Friends from Way Back — 48 Fish, Lake Belton, 04 May ’17

This past Thursday evening I fished a multi species trip on Lake Belton with Rick and Sharon Powell of Belton, and their longtime friends, Allen and Linda Kaiser, from Center Point, Texas near Kerrville.  Rick and Allen were college buddies back in 1968.

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Allen and Linda Kaiser with a pair of Lake Belton hybrid striped bass that struck simultaneously as the school they were a part of passed beneath the boat.

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Sharon, who had fished live bait using circle hooks with me once before, did well in showing restraint in NOT attempting to ‘set the hook’ when big fish like this one moved off with her bait.
The cold front that entered Central Texas around 3:30 PM yesterday continued on with building high-pressure, north winds, and clear skies all day today.

Although we caught fish during all four hours of the trip, the last hour was certainly the best as is often the case during evening trips.

We dedicated the first half of the trip to vertical jigging deepwater schools of heavily congregated white bass in 35 to 42 feet of water. Although we found biting fish at each of the areas I searched, we would typically only catch a few upon first dropping our slabs down among them, then the school would lose interest and eventually dissipate after only giving up a handful of fish. This happened to us four or five times over.

The last half of the trip I dedicated to fishing live bait for hybrid striped bass. We wound up fishing two areas with the first only producing one hybrid and a mixed bag of other, smaller fish. The last area we fished (and fished longer than any other area) gave up mainly hybrid striped bass with a few largemouth and healthy, three-year-old white bass thrown in for good measure. I noted that these fish seemed to be more likely to be landed while I was using medium-sized shad, whereas the use of “jumbo” shad seem to attract hits, but often resulted in lost or missed fish.

By trip’s end at 8:20 PM, we had landed a total of 48 fish.

TOTAL = 48 FISH, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time: 8:20p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 73.8F

Wind Speed & Direction: NW14 at trip’s start, tapering off to NW 8 by sunset

Sky Conditions: Sparse white clouds, less than 10% on a fair blue sky

Water Level: 0.67 feet above full pool and falling; 1592 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 115

 

Wx SNAPSHOT:

04MAY17

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1936 – slabbing for whites

**Area 308 – slabbing for whites

**Area 1758/1920 – slabbing for whites

**Area 1658 – mixed bag largemouth, whites, hybrid on bait

**Area 1935 – sunset bite for all hybrid on bait

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

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