SKIFF Trip #11 – William and Aidan Hooper, 60 Fish @ Belton Lake

This past Tuesday morning, August 9th, I fished with William and Aidan Cooper of Killeen on the 11th SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trip of the 2016 season.

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Although we were able to find and catch fish throughout our 4-hour time on the water this morning, the first 90 minutes provided proportionally more and larger fish than the balance of the morning.  William took both of these hybrid by sight-casting to schools of active fish forcing shad to the surface under low-light conditions.

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Aidan landed this nice Belton Lake hybrid striped bass of his own, as well as numerous white bass after quickly learning how to cast and retrieve using spinning gear.

William and Aidan are the sons of US Army Staff Sergeant Cory Hale and his wife, Chastsie Hale. SSG Hale is a field artillerymen currently deployed to South Korea.

Mrs. Hale saw to it that the boys arrived punctually this morning, as I shared with her the day before that the best fishing was typically taking place in the first 75 minutes of our time on the water. Today turned out to be no exception. The fishing has been exceptionally stable and consistent as I expected it will be as long as we have stable, high-pressure weather controlling our conditions. Around 6:40 AM, we spied the first “early risers” consisting of white bass and hybrid striper beginning to push threadfin shad to the surface and feed upon them there. Within the next 20 minutes there was a full-on feed taking place over an oblong area about 300 yards long and perhaps 50 yards wide. Although several other boats were in this vicinity, everyone kept their space and was considerate of the others – – one of the things I really enjoy about fishing on the weekdays versus the weekends.

After 90 minutes of nonstop action, the fish began to settle down and push down further in the water column. We quickly switched over to downrigging gear and continued to catch fish consistently for another 30 minutes. By about the two hour mark (around 8:30 AM), the white bass and hybrid striped bass feed had about wrapped up in this area.

We moved on searching for bottom-hugging fish that might respond to vertical tactics. As we searched, I noticed one particular area of the lake that had white bass consistently coming up in “popcorn” schools which appeared briefly and then sounded. Such popcorn schools are pretty tough unless all anglers can cast long and accurately. We took two fish from out of this scenario and then decided to move on to something completely different.

I took the boys up shallow and showed them briefly how to use poles without reels attached to angle for sunfish up in the brush-filled shallow water. We put three panfish in the boat pretty quickly, and then decided to move on to fishing for blue catfish in deep, open water.

The last 40 minutes of the trip we spent fishing with fresh, dead shad for blue catfish and the boys did very well. Both were fast learners. I showed them just one time how to differentiate between the fish approaching the bait initially, and the fish committing to take the bait fully in its mouth. Once they understood the difference and began setting the hook at the proper time, they batted about two out of every three fish on their ‘bite to catch’ ratio.

We wrapped up the trip right around 10:30 AM with exactly 60 fish landed this morning. Since William is already driving and his mother had to work today, he shuttled his brother home and the two had plans for lunch and a nap before William’s football practice at Shoemaker high school where he plays as a cornerback this season.

 

TALLY = 60 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 20% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:12.

Water Level: ~2.20 feet high and falling ~  0.7 feet per day with a reduced flow of ~2800 cfs

GT = 0

Wx Snapshot:

09AUG16

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1657 – low light topwater sightcasting for white bass & hybrid stripers

**Area 1657-1655-812 – downrigging after topwater fish sounded due to increasing light

**Area 1795-1796 – popcorn schooling by white bass

**Area 1797 – panfish on slipfloats

**Area  1070- bluecat  with fresh, dead shad

 

 

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

Learned a Lot — 64 Fish, Belton, 08 August

This past Monday morning, August 8th, I fished with Mr. Randy Williamson, his wife, Holly, and their friend, Phillip Fagan, all from out in Coryell County, TX, near Topsey.

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Despite decades of his own experience on Belton Lake (since it was constructed in the 1950’s), Randy told me he really learned a lot today, in particular about how to be prepared to change tactics for different species and varying conditions “on the fly”.

As a guide, I find some trips with some parties more enjoyable than others.  This was the kind of trip I most enjoy — having folks aboard that did not require constant instruction because of their prior experience, and who enjoyed the trip regardless of what manner of fish we caught because they enjoyed being outdoors and each others company.

Randy and Holly’s experiences through the years reminded me of my own with my wife, Rebecca.  It seemed each time they traveled to a vacation destination, they mixed in a bit of fishing, and had good stories and good memories from having done so.

