A Real “Peculiar” Family — 58 Fish, Memorial Day Weekend ’17

This past Saturday morning, May 27th, I fished with Mr. Rusty Janes and his wife Carol, accompanied by a family friend of theirs, Sue Arnold, and Sue’s son Jordan Arnold. Jordan is a Private First Class (PFC) in the 1st Cavalry Division stationed at Fort Hood, and so his mom and the Janeses planned to visit him over the long Memorial Day Weekend.

 

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From left: Sue Arnold, PFC Jordan Arnold, Rusty Janes, and Carol Janes with one of the 58 fish we landed on this warm, drizzly Memorial Day 2017 weekend on Lake Belton.

Both families are from the town of Peculiar, Missouri, and drove down about 10 hours to get here.

Starting off this morning I did a quick check at the same wind-protected area where I found schooling white bass action on the surface yesterday between 6:30 and 7 AM, but none was to be found there this morning.

Next, it was out to deep, clear water in an effort to find and catch hybrid striped bass. We devoted the remainder of our trip to this effort. At our first stop, it took a good bit of doing to draw fish to us, and even when we did, the fish were a bit lethargic. We had a number of very quick pull downs not resulting in hooked fish even after my crew got the hang of the process to go through in order to come tight on a fish using circle hooks.

We made a short “spot hop” some yards away from our initial stop where sonar showed a few fish holding tight to bottom, and that produced essentially the same thing.

On what would be my third and final move in deep water, I found a bottom hugging school of white bass in 43 feet of water. We changed over from fishing with bait temporarily to use spinning rods I had equipped with slabs. I gave everyone very quick instructions on how to work the slabs, and Sue landed a white bass immediately. As I watched everyone’s technique and kept an eye on sonar, as well, I noted that larger signatures with better color began to move in to the commotion we were creating with the slabs. To test my theory that these were hybrid, I dropped a single, large bait down and it immediately got smacked by a nice hybrid, which Rusty’s subdued.

We brought in all the slabs, dropped down four fresh baits, and from that point on till 10:45, we never stopped landing hybrid for more than a few minutes between fish. We arrived at that area with 14 fish in the boat, and left with 58 fish landed, including several that went 4.5 to 5.0 pounds.

My crew joked that it seemed ironic for them to have spent the morning fishing on a catch and release basis with plans to turn right around and head to Red Lobster for a nice, Memorial Day weekend seafood lunch together.  Come to think of it, that is a bit peculiar.

 

TALLY: 58 FISH, all caught and released

Wx SNAPSHOT:

27MAY17

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp: 74.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE9-12 all morning

Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover all morning

Water Level: 0.99 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1380 – slow action on live bait for 75 minutes

**Area 1556/672 – 47 fish over 2.5 hours w/ 80% legal hybrid

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

Sailing Away — 56 Fish with the Adolph and Alex Mares, 26 May ’17

This past Friday morning, May 26th, I fished with Dr. Adolph Mares and his daughter, Alexandra, of Salado, Texas. Alexandra will graduate from Holy Trinity High School in Temple this weekend and then heads to college in New York thereafter. Father and daughter spent some time on the water before she heads out of the nest.

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Dr. Adolph Mares and his daughter, Alexandra, celebrated her high school graduation by landing a school of hybrid this morning — 56 fish in all.

Based on the school’s reputation for their pre-med program and competitive sailing team, Alexandra has chosen to attend Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, right near Seneca Lake.

We got going around 6:45 AM and immediately got into some surface feeding white bass that we’re trapping young of the year shad against the surface making both an audible and visible cue to home in on. Using grubs on jig heads, father and daughter landed 19 white bass before the sun brightened, and the fish pushed down and quit feeding.

Next, it was off to search for hybrid striped bass using live shad. Our first stop we made at an area that has been consistently productive over the last two weeks. That streak ended this morning, as I gave it a fair shot and did not draw anything but blue cat and white bass despite thumping and chumming.

The second area we headed to in search of striper was a whole different story. Although it got off to a slow start, after about 25 minutes’ worth of effort trying to draw fish in, we got to enjoy a steady stream of strikes on the 4 rods we fished with, each of which was rigged with live bait.

