This past Monday morning I fished with three generations of Armattas – – Grandpa Will Armatta, his son Jason Armatta, and Jason’s 7-year-old son, William Armatta.
Grandpa Will got us kicked off right this morning with a nice hybrid taken under calm, bright conditions.
As the morning moved on, the wind picked up and turned WSW; the fishing picked up with the wind.
William got this one “all by himself”!
We met at 7 AM and were faced with very clear, very calm, bright conditions. Accordingly, the fishing was pretty slow and pretty tough until around 9:30 when the lightest of west-northwest breezes rippled the surface. As long as the water moved, we did fine, however there were spells when the wind slacked off, and during those times it got tough again.
We stopped at four different areas in pursuit of hybrid striper, with the third area (the one we spent the most time at while the wind was blowing) being our best producer. Up through 10:45 a.m., we landed 18 hybrid stripers, one largemouth, one blue cat, one crappie, and 15 white bass.
It was around this time that young William began to get fidgety, losing the patience it took to fish bait on a slower day. So, we devoted the remainder of our time, about 50 minutes’ worth, to vertical jigging for white bass. During this time we hooked up consistently while using an easing tactic with 3/8 oz. white slabs, and took our grand total for today’s trip up to 50 fish.
I told Jason as we headed back in that William did much better than the average seven-year-old, both in terms of his endurance, and in how he handled a fishing rod and consistently used the correct techniques that I had explained to him, thus allowing him to regularly catch fish using the circle hooks we were using to facilitate healthy catch-and-release.
TALLY = 50 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00a
End Time: 12:00 noon
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 53F
Water Surface Temp: 68.3F
Wind Speed & Direction: Calm for first 90 minutes, then WNW ripple, then building and shifting to SSW9
Sky Conditions: Sparse white clouds, less than 20% on a fair blue sky
Water Level: 1.27 feet above full pool and falling; 1270+ cfs release at trip’s start, increasing to 1595cfs at mid-morning
GT = 35
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1672 – brief hybrid success
**Area 1800 – slow hybrid fishing
**Area 1931 – solid mixed bag fishing with bait
**Area vic 152/346 – first fish taken off this area since flooding, only 1 hybrid, 1 white
**Contour from Area 1916 to 1819 – jigging for whites
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
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