We experienced a good variety of fishing this morning, beginning with some downrigging at first light for white bass and hybrid stripers which began to push bait toward the surface.  This got more organized and aggressive and, for a short time, resulted in some topwater feeding which we were able to capitalize on by sight casting.

After this peak activity faded, we reverted to the downriggers to get a few more fish as they tapered off their feed, then, a slowdown from 8:00 to 9:00 am ensued.

We did a bit of bait fishing with fresh, dead shad for blue cat to bide our time, then I searched, generally unsuccessfully, in several areas for white bass and hybrid action.  During this time the light breeze we’d enjoyed slowed to nearly calm and made our already tough job even more difficult.

Evenutally, I found a few more loosely schooled hybrid stripers in about 29 feet of water on a gradual slope and we hung live shad just up off bottom for these fish.  We landed 4 hybrid over the next 4 minutes and lost as many just due to everyone’s lack of familiarity with the use of circle hooks.  As has been the case for the past several weeks, no matter where I’ve put baits down for hybrid, smallish blue cat moved in quite quickly and became a nuisance as they stalked and killed our live shad routinely before the hybrid would make of their minds to feed.

We ended up the trip with a total of 64 fish boated, the majority of which came in the first 70 minutes during that initial, strong, low-light feeding time.  It was both complimentary and encouraging to have Randy tell me at the end that, after having fished Belton Lake since it was constructed in the 1950’s, he learned a lot while fishing it this morning with me.

TALLY = 64 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 20% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:12.

Water Level: ~2.90 feet high and falling ~  0.7 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 50

Wx Snapshot:

08aug16

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1654 – low light downrigging and topwater sightcasting for white bass & hybrid stripers

**Area 1271/1069 – post-sunrise topwater and downrigging after the topwater died

**Area 1655/1070- bluecat  with fresh, dead shad

**Area 1019 – hybrid on live shad in final hour from 10-11am

 

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

10th SKIFF Trip of the 2016 Season for the Pena Family

This past Saturday morning, August 6, I fished at Belton Lake with Mrs. Blanca Pena and her two sons, 11-year-old Osmar, and 9-year-old, Bryan. This trip was a Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (SKIFF) fishing trip, provided courtesy of the Austin Fly Fishers.  This was the 10th SKIFF trip of the 2016 season.

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From left: Osmar, Blanca, and Bryan Pena with a pair of white bass we caught using downriggers equipped with Pet Spoons on this, the 10th SKIFF trip of the 2016 season.

 
After a safety briefing and a quick introduction to the fishing equipment we be using this morning, we cleared the no wake zone by 6:30 AM and headed to the fishing grounds. As the skies began to brighten just prior to sunrise, some very light top water feeding began to take place as white bass pushed shad to the surface. This was nothing in comparison to yesterday’s long and strong top water feed, in fact, it was so light that we did not even cast to, or focus on, these fish. Instead, we ran downriggers in the vicinity of the schooling action hoping to find more numerous fish beneath the few that were aggressive enough to hit on top. What action did develop was over within an hour, and by 7:45 we were searching new areas for fish.

Thanks to a number of newly opened boat ramps on Belton Lake, quite a few boats were out, and I could see that no one was pulling fish in the area we were fishing, thus making it pretty easy to cut ties and run to another area to search for fish. So as not to lose the boys’ interest, I decided we would head up shallow a bit earlier than usual and begin fishing for sunfish in the near-shore flooded brush. We made two such stops and picked up bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, blacktail shiners, and juvenile smallmouth bass with ease using baited hooks beneath slip floats.

When the novelty of sun fishing wore off, I once again devoted some time to looking for white bass and/ or hybrid striper to either downrig or jig for, but found nothing of interest. I really didn’t stick with this search very long, as I knew the boys would get fidgety pretty quickly. By now, it was about 9:15 AM, and I decided to give a look for blue catfish in deep open water.

Blue catfish have proven very, very reliable and consistent this summer in some of the traditional haunts where white bass and hybrid are typically found, but have been absent from this summer thanks to the flooding. The tactic remained the same this morning: I searched for catfish on sonar, used the Spot Lock function on the Ulterra trolling motor to hover over top of them, put chum out to get the fish interested, and then sent our baited hooks down for nearly instantaneous results.

Over our final 40 minutes on the water each of the boys caught about a half dozen blue cat. I was pretty impressed with how quickly Osmar got the hang of setting the hook after detecting a steady pull downward by the catfish.

