This past Thursday morning I fished with Lee Davis and Brian Srba on Belton Lake in pursuit of white bass.

From left: Lee Davis and Brian Srba, each with quality hybrid stripers.  We caught these fish on Hazy Eye Shad tandem rigs while a very large school of fish was beneath the boat in about 34 feet of water.  As we used the tandem rigs (with a slab as the lower offering and a Hazy Eye Shad fly as the upper offering), both fellows caught the hybrid on the fly.  Brian actually doubled up, with his second fish being a short white bass of about 7 inches.  Note the two drops of milt dripping from the anal fin on Brian’s fish (on right).

From left: Lee Davis and Brian Srba with handfuls of quality white bass, each over 13.25 inches, taken beneath actively feeding birds over a 3.25 hour span on Lake Belton this morning.

Lee, who serves at the Methodist Children’s Home in Waco, lives right near Lake Whitney.  Although he’s become confident in fishing live bait for the full-blooded stripers there, and catches white bass when they are “easy” (i.e. when schooling visibly on the surface), the day-in and day-out pursuit of this species with artificial baits has proven a challenge.  Our aim on this trip was to give Lee an overview of effective methods for finding and catching white bass when they are not so easy (which is about 95% of the time!).  Brian is a DPS State Trooper.  The two got to know one another when Lee trained one of Brian’s duck hunting dogs.

After two days of bright, post-frontal conditions, cloud cover arrived at the end of the day on Wednesday and, overnight, winds began to shift out of the SW, through W, and to the NW in advance of a mild, damp cold front which would move quickly through the area, barely impacting temperatures.

Cloudy, breezy conditions are the best of the best for cool season white bass fishing and this morning was no exception.  We enjoyed abundant bird activity for 3.25 of our 4.25 hours on the water.  All of the fish we caught were within a 1/2 mile radius, thus we spent a lot of time with lines in the water, not moving about searching out active fish.

The first fish we encountered were the shallowest we’d find this morning, thus I was able to introduce the use of bladebaits and the techniques necessary to use them effectively.  As the morning moved along, the fish moved out deeper, thus allowing me to explain how to use slabs in snap-jigging, easing, smoking, and tandem rigging.  Because the fish were so active for so long, all of these tactics produced, thus allowing Lee and Brian to gain useful experience with these tactics through repetition.

As the morning bite seemed to be drawing to a close (as evidenced by the tapering of bird activity), I suggested we take advantage of the opportunity to do a downrigging demo while we still had a shot at catching suspended fish (which were showing in abundance on sonar).  I demonstrated everything on our first set and the fish cooperated immediately.  I then talked Lee through setting up the downrigging by himself on our second set.  Once we worked out the kinks, he got his baits in the water and, again, the fish cooperated immediately.

By the time the helpful gull activity had just about ground to a halt, we’d amassed a catch of 119 fish, including several nice hybrid between 3.5 and 4.5 pounds.

TALLY = 119 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 42F

Water Surface Temp:  58.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNW12-15

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

Water Level:  0.33 feet above full pool

GT =  20

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1733 through 1860; all vertical work with slabs, incl. easing and slow smoking with 3/8 oz single slabs and with Hazy Eye Shad tandem rig

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

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This past Monday morning I fished a multi-species trip using strictly artificial baits on Lake Belton with Sean Webber, his dad, Chris Webber, and Sean’s brother, Chad Webber.

From left: Sean, Chad, and Chris Webber teamed up to put an incredible 269 fish in the boat in just over 4 hours of fishing on Lake Belton.  An incoming dry cold front got the fish in an exceptional feeding mode today.  All fish were caught on slabs equipped with Hazy Eye Stinger Hooks on the line tie in addition to the standard treble hooks.

Sean is a U.S. Army mechanic assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division, and his dad and brother are both firemen with the San Diego Fire Dept., where Chris serves as a chief.

We were blessed this morning with the arrival of yet another dry cold front.  After a balmy, cloudy, windy, and humid day yesterday in which afternoon temps reached just over 70F, a dry cold front moved into Texas this morning shifting the winds through the west to the north and clearing and cooling the air.  As we launched, the ambient temperature was at 44F with a windchill of 39F with the 12-13mph winds.  Temps only climbed to the low 60’s by afternoon.

Evidently pushed by the increasing barometric pressure, the fish went on an exceptional feedings spree this morning which stayed strong right up until the winds let up and shifted more northerly, around 11:30a.

