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.

 

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

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:

 

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

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