This past Thursday evening I fished with Dennis Moses, his wife Nakeya, and their eight-year-old son Ayden. Dennis, a US Army military policeman, was home on leave from his current assignment in Turkey and had a very limited window of time in which to get his family out fishing. So, despite the wet and cooling conditions we faced this afternoon, Moses family was “all in” to pursue fish on Lake Belton.
True troopers!! From left: Nakeya, Ayden, and Dennis Moses donned ponchos and braved the drizzle and cooling temperatures to put together a catch of 56 fish during the short time Dennis had home on leave from his assignment in Turkey.
This past Thursday evening I fished with Dennis Moses, his wife Nakeya, and their eight-year-old son Ayden. Dennis, a US Army military policeman, was home on leave from his current assignment in Turkey and had a very limited window of time in which to get his family out fishing. So, despite the wet and cooling conditions we faced this afternoon, Moses family was “all in” to pursue fish on Lake Belton.
It seems that if ponchos are not required, this family just won’t go fishing! I had the privilege of taking the Moses family out in the spring just before Dennis’ deployment began and we set out in a cool drizzle that day with everyone wearing ponchos, as well.
I ran a multi-species trip for this family and we targeted primarily white bass. The aggressive attitude of the fish displayed this morning as this mild, wet, cool front rolled in definitely dialed back this afternoon as the winds calmed to near nothing.
On a number of occasions we located heavily congregated fish and got them to follow our slabs routinely, but only infrequently would they strike at them. So, after seeing quite a number of fish suspended between 15 and 20 feet beneath the surface over various depths of water and in various locations, I decided to go with a downrigging approach instead.
The downriggers definitely put more fish in the boat than any other tactic this afternoon, occasionally giving up doubles and regularly producing singles.
For just a short spell between 5:40 and 6 PM, after catching a double on each of the downriggers and seeing numerous fish, both on bottom and suspended, I decided to stop and give vertical jigging another try. We put three catfish in the boat in under two minutes and so I quickly changed us over to fishing with slip floats with fresh, dead shad as a cut bait.
We landed four more catfish in short order before the winds went calm and both the catfish and the white bass died off pretty suddenly. We spent our last hour downrigging and wound up with a total of 56 fish landed on the evening.
Ayden came up with the best idea of the whole cool, rainy trip, which was to go grab Chinese at the Oriental Kitchen in Killeen on their way back home!!
TALLY = 56 fish, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:00p
End Time: 7:00p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F
Water Surface Temp: 75.6F
Wind Speed & Direction: NNW6, tapering off to calm
Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover
Water Level: ~0.01 feet high with only evaporative losses
GT = 0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1675 downrigging for fish holding on a 30′ breakline and for suspended fish out away from it
**Areas 1824, 1680 – vertical tactics for white bass
**Areas 328-788 – continued downrigging
**Area 788 – bluecat on bait for <30 minutes
**Area 1668-1877 – shallow downrigging for low-light end of evening bite
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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