WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning I fished a birthday trip with KISD high school teacher Bob Williamson, his daughters, Bobbie and April, and his son-in-law, Ian, who is married to Bob’s daughter, Mary. The daughters all went in on a fishing gift certificate for their dad and today was the day to cash it in. As the bite peaked around 7:30am with everyone’s rod going off nearly instantly each time we let down either live bait or cutbait, 7-year-old April said, “We should do this every day, daddy!”. That was music to my ears, as I’m always a bit concerned about using live bait with younger guests because the ‘wait-factor’ can be a bit much for them.
From left: Bob, Bobbie, and 7-year-old April Williamson, each with a 3-year class hybrid striper taken during the peak bite, right around 7:30am during this birthday trip for Bob.
Bob landed our longest hybrid of the trip during the slower third hour on the water.
Bob’s son-in-law, Ian Stephenson, landed our heaviest hybrid of the trip with a larger-than-average threadfin shad as his live bait.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: We targeted hybrid striped bass for 3 hours, then spent our last hour looking for white bass.
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday morning, 12 May 2018
HOW WE FISHED: The bite went a good bit shorter this morning than it did Thursday and Friday, going strong for about 2 hours from 6:30 to 8:30 am, then really idling back thereafter. In our first two hours, we landed 54 fish and then landed another 25 fish in the last two hours. We fished live shad with good success for the first 3 hours of the trip, then, after hitting a number of areas and looking them over with sonar, I felt our chances of keeping 7-year-old April engaged would be best if we switched over to using artificial lures for white bass. We did pretty well on the white bass, which I found at a crazy-deep depth of 62 feet, via smoking small, white, 3/8 oz. slabs with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks attached. The white bass were not heavily schooled, but were holding tight to the bottom in small clusters.
OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 1) Abundant shad spawning at Area SHAD 14.
TALLY: 79 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00a
End Time: 11:15a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 3F
Water Surface Temp: 71.6F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE12 at trip’s start, slowly tapering up to SSE17+ by trip’s end
Sky Conditions: Blue sky with 40% cloud cover
Water Level: 1.98 low and steady.
GT = 105
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1541/1555 – strong hybrid action on shad for 2 hours.
**Area vic 976 – slow action for hybrid on shad for the third hour
**Area vic 1467 and deeper (to 62′) – slow white bass action on slabs in very deep water
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
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle
Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle