as there was enough light out to see, I begin to spot fish feeding on the surface among the fairly heavy waves and white caps. This definitely called for a downrigging approach, so we put in both downriggers and in moments had Grace hooked up to a double, consisting of a small white bass and a keeper hybrid of 18.5 inches. Minutes later, Sophia hooked up with a 10 inch white bass, and just like that both girls had landed the first fish of their lives. After this initial feed, the bite fell off quickly as the fish headed to the bottom and dispersed. We continued picking up a few fish in this general area over the next hour and 45 minutes, until moving to a new area with a dozen fish boated up to this point.

As we headed to our second spot, I looked things over with sonar and found fish very near the bottom, and intermingled amidst the submerged brush now standing in 25+ feet of water. I decided to go with a live bait approach and suspend the baits just above the brush. This worked well when the fish were aggressive right after we found them, allowing us to put seven fish in the boat including several nice hybrid stripers, along with some white bass

Once the fish settled down, the bites got very tentative, causing more missed strikes than we had hook ups, and causing a lot of torn and killed baits. Seeing this development, I decided to move out just a bit further and try downrigging again while keeping the baits just above the submerged brush. This worked pretty well as it allowed us to cover a lot of ground, getting our baits in front of the few still active fish among the majority of an active fish. We wound up with another 11 fish boated this way, including two triples (three fish caught on one rod at the same time, using a  that came on the three-armed umbrella rigs we were using baited with Pet Spoons.

 

TALLY = 30 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

04JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE12-13

Sky Conditions:  100% low, grey, murky cloud cover until around 11:00am, then thinning and brightening, but still with 100% cloud cover.

Water Level: 24.03 feet high and falling ~0.3 feet per day

GT = 40

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1746-012 Downrig for low light bite

**Area 1771 – live bait for whites/hybrid/bluecat

** Area 1778-1771-1770 for whites/short 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

Gone to the Dogs! — 15 Hybrid Stripers at Walter E. Long Reservoir

This past Saturday morning, July 2, I fished at Walter E. Long Reservoir with Whitney and Andrew Hartman of Sugar Land, Texas.  This couple met at college (Oregon State University) and now both work in the insurance business in the Houston area.

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Twice this morning Whitney and Andrew scored a triple-header with one fish biting on Whitney’s 3-armed umbrella rig, and two fish biting on Andrew’s 3-armed umbrella rig.

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Whitney landed our largest hybrid of the trip.  This hybrid just nipped the 20″ mark and went 3.25 pounds.

Whitney and Andrew are dog lovers, and have five dogs of various sorts and sizes. This couple tries not to travel without the dogs, and so at times, those venues excepting dogs drive the agenda for their long weekends and vacations. So it was for this Fourth of July weekend. The two of them found a rental home on VRBO that not only allowed dogs but was okay with all five of them. Once lodging was established, Whitney did some digging to find out what activities were in the area and came across my website and gave me a call.  This took me down to meet them at Walter E. Long Reservoir (formerly known as Decker Lake).

A funny thing happened as we were getting going.  After covering some safety considerations, I went over how to cast a spinning outfit (which Whitney had not done in about 12 years).  Whitney actually did really well, launching a nice cast on her third attempt, but, her two initial “not so pretty” attempts stuck with her.  As I like to do before each trip, I prayed with the Hartman’s.  As I finished, Whitney asked if I prayed with all my clients, or just the ones who don’t do very well casting!!

We began our fishing trip around 6:30 AM under murky gray skies with a 9 to 11 mph wind already blowing before sunrise. Since I do not fish Walter E. Long regularly, I had to spend a bit more time this morning figuring out where the fish were then if I had been on my “home” lakes of Belton and Stillhouse. We wound up boating only one fish in our first hour and 45 minutes on the water. However, once we found fish, we were able to capitalize on what we found and make up for some lost time.

When we found them, the fish we found were hybrid striped bass in fairly shallow water, suspended between nine and 15 feet over an 18 to 25 foot bottom. The first fish we encountered were suspended in aggressively feeding schools, and as the sun continued to rise higher in the sky and burn off the cloud cover, the fish pushed downward ending up on bottom.

The fish showed a very definite preference for small, horizontally moving baits. In fact, despite the fact that I had ample livebait of various sizes, the fish refused live bait on three separate attempts, and bit only on artificials. The artificial bait they preferred was a small silver Pet Spoon with a white feather dressing, fished on a three-armed umbrella rig.

Using this rig, we landed singles and doubles and put together a total catch of 15 legal hybrid striped bass up to 3.25 pounds until we wrapped up around 11:30 AM.

 

TALLY = 15 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp:  87-89F

Wind Speed & Direction:  ESE11-13

Sky Conditions:  100% low, grey, murky cloud cover until around 9:00am, then quickly clearing to just 30% white clouds on a fair sky.

Water Level: Lake was at full pool.

GT = 105

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1773 downrigging with balls at 12′  for 1 hybrid striper just after sunrise

** Area 1774 – 1775 – 1776 – wolfpack of like-sized hybrid were suspended and working this windblown area and responded well to downrigged Pet Spoons set between 10-14 feet

 

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

Ever Fished in your PJ’s?? — 29 Fish, June 29th

This past Wednesday morning, June 29, I conducted a “Kids Dish, Too!” trip with Aaron Hall and his 2 youngest children, Lucy and James. Neither Lucy, age 6, nor James, age 5, had ever landed a fish before.

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James landed this nice 3.75 pound Belton Lake hybrid striped bass with just a little help from his dad, Aaron.

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Lucy landed this hybrid just after sunrise while we were still downrigging, before switching over to live bait.

Aaron works in the anesthesiology department at Baylor – Scott & White hospital, but, after spending some time down here in Texas, is headed back home this summer to Washington State to continue his career near Spokane.  As the trio came down to the water’s edge to meet me, I could tell dad had personally dressed the kids for this trip, seeing how they were both in their pajamas!

Planning on multiple transitions through the course of a 3 to 4 hour trip is a must when working with kids of this age. Even if we were fortunate enough to catch a fish every minute or two, such great action would quickly lose its novelty for kids this young. Knowing this, I planned to downrig this morning, as well as use live bait, search for topwater action, and fish for sunfish up in shallow water. As it turned out, we were able to do all four of these things, and as young as they were, both James and Lucy were able to stay engaged and enjoy the entire four hour or experience.

We began our day with the downriggers in the water trolling Pet Spoons behind a tandem rig and a three-armed umbrella rig set between 18 and 22 feet. This depth has been preferred by gamefish and baitfish all through this extensive flooding on Belton. Once we eliminated some unproductive water and found fish on sonar, we were able to thoroughly work this fish-holding water and put both white bass and keeper hybrid in the boat. Once the sun got more intense, the fish pushed down to the bottom and we prepared to switch over to live bait.

Right about this time, in the same area in which we had been downrigging, some white top water action broke out driven by white bass forcing shad to the surface.  Aaron and I worked together to launch cork rigs beyond the fray, and the kids were able to retrieve the rigs through the fish then hook and land them. This accounted for another several white bass in the three-year class. Once this action died, we picked up where we had left off with live bait.  We fished live shad right near bottom for these increasingly disinterested fish, allowing us to land several more white bass and keeper hybrid.

Of all the techniques I employ, I find the kids stay interested least in live bait fishing, so we did not stick with this very long. The closing chapter of our day consisted of pursuing small, shallow water panfish using worms beneath slip floats. In the closing moments of our trip James and Lucy put a combined seven blacktail shiners and a small sunfish in the boat using this approach. As if on cue, James asked right at 10:15 AM, “Dad, can we go home now?”

For their efforts, James and Lucy boated 29 fish this morning, and each earned at Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. “First Fish Award”.

TALLY = 29 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Variable SSE to SSW 3-4.

Sky Conditions:  Less than 20% white cloud cover on a fair sky.

Water Level: ~25+  feet above full pool with a release of 5,744 cfs ongoing.  Lake is still rising due to even heavier flows out of Lake Proctor upstream from Belton.

GT = 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 011 to 019 downrigging for white bass and hybrid stripers

** Area 1772 – good results on live shad; 1 hybrid for every 3 mature white bass

**Area 1583 – panfish on redworms up shallow

 

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