Day: May 10, 2017

Happy 8th Birthday, Luke!! — 66 Fish. Lake Belton, 06 May ’17 (PM)

by Bob Maindelle

This past Saturday afternoon, May 6th, I fished a birthday trip for eight-year-old Luke Phillips, accompanied by two of his buddies, Colby Anthony and Brooks Hull, as well as Luke’s dad, Will Phillips.

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The birthday party, from left, Colby Anthony, Will Phillips, Luke Phillips, and Brooks Hull with a sampling of the white bass they caught on slabs in our last hour on the water, from 5:15 to 6:15pm.

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Brooks pulled in the largest fish of the trip this evening, a 3.25 pound, 18.50 inch hybrid striper that fell for a slab.

Due to Will’s work commitment, we had to adjust the timing of this trip around his work schedule, which put us fishing from 2:30 to 6:30 PM.

Given the boys’ age, I knew it would be important to introduce a variety of tactics and transitions during the trip so as to keep their interest and help them be successful.

We began by downrigging which produced eight fish, followed by shallow water sunfishing which produced five more fish, and then we closed with working vertically for deep, heavily congregated white bass using a smoking tactic.

This was the first time this year where the fish were active enough to respond to a smoking tactic versus the easing tactic that has been necessary up to this point. I noted that the water surface temperature went from 70 to 74 from morning to evening today. At our one and only area that produced white bass on the smoking tactic, we took our fish count from 13 up to 66. Two of these fish were legal hybrid, both landed by Brooks while fishing right in between his two buddies, literally 4 feet away from both of them.

Some guys have all the luck!

TOTAL = 66 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  2:30p

End Time:  6:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  80

Water Surface Temp:  74F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S10

Sky Conditions: Fair and cloudless

Water Level: 0.65 feet above full pool and falling; 1592 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  473 through 1584 – downrigging for white bass – 8 fish

**Area  166 – slipfloats for sunfish – 5 fish

**Area  1940 – smoking for white bass – 53 fish

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

Bluebird Skies – 59 Fish, Belton, 06 May ’17

by Bob Maindelle

 This past Saturday morning I fished with Don Hardison, and his friend from church, Chris Hindal, both now residing in the Cedar Park area, northwest of Austin.

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Retired pastor Chris Hindal put the morning’s first hybrid in the boat.  We landed four hybrid in our first hour, then had a 2 hour gap before landing our last half-dozen, thanks to bright, calm conditions.

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Don Hardison picked up his personal best largemouth today as we fished large threadfin shad near manmade cover strewn about on the bottom over which we were searching for hybrid.  This fish went just a shade over 4.5 pounds on a certified scale.

Don spent most of his working life developing software tools for the intelligence community up in the D.C. area, and Chris is a retired Baptist pastor.  Chris pastored three churches in his career, one in northeastern Pennsylvania, one in Iowa, and the one he retired from in Fort Myers, Florida. He remains active in international mission work to this day.

We were due to see the northwesterly winds of the past three days turn around and go southerly overnight, but this did not happen. Instead, we had the lightest of northwesterly breezes for about 1.5 hours, then the winds went slack for another hour, then we finally got a southerly breeze that went right up to 8 to 10 mph and the water finally got moving. I began our day where I had begun my last three days’ worth of trips successfully and where I ended last night’s trip successfully. Although we did get a few white bass and four hybrid stripers here, the action was nothing like what it had been the past several days.

Our best action of the day came between 10 AM and noon. From 10a to 11a we fished our live baits at 37 feet over a 42 foot bottom and slowly took hybrid, landing about as many as we missed. By the time this bite died we had landed a total of 20 fish, of which 10 were keeper hybrid.

From 11 to just after noon we decided to chase white bass for a change of pace. Using light spinning gear and white, three-quarter ounce slabs, we vertical jigged in 38 to 45 feet of water and put exactly 39 more fish in the boat. Most of these were well-proportioned three-year-old white bass going right at 12.75 to 13.25 inches.

We wrapped up our day with a total of 59 caught, and ended on a strong note with those white bass coming on the slabs.

TOTAL = 59 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 12:00 noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp: 72.8F

Wind Speed & Direction: Light NW ripple as sunrise, then going slack until 10a, then picking up at S7-8 for the remainder of the trip

Sky Conditions: Fair and cloudless

Water Level: 0.65 feet above full pool and falling; 1592 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 25

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  vic 1935 – 4 hybrid, white bass, largemouth on shad

**Area  1659 –  1 largemouth

**Area  vic 1676 – 2 largemouth

**Area  152 – 6 hybrid landed with as many missed

 

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