This past Friday evening, December 30^th, I fished with returning guests Steve and Mary Robar who “snowbird” in Kingsland, Texas, in their RV each winter. On this trip to Belton Lake, Steve and Mary invited along their niece, Melissa Haley, and her friend, Kelly Irwin, both from Sioux City, Iowa.

 

From left: Steve Robar, Mary Robar, Melissa Haley, and Kelly Irwin with the largest 5 of the 80 fish we landed on this raw, grey late December afternoon.

Steve is retired from finance work as a federal employee who worked for NOAA, and Mary is retired from the medical field where she worked in the x-ray department at a hospital in Denver, CO.  Melissa is a third-grade public school teacher, and Kelly works in a bicycle shop.

After finishing up an 80 fish morning trip just an hour and 15 minutes earlier, I picked up where that trip left off and began searching for deep white bass on breaklines.

Our first stop of the day was our best. We enjoyed 75 minutes’ worth of consistent action, and during this time put 42 fish in the boat. From roughly 2:30 to around 3:30, we were able to find fish, but they were not all that enthusiastic, nor did we find schools near the size of that first one we encountered. By 3:30, we found another loosely congregated group of fish over a 60 yard span holding at the same contour level on a breakline in 42 feet of water. We spot-hopped along this contour, and put white bass in the one, two, and three year class in the boat, as well as occasional hybrid striped bass, largemouth bass, and drum. This area held up until approximately 4:45 when I headed back to the shallower main lake area that has produced for me over the past several evenings.

This evening was to be no different – – Area 1001 produced a final 11 fish to close out this evening’s trip with exactly 80 fish, thus matching the morning trip’s results.

TALLY = 80 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 1:00p

End Time:  5:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 52F

Water Surface Temp:  58.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  ESE8-10

Sky Conditions: 100% heavy grey cloud cover

Water Level:  0.49 feet above full pool

GT =  20

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1023 –  white bass action on a 42′ breakline with 3/8 oz. slabs using an easing tactic

**Area vic 1870 to 1679 –  white bass action on a 40-42′ breakline with 3/8 oz. slabs using an easing tactic

**Area 1001 – low-light bite on slabs in ~25′

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline/

This past Friday morning, December 30th, I fished with Bill McClure of Leander, Texas, and his nine-year-old grandson, Beruke Mekonen, of Marble Falls, Texas.

 

From left: Beruke Mekonen and his grandfather, Bill McClure, with a nice Belton Lake hybrid striper that Beruke attracted, hooked, fought, and landed using a 3/8 oz. slab with a stinger hook attached.

 

Bill works for the Texas General Land Office  and oversees contracts and contractors that service the various Texas State veterans’ homes. With only five or six years to go until retirement, Bill took some mental notes about the layout of my boat, and also how we went about catching our fish this morning. He plans to do a good bit of boating and fishing in his retirement.

Beruke is a 4^th grader who enjoys soccer, his Jack Russel/Dachshund mix dog, and peanuts.  I think Beruke somehow managed to eat a bushel of peanuts between all the fish he caught!

After yesterday’s fairly mild cold front moved through the area, we had gray, cloudy conditions, with very light east northeast winds through 9 AM. During this span, we boated only four fish and observed no bird activity whatsoever.

At around 9 AM, the first sustained breeze of the day began to blow from just  south of east at around 5 to 6 mph. The fishing improved instantaneously. As I ran sonar over a deep break line, we located fish holding on that breakline, and they appeared to be well consolidated. Long story short, we fished over top of this large school of white bass for 2.75 hours and put exactly 76 fish in the boat.

The technique was straightforward – –used a small 3/8 oz. Model 180 slab in white (made by Redneck Fish’n Jigs) equipped with a Hazy Eye Shad stinger hook to imitate the small shad these fish were feeding on and routinely regurgitated at boat side as we caught and released them. We simply used a vertical “easing” tactic and put white bass, hybrid striped bass, largemouth bass, and freshwater drum in the boat.

Bill has already made plans to bring two other grandkids out when he and Beruke return during spring break this coming March.

