This past Monday evening I fished the 2016 season’s 14th SKIFF program trip, treating Love and Faith C. to a half-day trip on Lake Belton. The girls’ mom, Zatira, paid for the girls cousins, Emmanuel N. and Nialise M. to go along.
From left: Faith, Nialise, Emmanuel, and Love, each with a white bass we took via downrigging within 25 minutes of launching. The kids went on to land 49 fish before nightfall.
Love and Faith’s father is currently on deployed status to South Korea, and their cousins will be returning to Connecticut shortly to begin the new school year there.
Today’s weather was quite turbulent, with winds blowing up to 12 mph from just north of east. We encountered three or four brief spritzes of rain while we were on the water.
We began our trip resolved to help Emmanuel and Nialise land the first fish of their lives. The very first spot I checked with sonar held white bass in a feeding posture several feet up off the bottom. Seeing this, I put twin downriggers down, both equipped with Pet Spoons, and no sooner did we turn the boat about and go over the area holding those fish, then Emmanuel was hooked into a double. Nialise immediately followed this up with a single, as did Faith, and within 15 minutes, Love also had her first fish. Each time we ran over these fish, a few more spooked, and by the time Love landed hers, I knew it was time to move on.
To keep things interesting, we headed up shallow to fish for sunfish and in under 15 minutes had everyone take turns on the two bream poles we were using, bringing our tally up to 20 fish before we left the panfishing behind.
Due to the heavy cloud cover, the light level by 6:30pm was equivalent to that near sunset on most clear days. Seeing this, I transitioned us into pre-sunset downrigging, again using Pet Spoons. This allowed the kids to catch white bass after white bass over a 70 minute span, right up until some brief top water action provided the grand finale.
Because Love and Faith were a bit older and had some prior fishing experience, I had them casting independently out of the stern, and placed Nialise and Emmanuel to my left and right and did their casting for them, allowing them to retrieve their baits through the boiling fish at the surface. Again, the kids landed white bass after white bass for about 25 minutes until the fish quit thanks to the failing light.
When all was said and done we had boated a grand total of 49 fish.
TALLY = 49 fish, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:15p
End Time: 8:15p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 83F
Water Surface Temp: 84.7F
Wind Speed & Direction: ENE4-13
Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover.
Water Level: ~2.47 feet high. Lake is falling slowly at ~.11 feet per day
GT = 0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 168 downrigging
**Area 1583 sunfishing
**Area 1070/1802 downrigging
**Area 1764 to bank – post-sunset topwater
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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