WHO I FISHED WITH: Fly fishing enthusiast Reggie White of Richmond, Virginia, who came to Texas this week to visit family.
Reggie White booked with me specifically to pursue species of fish he’d never before landed on a flyrod. With just 25 minutes to go before dark, the white bass pushed shad shallow and gave us several opportunities to add their names to Reggie’s list.
As the sun still shone brightly, we probed shallow, cover-rich, wind-protected areas in pursuit of sunfish. Reggie nabbed this redear on a bead head nymph.
A closeup of the redear sunfish – very ornate!
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: Reggie, a devoted flyfisherman, wanted to pursue species he had never before landed on a fly rod. Hence, after pursuing sunfish in the first, brightest half of our afternoon trip, we pursued Whitebass from 6 to 8 PM.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: 4 PM to 8:15 PM
HOW WE FISHED: Reggie used a Temple Fork Outfitters 4-weight fly rod with floating line to fish both a number 12 bead head nymph and a number 16 Parachute Adams dry fly to amass a total of 16 sunfish, including three green sunfish, one redear sunfish, one readier/bluegill hybrid sunfish, and 11 bluegill sunfish. After that, from 6 through 8 PM, we pursued white bass. We fished near visible cover in the back half of several coves.
We went after the white bass with a Temple Fork Outfitters 6-weight rod equipped with a short, flat fluorocarbon 10 pound test leader attached to a length of Rio T-8 tungsten-weighted shooting head, which in turn was connected to a 30 pound mono running line. In the last 25 minutes of light, we were able to put six white bass in the boat. These fish really did not show on the surface but had pushed shallow into less than 14 feet of water in pursuit of shad just after the sun dipped below the horizon. We fished casting from shallow to deep, allowing the T-8 shooting head to take the buoyant crease fly I chose down to bottom. Based on where the fish were holding, most all of the fish that struck did so as the connection between the running line and the shooting head had just entered the top guides on the flyrod. We landed about half of the fish that struck.
OTHER OBSERVATIONS: Once again, the winds from the north kept the sunset topwater action pretty subdued. There were a lot of fish present, as seen on sonar, but they did not give their positions away by breaking the surface.
TALLY: 22 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:00p
End Time: 8:15p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 85F
Water Surface Temp: 79F
Wind Speed & Direction: Light NNW breeze at 11 mph, tapering to 6mph by dark
Sky Conditions: <10% white cloud cover the entire trip.
Water Level: 1.01 feet low and slowly falling with only evaporative losses; 0 cfs release at dam
GT = 30
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 184 and 1992 for sunfish
**Area 018 to 013 for white bass
Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide
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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