Our final tally was exactly 80 fish caught and released.

TALLY = 80 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time:  11:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 44F

Water Surface Temp:  58.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Calm ’til 9a, then ESE 5-6

Sky Conditions: 100% heavy grey cloud cover with occasional light rain between 10:30 and noon

Water Level:  0.49 feet above full pool

GT =  35

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 787/682 – 2.25 hours of steady white bass action on a 42′ breakline

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline/

This past Wednesday afternoon I fished a multi-species trip on Lake Belton with father and daughter pair Mike Cox and Hallie Cox of Austin.

 

Above: Texas author Mike Cox with a nice 18.5″ Lake Belton hybrid striped bass.  This was only the second hybrid Mike has ever landed.  The first, a 12-incher, came just moments before this one struck Mike’s slab.

Hallie and Mike Cox display a sampling of the larger white bass that fell for our 3/8 oz. slabs equipped with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks in mid-afternoon over 32′ of water.
Back in September, I was invited by Mr. John Jefferson to speak at the Austin Woods and Waters hunting and fishing club and Mike was in the audience. My topic was a addressing a typical year of fishing through all of the seasons on both Belton and Stillhouse Hollow. While Hallie was home from the University of Texas on winter break, Mike decided to see for himself if the fishing was as good as I had advertised.

Mike started his career as a reporter, with much of his early work done for the Austin American Statesman.  Later, he began writing books and has authored over 20 works, mainly about Texas, including Time of the Rangers: The Texas Rangers, 1900 to Present, as well as The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900, and Texas Disasters, True Stories of Tragedy and Survival.

Our conditions this afternoon were very good. We found ourselves at the tail end of a warming trend with mostly cloudy skies and a breeze just west of the south.

We were able to get on deep fish in clear water right away this afternoon thanks to some loons diving down on shad and indicating the presence of fish.  In our first 90 minutes on the water put over 70 fish in the boat. There was then a bit of a lull in the action as the skies brightened and the wind slacked off a bit for about 45 minutes. Around 3:30 or so, some low grey clouds obscured the sun, the south southwest breeze begin to blow a bit stronger, and the fish responded well to this change. Over the next 75 minutes we were able to take our tally up to 115 fish before the fish discontinued their feed in the 32 foot water we were fishing, the sending us hunting for active fish once again.

Surprisingly, no gulls or terns fed this evening, so all of the fish we found we found with sonar. Around 4:45 I pulled up on the same area that lit up with fish just prior to sunset last evening, and just like clockwork, the fish moved in, perked up, and bit well right up until dark. We put a final 53 fish in the boat at this area including the very first hybrid striped bass Mike had ever landed. He replaced that 12 inch long personal best just moments later with a nice 18 inch hybrid striper that weighed in right at 3 1/8 pounds.

As the sun set, our grand total stood at 168 fish.

TALLY = 168 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 1:00p

End Time:  5:20p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  58.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW6-9

Sky Conditions: 50% cloud cover on a fair sky

Water Level:  0.50 feet above full pool

GT =  30

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1023/678 –  large, deep school of smaller white bass in 42′ giving up 70 fish in 2 hours

**Area 1871 – school of mixed class of 1, 2, & 3 year fish in 32′ giving up 45 fish

**Area 1001 – excited school of fish in low-light feeding conditions in 25′ giving up 53 fish

 

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline/

As the last day of balmy, 70 degree weather moved east out of Texas, I conducted the last Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (SKIFF) trip of the year with 11-year-old Emily Reynnells and her 8-year-old brother, Josh, aboard this past Wednesday morning, Dec. 28th.

 

Above: Emily Reynnells, daughter of U.S. Army Major Steve Reynnells and his wife, Johanna, with the largest fish of the final SKIFF trip of 2016.  This Stillhouse Lake largemouth measured 18 inches.

 

From left: Emily and Josh Reynnells with white bass that fell for our small, 3/8 oz. slabs.