We stayed right on top of this area for the entire remainder of this four hour trip steadily plucking hybrid striper from 18 to 22 inches for the entire time.

Alexandra had plans to head back to school one last time for some staff and faculty yearbook signatures, so we wrapped up right at 10:30 with exactly 56 fish boated for our efforts.

TOTAL = 56 FISH, all caught and released

Wx SNAPSHOT:

26MAY17

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp: 74.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE14 all morning

Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover all morning

Water Level: 0.96 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 562-1359 – schooling white bass on surface with grubs through 7:15a

**Area 1380 – spent balance of time at this location adding 37 fish to our tally; 6:1 hybrid to white bass ratio

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

Just a Little Bit Competitive — 62 Fish, Lake Belton, 23 May ’17

This past Tuesday morning, May 23rd, I fished with Mr. David Baird, a Temple, Texas, native now living in San Antonio, and his eight-year-old grandson, Huck Trottmann. The pair came based on a referral from long-time client Mr. Steve Niemeier, also of Temple.

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David Baird and his grandson, Huck Trottmann, landed 62 fish this past Tuesday, May 23rd, on Lake Belton.
We started our trip under cool and cloudy skies with an ambient temperature of 65°. Although it looked like it could rain at any time through around 10:45 AM, we never did see a drop.

We started our morning in pursuit of hybrid striped bass using live shad in around 42 feet of water with our baits suspended slightly above bottom. We managed to catch 15 hybrid in our first hour. At that time, the easterly winds we had began to settle to near calm.  As we prepared to move on to our second area, Huck gave a summary of our success, clearly communicating that he had landed more fish than his grandpa – my first clue that this young man was a tad competitive.

We moved on to a second area in pursuit of hybrid on live shad, again in 40 to 42 feet of water and put another 17 fish in the boat of which roughly 1/3 were hybrid. This bite ended when the winds begin to abruptly blow at about 8 to 9 mph from the northwest as a storm cell passed to the north of us.

The bite weakened a good bit and we finished our pursuit of hybrid at that time, choosing to pursue white bass using slabs instead of putting young Huck through a live bait waiting game that appeared to be materializing with the weather change. This turned out to be a good choice. We were able to find fairly active white bass in 50 to 52 feet of water and used a smoking retrieve to take our fish count from 32 fish up to 51 in about 45 minutes’ time.

Around 10:45 we experienced yet another weather change. The wind went calm once again and our cloud cover burned nearly completely off. This did not bode well for the slabbing bite we were into, so, based on a comment made by Huck earlier in the day expressing interest in trolling, we wrapped up our trip using downriggers to put a final 11 fish in the boat.

That brought our tally to 62. Huck was shooting for 62 fish today because he had read my report about Steve Niemeier and his granddaughter, Macy, catching 62 fish and he wanted to do likewise.

It took a bit more than 4 hours, and there was some doubt that it might happen at all, but, by trip’s end we had “mission accomplished”!

 

TOTAL = 62 FISH, all caught and released

Wx SNAPSHOT:

23MAY17

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 11:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 65F

Water Surface Temp: 73.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: Variable, see report text above

Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover until ~10am, then clearing rapidly to <20% cloud cover

Water Level: 0.9 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 70

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1297/150 – 15 hybrid on live shad by 8a

**Area vic 1269 – 17 fish with a 3:1 mix of hybrid to white bass by 9a

**Area 1945/1290/1325 – spot hopping for “patches” of schooled white bass on bottom with slabs

**Area 1945– downrigging at 30′ over a breakline cresting at 33′ for 11 whites coming as singles and doubles on a pair of tandem-rigged Pet Spoons

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

Quest for Kraken – 39 Fish with the Sandersons, 22 May ’17 (PM)

This past Monday afternoon, May 22nd, I fished with Mr. Jeff Sanderson and his two sons, 19 year old Kyle, and 16 year old Blake.

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Jeff Sanderson with one of the numerous hybrid striper that helped “front-load” this afternoon’s trip.

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Newly minted Aggie Kyle Sanderson with the longest hybrid we landed this afternoon.

