This past Friday morning, March 10th, I fished with Jaime Gonzalez, José Chapa, and Ruben Cavazos, all U.S. military retirees who had the opportunity to fish with me once before this past winter as we did some deep vertical jigging for white bass over on Stillhouse.
From left: Jaime Gonzales, Ruben Cavazos, and Jose Chapa, each with one of the many 18″+ “legal” hybrid we landed today on live shad.
Ruben Cavazos with a 7 pound bluecat that came up and chomped his live shad intended for a hybrid striper.
Jaime Gonzales with one of the three 22.75″, 6+ pound hybrid we boated today.
Jose Chapa with his first keeper hybrid of the morning.
This past Friday morning, March 10th, I fished with Jaime Gonzalez, José Chapa, and Ruben Cavazos, all U.S. military retirees who had the opportunity to fish with me once before this past winter as we did some deep vertical jigging for white bass over on Stillhouse.
During that trip, the trio asked me about different fishing opportunities on our local lakes through the various seasons. I let them know that the “next big thing” would be the tremendous hybrid striped bass bite that coincides with the threadfin shad spawn each spring.
Based on my recent successes in fishing “experimental” trips for hybrid using live shad last Thursday, and the Thursday before that, I felt confident in offering a live shad trip targeting hybrid at this point in the season.
Today was the first day this spring that I actually witnessed spawning threadfin shad. These fish were “running the bank” in shallow water and for quite some distance, thus, there is no doubt that they were truly spawning.
In hindsight, catching shad actually proved to be more difficult than catching the gamefish we landed with those shad, as I spent a good bit of time on the water prior to seeing this spawning activity attempting to collect sufficient bait for the trip.
I picked my crew up at 6:45 AM, and thanks to very calm conditions, we only picked up three fish in our first hour on the water. I made a move to more open water to try to take advantage of the little bit of movement the light breeze we had was creating. What I found was evidently sufficient, as once we buckled down on top of fish, we never had to move for the remaining three hours of our trip.
With our baits suspended between 25 and 27 feet deep over a deeper bottom, the hybrid bite started before all three men could get a single rod down. We never had a chance to put in a second rod at any point in the morning. The action was nonstop and the vast majority (over 75%) of the fish we caught were keeper hybrid striped bass. Very few hybrid we caught were undersized, and we caught a number of long, but thin, white bass, numerous smallish largemouth from 12 to 14 inches, two drum, a single smallmouth bass, and two catfish that measured 7 and 8 pounds respectively.
Our largest three hybrid all went 22.75 inches and just barely topped 6 pounds.
By the time 10:45 rolled around, the bite was waning, and my three guys were ready for lunch and a break. In summary, we landed three white bass in our first hour on the water under very calm conditions, and 142 quality fish on live shad with just the lightest of breeze blowing and some light gray cloud cover in the east when these fish started biting. Once they started, they simply would not quit. I am expecting good things to come for the next several weeks now.
TALLY = 145 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 11:00a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 62F
Water Surface Temp: 64.1F
Wind Speed & Direction: Calm at sunrise, then light ESE breeze at under 5mph for rest of AM
Sky Conditions: Under 10% white cloud cover on fair skies
Water Level: 0.40 feet above full pool
GT = 25
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
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