Like many military kids today, it seems Josh and Emily’s dad, Major Steve Reynnells, has been gone on duty more than he has been at home during their lives.  Major Reynnells served in Iraq from 2010 to 2011.  He was then sent to Fort Polk, LA, from 2014 to 2016.  Then, just when he thought he might get to return to Texas and his family from Fort Polk, he got orders sending him to Afghanistan, where he is currently serving, for nearly another year.  And then there is the training, field time, and schooling that takes place even when our soldiers are back at their home posts that often keep them from truly being at home, even when they are “home”.

I picked the kids up at their home in Harker Heights, TX, with my boat in tow and we headed for Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir, a 6,000 acre impoundment managed by the Corps of Engineers.  With school out for the Christmas break and dad overseas, the kids’ mom, Johanna, scheduled a bit of needed respite time without the kids around.  This is one of the most welcomed features of the SKIFF program – providing a break to the homefront parent.

The kids were excited to see whitetail deer along the way, and the flock of coots at lakeside that greeted us as we arrived at the launch site.

The conditions were good for white bass fishing, with some grey cloud cover and a manageable southerly breeze.  Additionally, a migratory population of gulls feeding on shad pushed to the surface by hungry white bass beneath made fish location fairly simple.

Over our 4 hours together, the kids landed exactly 51 fish with Emily’s 18 inch largemouth anchoring the catch.  Using an “easing” tactic with a white 3/8 oz. slab was the key as we held steady over top of the fish using the newest Minn Kota trolling motor “Spot Lock” technology so the kids could more easily look and feel for strikes down 20 to 40 feet below the boat.

THE SEASON IN REVIEW …

Thanks to your donations, contributions, fundraising efforts, scholarships, grants, program discounts, encouragement, and more, we were able to put exactly 44 kids on the water over the course of 19 guided trips in 2016, thus bringing the total number of kids SKIFF has taken fishing since its inception in 2009 to 346.

This year those 44 kids landed 1,081 fish – an average of over 24 fish caught per child.  The grand total number of fish caught since the program’s start now stands at 8,382.

In 2016, seven of our SKIFF participants landed the first fish of their lifetime and were awarded a Texas Parks and Wildlife “First Fish Award”.

For all of this, “thank you” just does not seem adequate, but, nonetheless, THANK YOU!!!!

 

 

Details on the Reynnells kids’ trip…

TALLY = 51fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 62F

Water Surface Temp:  60.0F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Calm at trip’s start, quickly building up to SSW01-12

Sky Conditions: 50% cloud cover on a fair sky

Water Level:  0.45 feet above full pool

GT =  0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1721 – wolfpacks of fish in ~26′ but pretty tight-lipped thanks to the near calm conditions for the first 35 minutes

**Area 1060 – single large school of white bass holding on a breakline

**Area 091 – single small school of white bass holding on a breakline

**Area 784 – most productive area, and the last one we fished under the windiest and cloudiest conditions of the morning.  Very large school of smallish white bass were holding in 32′ at the base of this hump.  We landed 26 fish in our final 40 minutes on the water here.

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline/

This past Tuesday afternoon I fished with three young ladies aged 10, 11, and 12. My youngest angler was Annemarie Curran, joined by her cousins, Ella and Grace Rinehart.

 

From left: Ella Rinehart, Annemarie Curran, and Grace Rinehart put a grand total of 134 fish in the boat under balmy conditions on Dec. 27th.

 

Above: Grace landed our largest hybrid right near sunset.

Above: Annemarie landed our largest freshwater drum from out of over 40′ of water in mid-afternoon.

Above: Ella landed this 10″ white bass, the very first fish she ever caught!!

Chaperoning the girls were brothers-in-law Mike Curran and Eddie Rinehart, and the girls’ grandpa, Phil Curran, all from the Austin area.

Customarily, I arrive at the boat ramp about 30 minutes before my clients are due. Today, as I waited, the weather had me quite concerned. The thin gray cloud cover we had in place all day began to thin, and the light northeast breeze which never got up over 7 mph to start with, appear to be fading. Gray and breezy conditions are ideal; it we were headed for just the opposite – – clear, calm conditions.