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Blake Sanderson with a mini-kraken.

Jeff is a professional landscaper, self-confessed workaholic, and has a desire to discipline himself to work less and fish more as he moves through his 50’s.  Kyle is an athletic college student studying at Texas A&M at the main campus in Bryan-College Station, and Blake is a pro-indoors gamer to the core.  On a number of occasions he attempted to draw parallels between our fishing endeavors and aspects of gaming, one of which was the pursuit of large, mythical sea creatures called “kraken”.  He proudly pointed out how he has disciplined himself to wash his hands before touching his video game controller without fail.

We started off the trip in pursuit of hybrid striped bass using live bait in deep, clear water. We hung our baits at 38 feet over a 42 foot bottom and enjoyed steady action for two hours. Live baits were the ticket at the beginning and end of the bite.  During the peak between these two times, cut bait proved quite effective.

Jeff expressed an interest in learning how the Cannon electric downriggers I have on the boat work, as he had a pair of manual downriggers on his previous boat which he has yet to transfer to his new boat due to a poor first experience when he first got the set of manual downriggers he owns.

I explain the circumstances under which I typically use downriggers, the season in which I use downriggers, and how I go about rigging up for suspended white bass and hybrid striper. We did a quick demo while it was still light out, and then actually closed out the trip doing a number of downrigger passes with the balls suspended at 16 foot over a 20 foot bottom.

Between the demo and the close of the trip, I searched unsuccessfully for white bass to vertical jig for using slabs, however, we did find some light subsurface schooling which occasionally broke to the surface. This action was caused by a white bass pursuing young of the year shad. In the area in which we witnessed this, we found fish from less than 2 feet of water up on the bank to out over the submerged river channel in over 70 feet of water. These fish cared nothing about depth, nor about topography; they were simply focused on the food and the food was near the surface.

For as much surface activity as we saw between 6:30 and 7:30, there was disappointingly little such action near sunset when such feeding is typically most common. It was for this reason that we closed out the trip by downrigging when surface feeders to throw grubs rigged on jigheads to never materialized as I hoped they would. We closed out this afternoon’s trip with 39 fish landed, of which 22 were legal sized hybrid striped bass.

TOTAL = 39 FISH, all caught and released

Wx SNAPSHOT:

22MAY17

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 8:50p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp: 74.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: Light ENE breeze at ~6 the entire trip

Sky Conditions: Fair skies with 40% cloud cover in the west

Water Level: 0.9 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 20

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1269/1392 – hybrid on live shad

**Area 188/153 – downrigging demo

**Area vic 1636 – throwing grubs to subsurface whites feeding on young-of-the-year shad

**Area 1681– downrigging at 16’ over a 20’ bottom for sluggish white bass.

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

First, Graduate; then, go fishing — 68 Fish with the Hadelers, 22 May ’17 (AM)

This past Monday morning, May 22nd, I fished with Mike and Amy Hadeler and their son, Mason, accompanied by his girlfriend, Michelle Ponce, all in celebration of Mason’s graduation from college with a chemistry degree.  This was slated as a multi-species trip.

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Amy Hadeler landed the largest fish of her life today, several times over.  The hybrid striped bass cooperated early in the trip giving all four anglers a chance to land several of these hard-pulling fish.

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Michelle Ponce also landed her personal best fish today.  Previously she’d only landed smaller bass and sunfish while fishing from the bank.

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Mason’s graduation from college with a chemistry degree gave the whole family reason to celebrate — and they chose to do it by going fishing together.

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Michael Hadeler coordinated this whole family fishing event then got to enjoy watching (and videoing) everyone in action.  He even caught a few himself!

The day started off cool and rainy – – 57° in the wake of a damp cool front that moved through on Saturday. We launched in a light rain after delaying until 7:15; the rain tapered to nothing within 30 minutes.

We put 22 hybrid in the boat in our first two hours on the water before the hybrid bite got soft as the winds died down to near calm.

Around 9:30a I began searching water deeper than that which we were fishing for hybrid in seeking white bass holding in large, bottom-hugging schools.

