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 4th 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/