As the kids arrived with their dads and their grandfather, I went over all of my usual dockside orientation items, and by the time we shoved off, a very thin gray layer of clouds began to obscure the direct sun, and a very light northeast breeze at 3 to 4 mph was at least rippling the surface.

The first area I searched with sonar revealed little. The second area I search with sonar revealed even less. As I looked over the third area I’d hoped to find fish at, I probed a bit deeper – – between 40 and 45 feet — and found a few fish. This was just enough of a hint to get me headed in the right direction, and, even though the bite wasn’t very strong here, Ella was able to catch the first fish of her life at this location — a 10″ white bass.

At the next area I searched, I found more fish at around 42 feet, and once we got those fish started, they bit for a solid 2.25 hours which is quite incredible given the nearly windless conditions that evolved as we sat on this area. We used white, 3/8 oz. Redneck Fish’n Jigs Model 180 slabs with a Hazy Eye Stinger hook attached at the line tie to seal the deal using an easing tactic the entire time.  We landed mainly white bass, but also had a few hybrid striper, largemouth, drum, and even one channel cat bite on our slabs.

By around 4:15 PM, as the 77th fish was pulled aboard, the sonar finally went blank and I knew it was time to begin searching once again. As I made my way towards shallower water (anticipating that if we were going to have a low-light evening bite, that it would happen in shallower water) we were blessed to find a handful of helpful gulls just starting to get antsy over top of a school of very active fish pushing shad to the surface where these gulls could get at them. We eased on top of these fish and used a smoking tactic with larger, three-quarter ounce white slabs equipped with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks to provide the girls with a grand finale. In under 40 minutes, we took our tally from 77 fish up to 134 fish with a mixed bag of hybrid striper, white bass, drum, and largemouth bass.

Despite this trip being dedicated to making the girls successful, Mike, Eddie, and Phil all thanked me, expressing how they learned a lot, too, especially concerning the use and interpretation of sonar.

 

TALLY = 134 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 1:00p

End Time:  5:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  58.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNW4 at trip’s start, tapering to near calm

Sky Conditions: 50% cloud cover on a fair sky

Water Level:  0.51 feet above full pool

GT =  105

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1872- a few white bass by easing from a bottom-hugging school in 40-45 feet of water

**Area 1870 – 2.25 hours of steady action by easing from a bottom-hugging school in 40-45 feet of water

**Area 1001 – 57 fish in 40 minutes fishing 3/4 oz. slabs for bottom-oriented and suspended fish initially located under birds

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline

This afternoon, Christmas Eve 2016, I had the pleasure of fishing with Andrew Zills and his father-in-law, Fred Jackson.  We fished a multi-species trip on Lake Belton, expecting mainly white bass on slabs.

 

From left: Fred Jackson and his son-in-law, Andrew Zills, with the one and only hybrid landed today out of a tally of 165 fish.

Fred and Andrew with a sampling of the white bass that aggressively fed for a full 2.5 hours under birds, pushing large, 3.5 to 4.0 inch shad to the surface and throughout the water column.
I first got to know Andrew when a man by the name of Dean Renkes, the grandfather of the boy Andrew’s wife is the nanny to, brought Andrew out for a live bait fishing trip focused on hybrid striper about two years ago in April of 2015.

Last December I got to fish with Andrew once again, this time accompanied by his wife, Megan. Andrew is an enlisted man serving in the Army’s Corps of Engineers, and Fred, originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, is the news director at American Family Radio based in Tupelo, Mississippi.

I opted for an afternoon trip today because the morning the winds were forecast to be quite light. No matter what the season, light winds make fishing difficult. Also, we were to have heavier cloud cover this afternoon.  When it comes to white bass and hybrid stripers, the combination of wind and gray cloud cover is hard to beat.

As was the case yesterday, our first hour on the water from 1 PM to 2 PM was slow. There were no birds working and what fish we found were very tightly holding to the bottom. At exactly 2:05 PM, I spotted the first flock of helpful gulls working over fish, eating the shad that the game fish were forcing to the surface.