Once we found what we were after on sonar, we “spot hopped” four different times to put a grand total of 41 additional fish in the boat including three legal hybrid with the rest being white bass.

With about 75 minutes remaining in the trip I offered that we could once again pursue hybrid given that the skies had lightened a bit, and our wind had returned and shifted to just north of east.

We hit three different areas, all with live bait, encountering blue catfish at the first two and moving quickly away from those two areas. At the last area we got baits and chum down and picked up three quick hybrid before things fizzled for good. By 11:50a all was said and done. Our tally this morning was 68 fish, all caught and released, with personal bests landed by Amy, Michelle, and Mason, thanks to the large hybrid they had the opportunity to land.

TOTAL = 68 FISH, all caught and released

 

Wx SNAPSHOT:

22MAY17

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 57F

Water Surface Temp: 73.0F

Wind Speed & Direction: Near calm at trip’s start, then a NW ripple in the last 90 minutes or so

Sky Conditions: Bluebird, post-frontal skies

Water Level: 0.85 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1012/150 – 22 hybrid

**Area 1945/1290 – 4 short hops for whites on the slab

**Area 344/1378 – 3 hybrid in the final 30 minutes after a late morning lull

 

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

Purple Heart Pescadores — 76 Fish on the 2nd SKIFF Trip of 2017

This past Saturday evening, May 20th, I finished the 2nd Soldier’s Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (SKIFF) trip of the 2017 season. Joining me this evening were Alicia Wegmann (15), Jayden Lamay (9), and Giovanni Lemay (8). Chaperoning the kids were their mom, Michelle Oster, and Michelle’s mother, “Oma” Denise.

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From left: Alicia Wegmann, Jayden Lamay, and Giovanni Lamay, each with a white bass they caught while we downrigged in the opening minutes of our afternoon SKIFF program trip.

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Alicia, age 15, caught the largest and the most this evening as she followed directions well and stayed very focused on the fishing.

Michelle and Alicia lost Alicia’s father, Sergeant Robert Wegmann Jr. in 2008. Sergeant Wegmann received a Purple Heart after being wounded overseas when a roadside bomb exploded. Sergeant Wegmann and his battle buddy would both lose their lives as a result of this incident.

A wet, mild cold front moved through Central Texas this morning forcing a postponement of my morning trip. As the front slowly moved out, the skies cleared, the humidity dropped, and the lightest of northwesterly breezes replaced the dead calm of the midday period.

All three kids had fairly limited previous bank fishing experience, so we began with downrigging for loosely schooled white bass which were both suspended and bottom dwelling. With the pair of Cannon Digi-Troll electric downriggers I’ve got on board, I ran both balls at 25 to 30 feet deep trailing tandem rigged Pet Spoons behind each. Over the course of 90 minutes we landed a total of 20 white bass which came as both singles and doubles.

When it became clear that the boys were getting a little antsy even with our success, it was time for a transition.

By request, we made a special trip to the base of the Belton Lake waterfall where Michelle must have taken, literally, 100 photos of her and the kids with the waterfall in the background from a number of different views I provided by maneuvering the boat.

With this request scratched off the list, we began our final chapter of this evening’s fishing trip by parking over top of a group of deep, bottom hugging white bass using the Minn Kota Spot Lock technology. I equipped each of the kids with a spinning rod rigged up with a three-quarter ounce slab retrofitted with a Hazy Eye stinger hook.

Just as we got on top of this area, the northwest breeze ramped up just a tad, and the fish responded positively to this little wrinkle in the weather. We sat on top of this one area then later “spot hopped” just a few yards to the west, over a 52 foot bottom and wore out the white bass and short hybrid stripers. The kids ran our tally up to 76 fish including two keeper hybrid, one drum, one largemouth bass, and a roughly 1 to 6 ratio of short hybrid striper to white bass making up the balance.

As the sun set right around 8:20, the action died quite quickly.

SKIFF program trips are provided free of charge to kids who are separated from their military parent by that parent’s duty, be it something as short as a TDY assignment or gunnery, to something as lengthy as a deployment or NTC/JRTC rotation.  A call to me at 254.368.7411 is all it takes.  The generous men and women of the Austin Fly Fishers make this possible.

