D’ya Hear the One About the Doctor & the Band Director? — 156 Fish, 22 June ’17

This past Thursday morning I fished a multi-species trip on Stillhouse with retired doctor and Navy Captain Ray Johnson, accompanied by his neighbor, Chris Lewis, who serves as the band director at Eastern Hills Middle School in Harker Heights.

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Largemouth bass were schooling on the surface in force this morning under grey skies and light winds.  Sight casting to these “wolfpacks” of fish as they aggressively pursue young of the year shad is challenging and engaging, requiring accurate and timely casts. Ray Johnson was up to the challenge.

ChrisLewis

 

Ray’s neighbor, Chris Lewis, had fished Stillhouse on a number of occasion but caught his first fish from this 9-mil-long reservoir today.

Now into our third day with northerly winds, this morning’s weather presented with full coverage of gray clouds for the entire 4.75 hours of our trip.

The combination of a light breeze and grey cloud cover served us well, as it allowed for the very first widespread top water action I’ve seen thus far this season on Stillhouse to occur.

Our first stop this morning came in about 37 feet of water on a breakline adjacent to the river channel. Here, white bass were suspended in the lower two thirds of the water column and loosely schooled feeding on young of the year shad. We used a smoking tactic to take a number of these fish over a span of about 45 minutes.

Just about the time this bite, which never really got very aggressive, was about to taper to nothing, I spotted consistent bursts of water in the distance – – the telltale sign of fish forcing shad against the surface and feeding on them there. As we slowly motored near these fish, then turned off the outboard and closed the last few yards with the electric trolling motor, I could see we had a mix of white bass and largemouth bass feeding on shad about 1.25 inches in length.

Over the next 45 minutes both men were able to sight cast using smoke colored grubs on 1/4 ounce jig heads to tempt a number of largemouth bass ranging in size from 11 to 15 inches.

After this action died, and with a total of 25 fish now landed for the morning, I headed to deeper, clearer water in search of schools white bass that we could either downrig for or vertical jig for.

Once again, surface feeding fish, including a mix of white bass and largemouth bass, gave away the location many more fish holding closer to the bottom in the lower half of the water column, as revealed by sonar.

We spent the balance of our trip using a smoking tactic equipped with three-quarter ounce slabs to which my hand-tied Hazy Eye Stinger hooks were attached, to land and additional 126 fish through 11 AM.

We wrapped up our trip today with exactly 156 Fish boated for our efforts, including primarily white bass, with a number of largemouth bass and freshwater drum included in that count.

TALLY: 156 FISH, all caught and released

 Wx Snapshot:

22JUN17

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp: 83.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: NNE7-9

Sky Conditions: Grey 100% of the trip

Water Level: 0.08 feet high and slowly falling; 200 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 992-1951 – low light vertical tactics for white bass on breakline in 38′ — 8 fish

**Area vic 649 – schoolie largemouth topwater action on grubs — 17 fish

**Area 1687 thru 989 thru 1047 – deep white bass action on slabs in 41-49 feet under open water largemouth action –126 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

A Walleye Man from Lake Erie – 36 Fish, Belton, 21 June ’17

This past Wednesday morning I fished with Marcus Mitchell of the Austin area and his dad, Jim Mitchell, who is visiting from the Cleveland, Ohio, area where he typically fishes for walleye and yellow perch on Lake Erie.

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Jim Mitchell shows our best hybrid from Wednesday morning’s trip on Belton.  The fishing was just so-so on this second day of an atypical summertime north wind.  Jim came down from Cleveland, OH, to visit his son, Marcus.

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Marcus displays his best of the eight keeper (18+ inch long) hybrid we took on live shad today.

Given the current fishing situation, I presented Marcus with two options: first, we could focus on pursuing higher numbers of smaller fish by using a combination of downrigging and vertical jigging on Stillhouse, or, we could take a bit slower approach and fish for fewer but larger fish by using live shad for hybrid striped bass over Belton. Jim’s preference was for the larger fish, so, with ample live bait on board, we began our trip at 6:15 and looked for some easy surface action to sight cast for before beginning to grind it out for hybrid in deeper, open water.

Thanks to a second day of northerly winds, the topwater bite was not all that strong, nor all that visible in the chop. Add to this the fact that both Jim and Marcus were a bit rusty on the casting, and we were only able to capitalize on the topwater to the tune of five white bass. The fish simply did not stay up very long and so 2 to 3 casts per surface feeding school was about all of the chance we got at these fish.

By around 7:15 AM all topwater was done and we began the process of searching out active hybrid striped bass and tempting them with our live shad. We fished four distinct areas, all between 34 and 41 feet deep, and the scenario was very similar at each one. We found white bass, typically heavily schooled and moving quickly about, some fairly reluctant hybrid moving very closely along the bottom, with abundant young of the year shad all throughout the water column, and some pesky, small blue catfish in the lower third of the water column. As we fished these several areas over the four hours that followed, we picked up exactly 31 additional fish, of which eight were legal hybrid striped bass, one was a short hybrid, one was a channel cat, one was a blue cat, and the balance were white bass in the two and three year class.

Most of the white bass did not come on our live bait, but rather came on smoked slabs which we dropped down only when I saw abundantly schooled white bass move  beneath the boat as shown on sonar.

These summer months are my least favorite for pursuing hybrid, as the fishing for that species is generally slow, and hot, and somewhat tedious. However, for those willing to put in the effort, quality hybrid stripers can certainly still be caught.

TALLY: 36 FISH, all caught and released

 Wx Snapshot:

21JUN17

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp: 83.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: NNE7-9

Sky Conditions: Grey cloud bank to the E which obscured sunrise, then clearing off by 7:15a

Water Level: 0.34 high and holding; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 133 thru 1657 – very light topwater action for white bass

**Area 152/086 – hybrid on shad and whites on smoked slabs

**Area 1800 – small blue cat

**Area vic 1297 – hybrid on shad and whites on smoked slabs

 

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