As I approached this feeding spree at idle speed I watched closely to see if I could gauge the size of the baitfish that the birds were grabbing from the surface. It quickly became apparent that the bait here was quite large – – 3.5 to 4 inch threadfin shad. When I found what I was after on sonar and used the Minn Kota Spot Lock function to hold us on top of these fish, we went with large profile three-quarter ounce slabs in bright white and equipped with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks in order to match the bait size closely. This served us very well.

From 2:05 and until 4:35, we caught fish nonstop taking our tally from the 12 fish we had caught before the birds started working, up to 165 fish for the afternoon’s final tally.

All of this action took place over a stretch of water approximately 1 mile long. We simply spot-hopped after aggressive bird activity.  Once the bird action died away, and once the remaining fish still present on bottom stopped feeding, the cycle would then repeat itself – – active birds signaled active fish, followed by a dispersion of the birds with fish action still remaining sub-surface, followed by an absence of birds with fish on the bottom only, followed by that grinding to a halt and prompting us to look elsewhere for active birds on active fish.

For our efforts today, we landed one legal hybrid striped bass, two largemouth bass, approximately 30 freshwater drum, and the balance of our catch was made up of white bass in the one through three year class, ranging from 10 to 13 inches.

Fred paid me a very nice complement stating that he had learned more about fishing in this one afternoon on the water than he had over the course of his entire life.

Merry Christmas to all of you.  I’ll be off the water tomorrow as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, and then back out after ‘em next week.

TALLY = 165 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 1:00p

End Time:  5:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Water Surface Temp:  57.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE12-14

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies not quite to the point of precipitation

Water Level:  0.33 feet above full pool

GT =  200

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1868 white bass by easing from a bottom-hugging school

**Area vic. 957 through 740 — 2.5 hours of solid fish action under birds using slabs via slow smoking and easing

**Area 1867 white bass by easing from a bottom-hugging school

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline

This past Friday afternoon, December 23rd, I fished with Andres “Andy” Cota and Nick Quintana pursuing white bass and hybrid striper on Lake Belton.

 

 

From left: Nick Quintana and Andy Cota with a sampling of the just-legal hybrid we got into in 40 feet of water between 2-3pm under birds.  We fished for suspended fish when the birds worked, and fish near bottom when they didn’t.

Both Andy and Nick are nearing the end of their one and only enlistment in the U.S. Army as infantrymen in the First Cavalry division. Nick and his wife, Amanda, are from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Andres and his wife, Christel, are from Arizona. As their time in the military draws to a close, both men hope to get on with the Copperas Cove Police Department. I first got to know both men through Memorial Baptist Church, where all of us worship together.

I chose the afternoon over the morning today because greater wind speed was forecast for the afternoon, and that did come to fruition. The entire day was overcast just to the point of drizzle with the ambient temperature hovering between 50 and 53°. A thin blanket of fog developed right around 11:30 AM and persisted through sunset.

Our first hour on the water was disrupted thanks to a fellow angler in need of a tow back to the boat ramp. As it turns out, the fellow flagging us down from across the water was a past client of mine, who also did an on the water sonar training with me some years ago. We actually got down to fishing by around 1:50 PM, and immediately got under actively working birds feeding on shad driven to the surface by white bass and hybrid stripers feeding on those shad from beneath. As we hovered over these fish in 40 feet of water, we put our first 46 fish in the boat over our first two hours of fishing while spot hopping just two or three times over a roughly 100 yards span to keep up with the birds.

After this action died down, and given that the heavy fog and clouds were obscuring the sun to a great extent, I chose to look shallower, figuring that the low light bite would take place earlier than normal this evening.

As we made our way to the next area I intended to try, we found yet another flock of gulls actively working fish, this time in 30 feet of water. We spot hopped twice over about a 1/8 mile span and, in the last hour, doubled our catch and then some. Fishing slabs equipped with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks, we boated fish after fish including white bass, hybrid striper, and freshwater drum, taking our tally up to 102 before the fish quit at dark.