 

TOTAL = 95 FISH, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 8:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp: 73.9

Wind Speed & Direction: Near calm at trip’s start, then a NW ripple in the last 90 minutes or so

Sky Conditions: Bluebird, post-frontal skies

Water Level: 0.85 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 210-1606-1291 – downrigging for suspended whites

**Area 1945 – smoking for whites

**Area 1552 – smoking for whites

 

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

 

Catfish Conversion — 95 Fish, Belton, 19 May ’17 (PM)

This past Friday evening, May 19th, I fished with Jeff Atchison of Killeen, his dad, Ricky, and Jeff’s son, Logan.  With their own boat, these fellows normally pursue catfish on either Inks or Buchanan, but wanted to sample some variety closer to home.

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Jeff Atchison with a nice 4 pound class hybrid — one of several we landed before the winds ramped up too high to stay on ’em.

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Ricky came up with a nice surprise as we were working slabs for white bass.  As you might imagine, a hybrid like this landed on spinning gear intended for white bass “took a little doing”.

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Look at that grin!  Logan was really focused in his fishing and did very well at all of the techniques we used this evening.

Jeff and I spoke briefly at this past January’s Central Texas Boat Show after he heard my presentation about the use and interpretation of marine electronics.  Jeff is a Killeen native and owns Budget Used Car Sales in Killeen, which he bought from his father.  Jeff and his dad do some ranching, as well, raising livestock and coastal grass on acreage south of town.

Jeff, Ricky, and Logan were all up for using a variety of tactics for a variety of species, so, given that the wind forecast showed our winds to be lightest at the beginning of the trip, I hit open water early on in an attempt to catch hybrid striped bass using live shad.

This worked out well, as we were able to land six hybrid in right at 45 minutes before the wind ramped up to the point where our baits were being jerked up and down very unnaturally and we decided to close out this chapter of the trip pretty quickly.

Next, I introduced the fellows to downrigging. We found scattered, suspended white bass holding consistently at 24 to 25 feet beneath the surface and so we ran Pet Spoons rigged on tandem rigs on a pair of downriggers and wound up catching a double followed by a single in short order.

Next, I endeavored to find deep, heavily schooled white bass so I could show these fellows how to use a smoking tactic with slabs. Unfortunately, the fish had other ideas. Most of the white bass we found were scattered and suspended. As I was studying sonar intently, Jeff noticed a school of white bass feeding nearby on the surface in open, deep water. We worked it so I stayed on the front deck working the trolling motor to keep us within casting distance, and all three fellows cast off of one side of the boat to avoid tangles and to avoid anyone getting hooked.

We quickly took our fish count up to 39 fish and no time as we caught a variety of sizes of both white bass `and largemouth bass. Between the time this schooling action ended and the time the sunset white bass bite began, we tried the smoking tactic on at least three other groups of fish, but they simply did not respond well as they were very transient and were not heavily grouped on the bottom to begin with, which is really a prerequisite for success using this tactic.

The last thing we did this evening was cast paddle tail grubs on quarter ounce jig heads to white bass feeding just subsurface as they pushed shad upwards and shorewards. Once again, just as was the case this past Saturday, we had these fish all to ourselves which is a bonus anytime fishing around the weekend on Belton in the warm months.

We closed out our trip with 95 fish landed.

TOTAL =  95 FISH, all caught and released

Wx SNAPSHOT:

19MAY17PM

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  4:30p

End Time:  8:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 88F

Water Surface Temp: 72.9

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE15-16 the entire trip

Sky Conditions: 50% cloud cover the entire trip

Water Level: 0.81 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 55

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1269 – all hybrid on live shad

**Area  1940 – downrigger demo for suspended whites

**Area 1943 and out to the channel for surface feeding whites

**Area 1625 – aggressive low-light action on subsurface whites

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

Happy Hybrid Birthday, Bro!! — 133 Fish with the Perez Family, 19 May ’17

This past Friday morning, May 19th, I fished with Mrs. Lori Perez and her two college-aged sons, Mario and Gabriel. The threesome hoped that Mr. Perez could have joined them as well, but duty called on Fort Hood and he was not able to join us.