We closed out our trip by taking photos of the boys with our best pair of white bass, our best pair of sunfish, and our best pair of blue cats. Our grand total for the morning was 42 fish caught and released.

TALLY = 42 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 20% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:12.

Water Level: ~5.30 feet high and falling ~  0.7 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 0

Wx Snapshot:

06AUG16

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 147-1654 – low light downrigging for white bass

**Area 166 &499 sunfish

**Area 1655/085- bluecat in last hour

 

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

Top Shelf Topwater at Belton Lake! — 100 Fish with the Herzer Party

This past Friday morning, August 5, I fished with Mr. Mark Herzer of Austin, his 14-year-old son, Zach, and two of Zach’s friends, DJ and Justin Herring, all in celebration of Zach’s 14th birthday which rolled around on 22 July.

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From left: Zach Herzer, DJ Herring, Mark Herzer, and Justin Herring.  After a white bass-fueled 64-fish topwater blitz lasting 70 minutes, we changed gears and closed out our trip today fishing for catfish, putting another 32 fish in boat with that approach. 

Although all four fellows had fished a good bit before, the catching had not typically kept pace, so we set out to turn the tide on their so-so luck of the past.

We idled out of the no wake zone at exactly 6:30a, and had our first fish on the line by 6:40a. We were fortunate to experience the singlemost intense top water feed by white bass that I have witnessed so far this season on Lake Belton. The fish stayed on the surface and aggressively chasing shad for a full 70 minutes. During this time my four anglers were able to boat exactly 64 fish.

As I have noted in my field notes in years past, often when the fish feed so aggressively for so long, the action dies hard thereafter, whereas the action often slowly tapers to a pause under less aggressive low light feeding conditions. We definitely experienced a downturn in success from roughly 8 to 9 AM. I had come prepared to finish out our trip targeting blue catfish in open water, but given the slowdown we experienced, Mark and I agree we should go with the catfish plan a bit earlier.

As we put down our first catfish bait, our fish count stood at 66 white bass, and 2 hybrid striped bass (after we picked up a few fish downrigging following the topwater action). I told the boys if they really worked at it, we could catch enough catfish to make this a 100 fish day. That would require 32 fish and all four of them contributing to the effort. I did a thorough demonstration on how to distinguish between a fish just approaching and grabbing a bait initially versus taking it fully in its mouth and moving off with it. It is during the latter behavior that the hook must be set. Everyone went through a bit of a learning curve, but soon everybody was setting the hook on the biting catfish at the appropriate time, and our fish count steadily climbed through the 80’s into the 90’s and, by 10:15 AM, our 100th fish of the day came aboard.  Of these catfish, 31 were blue cat and one, the largest of all of them, was a channel catfish.

I could tell the boys were really excited and enthused about their success. Each of them personally thanked me for the trip without prompting by Mr. Herzer. As we parted ways, I recommended Schoepf’s barbecue in Belton to the entire crew. A special thanks to my sister-in-law, Amy Maindelle, for helping make today’s connection.

TALLY = 100 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 20% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:12.

Water Level: ~6.01 feet high and falling ~  0.7 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 95

Wx Snapshot:

05AUG16

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 019 around to 025 – strong topwater action by (all) white bass

**Area 1069 – moderate success on downriggers

**Area 1070 (to SSE in 32′) – bluecat in last hour

 

 

 

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

Belton Lake Remains Consistent — 85 Fish with the Neason’s

This past Thursday morning, August 4th, I fished a multi-species trip with Mr. James Neason, his wife, Denice, and their two grandchildren, Jaxon (age 12) and Sami Selmans (age 9), all of the Cedar Park, TX, area.

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Grandpa James and Jaxon with a nice pair of keeper hybrid.

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“Gommy” Denice with a nice hybrid of her own.

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And Sami reluctantly posing with the largest of the blue cat she reeled in at the close of our trip.

We started off the morning looking closely for top water action sufficiently strong to stop and cast to, but found none. So, I used sonar to search in water less than 30 feet deep for lowlight feeding activity beneath the surface. We found ample quantities of white bass and hybrid striped bass schooled heavily between 18 and 25 feet deep, often appearing in elongated horizontal schools. We downrigged for these fish using two- and three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons selected to match the forage size. This action tapered off by about the two hour mark.