As it turns out, Andy had never been in a motorized boat before, and neither had any significant prior fishing experience. I hope they did not go home spoiled!

TALLY = 102 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 1:00p

End Time:  5:05p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 51F

Water Surface Temp:  56.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE6-8

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies with a light but complete blanket of fog over the entire lake

Water Level:  0.33 feet above full pool

GT =  0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1866 to 682; whites, drum, largemouth and hybrids by snap-jigging and easing

**Area vic. 560; whites, drum and hybrids by snap-jigging and easing

**Area 561; whites, drum and hybrids by snap-jigging and easing

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline

This past Wednesday afternoon, December 21st, I fished with John and Elaine Wyckoff of Belton, and their three grandchildren, Dacia, Malia, and Gabriel Rodriguez.

 

From left: Maila, Gabriel, and Dacia Rodriguez of Belton were treated to a Christmas break fishing trip by their grandparents, John and Elaine Wyckoff, also of Belton.  The party of 5 put exactly 138 fish in the boat in right at 4 hours this past Wednesday afternoon.

When weather forced a cancellation of our Saturday, 03 December, trip John was minded to push the trip back to spring break, but added that he and Elaine would like to fish and not merely serve as chaperones. Hearing this, I suggested that we do a winter trip instead when the go-to technique is vertical jigging, which lends itself well to having multiple anglers fishing simultaneously.

We compared notes and I looked at the weather forecast and saw this day’s southerly winds between cold fronts and felt this would be an opportune time to catch fish and not expose the kids to extreme cold as we did it.

This hunch turned out to be correct as we were able to land at least a few fish at every single stop we made today, with some spots giving up 15, 20, 30, or more fish.

Today, all of the fish we encountered demanded the same presentation – – an easing tactic using small slabs equipped with stinger hooks. I have mentioned a number of times through the years how effective this stinger hook is. From mid-December through early March, 50% or greater of the fish caught on slabs are caught on the stinger hook in the mouth first, with the treble hooks simply latching on after-the-fact somewhere outside the mouth.

We caught a variety of species today including two short hybrid stripers, about six largemouth bass, about a dozen drum, with the balance being made up of white bass.

Although we did see birds on the water and in the air today, none of them were helpful in locating fish, which is pretty typical for afternoon fishing.

When all was said and done my crew of five had landed 138 fish in right at four hours’ time.

 

TALLY = 138 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 1:00p

End Time:  5:10p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 61F

Water Surface Temp:  56.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S12, tapering to S4 in 30 minutes

Sky Conditions: 50% high, thin wispy white clouds on a fair sky

Water Level:  0.33 feet above full pool

GT =  50

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 192 – 15 fish by easing

**Area 327/1815 –  a few fish by easing

**Area 1827 –  a few fish by easing

**Area 1635/1820 – 15 fish by easing

**Area 1187/1285 – 38 fish by easing

**Area 1272-1802 – balance of the catch at this last area; all caught by easing

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline

This past Saturday morning I was joined once again by Temple fire chief Mitch Randles and his daughter, Sabrina. The two chose to celebrate Sabrina’s 21st birthday on the boat with me in pursuit of white bass.

 

From left: Sabrina Randles and her dad, City of Temple Fire Chief Mitch Randles, boated a total of 152 fish on Lake Belton under pre-frontal conditions this past Saturday while celebrating Sabrina’s 21st birthday.

As they often do when other species of fish are feeding heavily in one area, freshwater drum routinely moved into the areas we fished this morning and fell for our slabs.  Sabrina so routinely caught them that Mitch and I began calling her the “Drum Major”.

Chief Randles first came to this area after his family  lost just about everything they owned to the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri a few years ago.

Sabrina and her parents went out to eat at the Back Porch restaurant in Temple the previous night on her actual birthday, where the family got to enjoy seeing the University of Mary Hardin Baylor football team win the championship for their division amidst a celebratory local crowd.

The weather forecast was constantly changing in regards to the wind direction and velocity this morning as the seasons most severe cold front headed for Texas and was due to come in around 7 PM.  I anticipated that I’d be looking at either prefrontal conditions, or a much less desirable set of conditions known as compressional warming of the atmosphere. As it turned out, we got to experience a bit of both.