As with most off of my highly productive trips (150+ fish) over the years, this trip had the same several elements — active fish, minimal time spent looking for fish or moving around to find active fish, and a maximum amount of time spent catching.

Indeed, we only fished 3 different areas this morning, with 2.5 hours spent at our first location which yielded over 170 fish, and the remainder of our catch of 269 fish was split across the last two areas we fish.  Fishing was identical at all 3 areas in that we used an easing tactic with small slabs equipped with stinger hooks to keep the fish coming in the boat.  Over 30% of the fish were hooked primarily by the stinger hook.

On a number of occasions I was concerned that the winds were going to let up before we got in a full four hours on the water, but, each time the winds settled, they cranked back up again until finally, around 11:30, the winds shifted as far north as they would reach this day and then went slack as the entire front passed and began to leave the characteristic calm, clear conditions  behind.

For there efforts today the Webber men landed a total of exactly 269 fish including 2 short hybrid striper, 3 largemouth bass, about 14 drum, and the balance of white bass in the 1, 2, and 3 year classes.

I was surprised at how little bird action existed today.  There was only a 15 minutes period right after sunrise during which the birds fed in a way helpful to locating fish.  I suspect the rapid cooldown of the water near the surface last week pushed the bait down in the water column and the gamefish simply didn’t have to chase the shad all the way to the top to feed.

TALLY = 269 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 44F

Water Surface Temp:  59.6 to 60.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  WNW13 shifting and tapering to NNW4

Sky Conditions: Bright and clear with an incoming, dry coldfront

Water Level:  0.33 feet above full pool

GT =  35

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1860 – 2.5 hours. 170+ fish easing 3/8 oz. slabs

**Area 1187/1728 – easing 3/8 oz. slabs

**Area 1292/1727 – easing 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 Wednesday morning, November 30th, I fished a 1/2 day morning trip on Lake Belton with Dr. Jim Wood. Our focus was primarily on white bass with a few bonus hybrid striper thrown in for excitement.

Our best action this morning came in the first 2 hours, with fish activity slowly tapering down to nil by around 11am as the high winds of the morning plateaued and began to moderate by this time.  The time to be out there was when it was really blowing.

Jim has been a medical doctor for many years now and currently serves patients each week in both Harker Heights and out in Lampasas.  Wednesdays are his days off, and he chose to spend this one out with me.
A mild, dry cold front began moving into central Texas during the early morning hours. As we launched right at 7 AM, the winds were blowing 14 to 17 mph from the north northwest, with clear, cool, dry conditions prevailing. The ambient temperature was 51F and only rose to 58F by the time our trip concluded.  We watched two boats that launched at the same time we did turn around and head to the house after leaving the protection of the launch area and seeing the swell and waves that faced them.

Spurred on by the incoming, dry cold front, approximately 80 ring billed gulls were actively pursuing shad pushed to the surface by aggressively feeding gamefish for approximately two hours. We had a few options, given how aggressive and abundant the fish were. The first option was to throw a blade baits for numbers of smaller fish – – mainly white bass, and the other option was to throw a larger swim bait to select for hybrid stripers.  Jim leaned towards steady action and stuck with the bladebaits.

After the aggressive action under birds concluded, the fish moved out to slightly deeper water and grouped up heavily, thus making them vulnerable to a vertical jigging approach. For this work, we used Hazy Eye Shad tandem rigs anchored with ¾ oz. slabs.  We made two short hops on top of such congregated fish before the bite in this vicinity died altogether. At this point, our tally stood at 49 fish landed.

We changed locations right around 10 AM, heading to the same area where we encountered fish under birds yesterday between approximately 10 and 11 AM. Although the quantity of birds we encountered yesterday was not to be found, a few helpful Forsters terns were present, and they were feeding over top of actively feeding fish in about 32 feet of water over an area about 100 yards long. We spot hopped beneath these terns for another 75 minutes, and added exactly 30 additional fish to our count, thus wrapping up the morning at around 11:15 AM with 79 fish caught.

TALLY = 79 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 47F

Water Surface Temp:  65.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NW14-17

Sky Conditions: Bright and clear with an incoming, dry coldfront

Water Level:  0.33 feet above full pool

GT = 40

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

MORNING:

**Area vic 1735-1858 during low light conditions before, during, and just after sunrise under birds

**Area 1859 – easing after the birds quit

**Area vic 1656 in late a.m. under ranging terns

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