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Mrs. Lori Perez and her sons, Mario (L) and Gabriel (R), joined me on Belton this morning for a great time of hybrid fishing under windy, cloudy conditions.

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Gabriel Perez with one of several fish that went between 21-22″.

.

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Mario presented his brother with a fishing gift certificate for his birthday and today was “cash it in day”.
This trip was a birthday present from Mario to his brother and the plan was to pursue hybrid striped bass. The two young men are very avid fisherman and so, in addition to catching fish, they also had quite a number of questions about the approach I was taking, why we were fishing in the areas we fished, how sonar factored into the big picture, seasonal trends, etc.

From right at 7 AM when we got our first lines in the water and until 9:35 AM, we sat atop a single area and milked a single school of hybrid for a total of 26 fish. When the school played out, we moved just a few yards to the east, found another active group of fish, and sat atop them for about 45 minutes, putting another 20 fish in the boat.

When I felt we had taken all of the fish off of this area that it was going to produce, I began to move us to another area but observed heavily schooled white bass in 48 to 50 feet of water. This school was 2 to 3 feet thick and spread over a 20 to 25 yard area. Although we were gunning for hybrid, I let the boys know what I was observing so they could make an informed decision to either disregard these fish, or take advantage of the easy fishing that would result.

They gave me the thumbs-up expressing interest in slabbing for these white bass and, over the next 50 minutes, my three anglers put exactly 58 white bass and two hybrid striper in the boat using a smoking tactic with three-quarter ounce slabs equipped with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks.

With 30 or 45 minutes or so left to go, I offered that we had enough time to potentially get on top of another group of hybrid, or we could continue to enjoy catching white bass on appropriately sized spinning tackle.

Everyone opted for the change of pace of ending the trip by boating a few more hard pulling hybrid. I moved us to a completely different area, but one that was similar in slope and topography to the first area that had served us so well. In 41 feet of water, we suspended our baits at 34 to 35 feet, and had a strong finish, putting an unbroken string of 22 more hybrid striped bass in the boat. In addition, we put two blue cat and three white bass in the boat here as well.

When all was said and done the Perez family had landed 133 fish in about 4 1/2 hours’ time.  The winds from the SE and grey cloud cover really put the fish in a feeding mood and kept them feeding for most of the morning.

 

TOTAL =   133 FISH, all caught and released

Wx SNAPSHOT:

19MAY17

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  6:45a

End Time:  11:25a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp: 72.9

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE15-16 the entire trip

Sky Conditions: Light grey 100% cloud cover the entire trip

Water Level: 0.81 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  vic 1288 – 2.5 hours, 26 fish, 75% hybrid

**Area  vic 1012 – .75 hours, 20 fish, 75% hybrid

**Area 1945 – 50 minutes, 58 whites, 2 hybrid

**Area 1743 – .75 hours, 22 hybrid, 2 blue cat, 3 white bass

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

What’s a “Horn Pout”? — 42 Fish, Belton, 16 May ’17

This past Tuesday morning I fished a hybrid striped bass trip on Lake Belton with Mike Smith.  Mike is now in his sixth year as an enlisted soldier in the US Army where he serves as an armored vehicle mechanic. Mike is originally from Dexter, Maine, the home of the now defunct Dexter shoe company.

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Mike Smith of Dexter, Maine, with one of 18 keeper hybrid he landed today on his first ever hybrid striped bass fishing trip.  He walked away quite impressed with all the power in these hybrid packages.

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Bluecat often come as “bycatch” while fishing for hybrid, especially after you’ve been camped out on one area for a while.  This blue must have nosed his way over from downwind into our chum.

I just love the state of Maine — my wife and I honeymooned there after my West Point roommate of several semesters, Jeff Libby, introduced me to the state when we stayed with his folks there on long weekends.  Later, Rebecca and I would return for our 20th anniversary to the Portland/Willard Beach area.  Anyway, it was neat to recount the similar fishing experiences Mike and I both had up that way — especially icefishing — and catching things you never hear of in Texas, like togue and horn pout (just Google them if your are curious).