Our first hour on the water was our slowest, as very murky skies and a southerly wind up over 15 mph put both fish and birds off their feed a little bit.

As the clouds thinned (but still remained 100% coverage), and as the wind slowly shifted west of south, the fishing began to improve.

For the next 2.75 hours on the water we simply spot hopped beneath active birds over a roughly half mile span of water. Over this time we put a total of 78 fish in the boat. As the bird activity settled and what fish we found on sonar prove quite stubborn, we left this area behind.

We transitioned to a slightly deeper, clearer, and more wind-exposed area about the same time some small breaks began to develop in the clouds allowing blue sky and some direct sun to show through. During our final 75 minutes on the water, we nearly doubled our catch. By noon, we had taken our fish count to our final total of 152 fish.

During this change of weather, the fish began to be less responsive to the easing tactic we had used all morning, and more responsive to a straightforward jigging approach.

Following the trip, skies continued to clear, allowing the afternoon temperatures to climb to 78F, but, the bottom fell out around 7pm as the season’s coldest cold front to date crashed into central Texas with 30+ mph dry, north winds which would blow right through Monday morning.  Sunday and Monday morning would see wake-up temperatures at 19-20F.
 

TALLY = 152 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  12:00 noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 53F

Water Surface Temp:  59.6 to 60.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE12-14 with prefrontal, compressional warming

Sky Conditions: 100% greyed over with a few breaks in the clouds during our last hour on the water

Water Level:  0.33 feet above full pool

GT =  0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1864, 1865, 1862 – easing with 3/8 oz. slabs; fish were reluctant to strike larger slabs;  I noted fish responding the best they have so far this season to “thumping”, often suspending in a horizontal band beneath the boat.

**Area 1863- snap jigging with 3/8 oz. slabs

 

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingtheline

This past Friday morning I fished with U.S. Army veteran Troy Hensley and his three-year-old son, Trace.

 

Troy Hensley and his 3-year-old son put 52 fish in the boat before the novelty of the outdoors within the confines of a 20 foot boat wore off on little Trace.

Troy and I first got to know each other through our church — Memorial Baptist Church — in Killeen, shortly after Troy finished up his time in the Army as an infantryman with the 1st Cavalry Division.  Fast forward a few years and the two of now have the honor of co-leading a small group of 5 families each Monday evening together.  Troy is originally from Kentucky, and growing up he did some fishing from the shore, primarily for largemouth bass. So, to fish in deep, open water using primarily vertical tactics is something fairly new to Troy.

Our skies were completely greyed over and our starting temperature was right at 50°. Three hours later, the temperature had only risen to 52. At times a light drizzle fell, which, in combination with the 14 mph south southeast wind made it feel pretty raw out.

We did the best we could to keep little Trace engaged.  When Troy or I hooked a fish we would lower the rod and reel down to Trace’s level and let him turn the handle. When that novelty wore off, we let him look at and play with the handful of fish we kept in the live well for photos. After that, it was snack time; after that he operated my thumping stick, and, last but not least, he served as our “net man”.  As the net man, Trace stood between Troy and me with a shad net. As we unhooked our white bass we put them tail first into the net and let Trace release them back into the lake where they slid out easily headfirst. By the three-hour mark he had had all of the weather, waves, and fun a 3-year-old  can have and fell asleep on our way back in.

We ended up this short, three hour trip with 52 fish boated and some once-in-a-lifetime photos and video clips taken.

 

TALLY = 52 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 53F

Water Surface Temp:  58.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE10-13

Sky Conditions: 100% grey overcast with light mist just before launching; damp and cool and damp the entire trip.

Water Level:  0.33 feet above full pool

GT =  0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 739-752 for the first 2 hours for white bass on slabs with an easing tactic

**Area vic 963-1187 for the last hour for white bass on slabs with an easing tactic

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LGrD-sm7Bo6tDPIv0z4jg

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/holdingthe