FRANK, THE NEW YORK COWBOY – 27 FISH @ BELTON

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This past Thursday morning I fished with US Army veteran Frank Killoran and his wife, Eileen.  Frank retired from the Army after a majority of his time in spent as a tanker.  He went in the Army at age 26 after working from out of high school up to that age on a dairy farm milking cows twice daily.  He said he loved the work, but “the retirement plan wasn’t very good.”  He and Eileen are both from a small town to the southwest of Syracuse, NY, in the heart of the snow belt.  Eileen recalled how one year the snow accumulated to over the top of the telephone pole wires and they had to hand deliver food to the cows because the cows couldn’t get to the food!  The Killorans have their own small jon boat but consistency in fishing success has eluded them.  Besides catching fish, my hope was to show them some techniques and approaches to fishing to help them do better on their own.

 

Frank and Eileen with our best fish of the trip — a hybrid striped bass taken on live shad in our first hour on the water.  The fish seemed to have a preference for smaller bait today.  Neither cutbait nor large baits caught fish this morning.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR:  This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, hybrid striped bass, largemouth bass, freshwater drum, and blue catfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday morning, 31 May 2018

HOW WE FISHED:  We fished live shad successfully in two distinct locations.  The best bite ran 6:45 to 8:30am, then slacked off.  We did give downrigging a try and picked up one white bass that way, but I did not find suspended fish as I did on Tuesday’s trip.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES:    There are two distinct 2-week periods each year that I really wish could be avoided.  The first is around the first 2 weeks of June, and the second is around the last 2 weeks of October.  These are so predictably tough that I normally plan my own vacations around them to let the lakes settle down and return to better fishing.  This year I’d hoped my prairie dog shoot in Oklahoma would have overlapped with some of that tough fishing, but, it looks like the first 2 weeks of June are going to see a transition of fish to open water, the setup of the thermocline, and other annual, heat-driven changes that drive fish relocation and a change of fishing tactics.

TALLY: 27 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED 

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp:  80.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE from 0-3 all morning

Sky Conditions:  Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 1.96feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 0

 

Wx SNAPSHOT:     

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1543

**Area 1079

 

 

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@HoldingelleTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

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