We changed locations and hit an area about 24 feet deep after finding white bass holding tight to the bottom, just 1 to 2 foot off of it. We worked chrome slabs for these fish until we were rudely interrupted by fish breaking the surface just behind us. Figuring a bird in hand is worth two in the bush, we drifted back into these top water feeders and cast to them with the same slabs we’d been working vertically. The majority of these fish were school-sized largemouth bass, all in very good shape, and very plump. After the kids’ interest level began to decline around 9:40, we made one last move to target blue catfish.

We headed to an area that has produced blue catfish very consistently for over two weeks now. We put the boat in a hover, put chum down over the side, baited up with shad, got lines down, and started setting hooks hard on blue catfish which were heavily congregated from the bottom and up to 6 feet off of it in about 32 feet of water. Over the next 50 minutes, we put over 20 blue cat in the boat and then wrapped up our morning right at 10:35.

TALLY = 85 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:10.

Water Level: ~6.73 feet high and falling ~  0.7 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 20

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1655 – early morning downrigging

**Area 1355/966 – downrigging following low-light bite; over deeper water

**Area 1793/1663 – smoking slabs for bottom-huggers in 24′

**Area 1787/1770 – topwater action over 17′ up to shoreline

**Area 1070 – bluecatfish on fresh, dead shad

 

 

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

Daddy-Daughter Trip for Bob & April Williamson

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE KILLEEN DAILY HERALD, SUNDAY, 07 AUGUST 2016…

A resident of Killeen for over 20 years, Robert Williamson first came to Killeen while on active duty as a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army in 1995. Shortly thereafter, Williamson transitioned into civilian life, putting his college degree to work for him and gaining a position as an educator in the Killeen Independent School District, where he remains employed to this day.

APRILWILLIAMSON

Williamson and his wife, Yong, saw both of their older daughters, Bobbie and Mary, graduate from Ellison High School and move on to careers of their own. Bobbie now works as a nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Baylor Scott & White Hospital, and Mary is a school teacher in Bryan.

One daughter, 6-year-old April, a student at Memorial Christian Academy in Killeen, remains at home.

On Wednesday morning, I got to fish with Williamson and April on a “daddy-daughter” trip before the business of the new school year begins. We chose Belton Lake as our destination as it has produced both quality fish and quantities of fish all summer.

Fishing trips with children as young as April require some planning if the trip is to be a success, leaving children with a favorable impression of this wholesome pastime. Williamson and I discussed in detail how I suggested we break this trip down into multiple, short segments in order to keep April’s attention for the full four-hour span. Fortunately, the fish cooperated fully, and we were able to do just as we had planned.

A few minutes prior to sunrise, I positioned us in an area where I felt topwater action was likely to occur based on my observations over the past two weeks. As we shut down the outboard, refrained from speaking and just looked and listened, we observed “nervous water” about 120 yards from us. This nervous water is caused when the wakes of feeding fish move contrary to the direction of the wind, thus making a distinct stippled appearance on the surface.

As we arrived in the vicinity of the disturbance, we observed both white bass and hybrid striped bass pinning shad against the surface and gorging themselves on the hapless forage fish. This initiated what turned out to be a 90-minute long topwater feed during which Williamson and I cast into the fray and then let April retrieve the lures we had cast directly through the fish.

The second segment of our trip began as the intensity of the topwater feed began to fade and the fish began to push down deeper in the water column, but still remained active. We used twin Cannon Digi-Troll downriggers with 12-pound balls, each rigged with a three-armed umbrella rig equipped with Luhr Jensen Pet Spoons selected to match the forage size.

We lowered our downrigger balls to between 13 and 20 feet as sonar signatures of the schooled fish beneath us dictated. We regularly took singles and doubles (two fish at a time on one rod) and fished this way for about 70 minutes.

As we entered our third hour, I took us up shallow and introduced April to fishing for sunfish using slip floats and live bait. We hit two brushy areas that serve as ambush points for the sunfish, and caught juvenile largemouth, juvenile smallmouth, bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish and green sunfish.

The final segment of our trip involved chumming for, and attracting, blue catfish to the lake bottom beneath our boat out in open water, and fishing for them with the same thing we used as a chum — fresh, dead shad. We got the boat set up in a hover using a GPS-equipped Ulterra trolling motor to avoid disturbing the bottom by anchoring. We then placed our chum bag over the side, and got some loose chum sprinkled about. Immediately, the blue catfish started hitting and did not stop as long as we put fresh baits down in front of them.