Mike’s father-in-law, Roger Bowles, from the Waco area, presented Mike with a fishing gift certificate this past Christmas.

Our weather conditions were ideal through 9:15 AM – – gray and cloudy with a humid breeze from a southerly direction. This wind would later ramp up to over 17 mph such that it impacted boat control, but it was a great ally during the time it was manageable.

From the first bait we put down at around 6:55a, and until we pulled our lines up due to high winds and large swells around 9:15a, the hybrid striped bass bite was nonstop. During this time we put 31 fish in the boat including eight white bass, three blue catfish, two short hybrid, with the balance being legal hybrid ranging from 18 to 21 inches.

The fish were in such a strong feeding mood, that all baits we presented – – live, cut, fresh, and frozen, all attracted equal attention.

At 9:15a we decided to play it safe and move off of the exposed area we were fishing to go seek out white bass using artificial lures, in calmer waters.

Because the wind limited our access to a number of areas, our options for chasing white bass were reduced a bit. I was able to find two distinct groups of white bass holding between 42 and 46 feet, right on bottom. These fish all responded to a slab fished with a smoking technique.

In the closing moments of the trip, because he had expressed curiosity about them, I showed Mike how downriggers work using a tactic that I will begin to rely very heavily on in just 2 to 3 weeks. I demonstrated for Mike how to use a Pet Spoon-equipped tandem rig fish behind the ball of a Cannon Digi-troll 10TS.

It must have been beginner’s luck – – Mike came up with a double on the very first time he had ever touched or used a downrigger. A pair of small white bass was duped by the tandem-rigged Pet Spoons.

TOTAL =   42 FISH, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  6:45a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp: 73.7

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE12, increasing to SSE17

Sky Conditions: Light grey 100% cloud cover the entire trip

Water Level: 0.78 feet above full pool and falling; 0 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  150/1297 – 2 hour, 20 minute long hybrid bite

**Area  vic 835 – slabbed for white bass holding right on east slope

**Area vic 152 – slabbed for white bass

**Area 1584 – demo’ed downriggers for a pair of white bass on a 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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

Straightforward Fishing — 41 Fish, Belton, 15 May ’17

This morning, Monday, May 15th, I fished with Greg Martinez, Greg’s son, “Mister” Martinez, and a co-worker of Mister’s, Homer Vergara.  We put in a full 4 hours chasing hybrid striped bass using live shad on Lake Belton.

IMG_2309

 

Greg Martinez landed our largest fish of the trip this morning with this 22.5″ hybrid which weighed in at 5.50 pounds.

IMG_2303

From left: Greg Martinez and Homer Vergara.  Most of our fish were right in the 19-20″ range, like this pair landed just seconds apart.

Homer and Mister work together as real estate agents for a brokerage in Temple, TX, and Greg retired from Wilsonart International, which has its headquarters and manufacturing operations in Temple, as well.

Netting shad once again proved challenging, with few caught before first light, and no spawning activity witnessed this morning.

We fished 4 areas this morning, finding hybrid striper at the first and third areas we tried, only white bass at the second stop, and nothing at our brief, final stop.

Fishing was pretty straightforward this morning.  We found fish on sonar, got baits hanging just above them and let the live shad attract strikes.  The fish showed no preference on bait size, but definitely preferred live shad over cut baits this morning.

We tried to proactively avoid catching white bass on our heavier tackle intended for hybrid by keeping our baits well above bottom.  This was fairly effective as only about 25% of our catch consisted of white bass this morning, despite the presence of these white bass at each of the first three stops we made.  All of our fish came from 39-43 feet of water.

TOTAL =   41 FISH, all caught and released

Wx SNAPSHOT:

15MAY17

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  6:45a

End Time:  11:05a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp: 75.9

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE11, increasing and shifting to SSE13

Sky Conditions: Fair and cloudless

Water Level: 0.76 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  150/1297 – 2 hour long hybrid bite

**Area  1269 – encountered white bass and moved

**Area vic 344 – 30 minute hybrid bite

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle