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

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