By 10:30 a.m., the wind had begun to settle, the sun was getting hot, and April was about to reach her limit on this grand adventure. We decided to call it a day right there, with a grand total of 87 fish boated by this bright and energetic little girl.

 

 

Bob Maindelle’s Trip Notes:

Area 1791 – Topwater at first light

Area 012-015 – Topwater in 8:00 o’clock hour

Area 015-1657 – downrigging where topwater last occurred

Area 492 & 493 – sunfishing

Area 1070/812 – bluecatfish on fresh, dead shad

 

One Last Trip Before School Starts — 91 Fish @ Lake Belton, SKIFF Trip #9

This past Tuesday morning, August 2nd, I fished on Lake Belton with the Christenson kids: Zach, Marissa, and Brock. This was a SKIFF program trip provided to the Christenson family free of charge, courtesy of the Austin Fly Fishers. The kids’ father, Ryan Christensen, is a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army and is currently deployed.

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Zach Christenson of Fort Hood caught this nice Belton Lake hybrid striped bass while sight-casting to surface feeding fish in the first 2 hours after sunrise.

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Marissa Christenson caught this nice Belton Lake hybrid striped bass while sight-casting with a chrome slab selected to match the shad these big predators were chasing.

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Despite a wrist already hurting from reeling in so many fish, Brock “pushed through” and landed this nice Lake Belton hybrid striper — his largest of the trip.
To try our best to give the kids’ mother, Erica, some down time, my wife picked the kids up at their quarters on Fort Hood and delivered them to me lakeside after I traveled to Belton Lake separately and got launched and ready for the kids. By 6:35 AM we had shoved off and were on our way to the fishing grounds.

With the dark of the moon upon us now, top water action began quite early and lasted until 8 AM with enough intensity to allow us to cast to surface feeding fish up until this time. Then, top water action continued, albeit more sporadically. This allowed us to know where concentrations of fish were so that we could get to them and downrig for them. We downrigged for another 90 minutes, regularly picking up doubles and triples using Pet Spoons selected to match the forage size on three-armed umbrella rigs.

As we entered into the fourth hour of the morning, the white and hybrid action was sufficient to allow us to keep right on downrigging, however, little brother Brock was beginning to play out and needed both a snack and a change of pace.

We re-rigged and got set up to fish for blue catfish, in open water. In our final hour on the water, the kids landed exactly 20 blue catfish with our baits suspended just above bottom in 32 feet of water. We pulled in our lines at 10:35 to meet mom back at the boat ramp.

Trips like this are available to all military families wherein children are separated from their parent by their parent’s military duty, be it due to deployment, an NTC or JRTC rotation, field time, gunnery, military schooling, etc.  A quick phone call or text to me, Bob Maindelle, at 254.368.7411 to compare calendars is all it takes.

I asked Erica if she was able to relax a little, and, with a smile, she said she was able to enjoy painting a picture of a cross.

The kids landed a total of 91 fish this morning.

 

TALLY = 91 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

02AUG16

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:07.

Water Level: ~7.6 feet high and falling ~  0.65 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1791 – 947 extended topwater action over deep, open water

**Area 793 – 1792 mid-morning sporadic topwater action that guided us to downrigging locations

**Area SSW of 1070 – blue catfish on fresh, dead shad

 

 

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

Grandkids, and More Grandkids! — 44 Fish with the Oliver Clan on Belton

This past Monday morning, August 1st, I fished once again with Joe Oliver (who came out with me last Friday with a different batch of grandkids), this time accompanied by his son, Cory Oliver, and three of Joe’s grandchildren, Bo & Ben Pugh, and Cullen Oliver.

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All the kids hooked up this morning!  Back row from left: Cory Oliver and Joe Oliver.  Front row from left: Cullen Oliver (6), Beau Pugh (2), and Ben Pugh (8).

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Ben landed the largest fish of the trip this morning — a hybrid striper half as long as he is!

Because a contingent of the Oliver family was headed to The Woodlands later this day to visit grandma, our trip was planned for three hours instead of the normal four, which, with such young kids aboard worked out just right. We broke the trip down into three segments, downrigging, casting/smoking, and bait fishing for catfish.

The morning action started off a bit slow today, but right around 7:50, some light top water began which clued us in as to the location of a sizable congregation of feeding fish. We capitalized on this find by catching fish using downriggers, and by casting slabs to fish feeding on top water, as well as using slabs throughout the water column.  Thanks to the fact that fish were so aggressive, they were found from top to bottom for a short span of time. When this action settled down, we did a bit more slab work to add a few white bass and a few hybrid to our count, and then devoted the last 50 minutes or so to setting up with bait for blue catfish.

Everything we tried this morning panned out, and we scarcely went five or six minutes without at least a single fish being hooked and landed.

We wrapped up the fishing by 9:40 with a grand total of 44 fish landed for our efforts today.

TALLY = 44 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

01AUG16

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  9:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:06.

Water Level: ~8.3 feet high and falling ~  0.65 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 105

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1656/1657 downrigging, topwater, smoking

**Area 216/1663 smoking

**Area 812/1271 blue catfish on fresh, dead shad

 

 

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

Fort Hood SKIES Program Fishing Trip — 40 Fish at Lake Belton

This past Saturday morning I fished with Mrs. Kim Hernandez and her sons, Braven (16), Tristan (9), and Noah (7) on Belton Lake.  This was a trip coordinated through the Fort Hood “SKIES” program.

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Tristan was a great, young fisherman — he paid attention to his technique, stayed focused, and was looking forward to catching “one more” now matter how many we landed.

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Braven was a really fast learner and a tremendous help to me and his younger brothers as he got the hang of setting up the downrigger lines, thus freeing me up to navigate and study sonar.

 

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Noah wasn’t too sure about getting too close to the fish we caught, but he stuck with it for a full four hours right alongside his older brothers.

Downrigging for white bass and hybrid stripers early, and fishing with bait for blue cat late was the name of the game this morning.

SKIES Unlimited stands for School of Knowledge, Inspiration, Exploration and Skills. SKIES Unlimited classes are open to children of active duty military personnel, retirees, Department of the Army civilians, and to Department of Defense contractors.  To enroll in SKIES Unlimited activities, children must be registered with CYSS at Building 121 on 761st Tank Destroyer Avenue (right across from the Chili’s restaurant).

There is no charge for registration; parents must bring an ID that shows their affiliation with the military, the child’s shot records, and the report from a recent physical exam. While the SKIES Unlimited programs are not free, many military families are eligible for sizeable credits toward SKIES Unlimited activities. There is a $300 “Army Strong” credit available to each child when their parent is deployed.

 

TALLY = 40 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

30JUL16

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time:  10:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:06.

Water Level: ~9.6 feet high and falling ~  0.65 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1762-1788 downrigging for low light fish with average success

**Area 793-1129 downrigging for deeper mid-morning fish under surface feeders for above average action

**Area just S. of 1655 blue catfish on fresh, dead shad

 

 

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

Let’s go fishin’, Papa Joe!! — 31 Fish and 3 Generations of Olivers

This past Friday morning, July 29th, I fished with Mr. Joe Oliver as he and his adult son, Thomas Oliver, chaperoned three of Joe’s grandchildren: Harper (6), Presley (8), and Cullen (8), on a multi-species children’s fishing trip on Lake Belton.

WHITE BASS

With a lot of help from “Papa” Joe and Uncle Tom, all three kids landed white bass …

 

 

CATFISH

…and blue catfish…

 

 

SUNFISH

…and sunfish…

 

 

TRIPLE

…and doubles and triples…

 

 

HYBRID

…and even a few lunkers…
As a retired educator, Joe understood full well the limited attention spans of kids his grandchildren’s age, so, we planned accordingly to expose the kids to multiple, brief “chapters” during this morning’s trip.

Chapter 1 consisted of downrigging for white bass and hybrid stripers. This resulted in a total of 24 fish. Chapter 2 consisted of fishing with bait up in shallow, cover-filled water for sunfish.

And the final chapter consisted of fishing in open water for densely schooled blue catfish using dead baits.

We were successful in each of these three endeavors and, by 9:45a had landed a total of 31 fish and had reached the end of all three kids’ attention spans. While it was still possible to end the trip on a positive note, we did just that.

 

TALLY = 31 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

29JUL16

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  19:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:09.

Water Level: ~10.2 feet high and falling ~  0.65 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 15

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1766-1641 downrigging for low light fish

**Area 1793/1663/1644 downrigging for deeper mid-morning fish

**Area 1794 sunfish

**Area 1655 blue catfish

 

 

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