WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday I fished with Michael and Tanya Baird of China Spring, TX, their sons, Preston Rieger and Keegan Baird, and Preston’s girlfriend, Meagan Davis.
As fate would have it, Michael works at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Inland Fisheries office in Waco, which is the office which has responsibility for the majority of our Central Texas reservoirs, including Belton and Stillhouse. Michael has been an instrumental part of the team which does the sampling, stocking, monitoring, etc. on our lakes for several years now. His wife, Tanya, works for a property management company. Preston is an E-4 in the U.S. Army where he works on diesel-powered equipment out of Ft. Stewart, GA, Meagan is in college working toward becoming a teacher, and Keegan is working his way through elementary school.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Meagan Davis, Michael Baird, Tanya Baird, Keegan Baird, and Preston Rieger, each with a “keeper” hybrid of 18+ inches which fell for my small, 3/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slab/Stinger combination this past Saturday on Lake Belton.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This trip was a multi-species fishing trip focused on white bass.
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday evening, 16 March 2019
HOW WE FISHED: All of our action on this trip took place in the last two of the four hours we fished. It was during this time that the brilliant sun which shone from 3:15 to 5:15p was muted by cloud cover moving from SW to NE. This thin, grey layer cut the light levels which got fish moving and feeding and invigorated the birds to begin flying, thus giving away the position of the fish we were after.
We first started catching fish via snap-jigging for fish that were tight to bottom and reluctant to move far or fast to feed. Slowly, I began to notice fish moving up in the water column. I got the LiveScope turned on and mimicked the screen of my GPSMAP 1242xsv Touch on a second screen (a 12.9″ iPad) so everyone had a view of what was going on beneath the boat. As the birds turned on, we moved to the action and were treated to steady catching from about 6:15p to 7:30p.
One one occasion, as we were catching white bass from 25 feet deep down to bottom over a 40-foot bottom, a group of signatures came in on the LiveScope up around 17′ deep. These were larger, darker targets and were moving with a purpose — much more quickly than the white bass which were just milling around.
These turned out to be hybrid stripers. We hooked up with 5 at a time, and wound up catching a total of 7 before the pack moved on and we returned to catching white bass. It was nothing short of a miracle that a boatload of 5 people using light spinning gear landed 5 of 5 hybrid without tangling in other lines, the outboard, or the trolling motor, but, everyone listened to the coaching I tried to provide and it went really smoothly.
Honestly, we were in a good area at a great time and got these fish. There really was no trend to find, and I had little confidence even after seeing how and when these fish came in to the boat that I could continue putting clients on hybrid this early on. My “opening day” for hybrid this year will be Tuesday, 09 April, and that may even be a bit too optimistic. We’ll see. Bottom line: I’m glad we caught these hybrid, but I think we are still a good ways away from seeing these fish turn on to live bait and go gangbusters.
After the “hybrid hustle” we finished out the trip gunning for additional white bass feeding in the lower 1/2 of the water column in ~32 feet of water under a second flock of birds we spotted.
Every fish we caught today came on the Hazy Eye Slab/Stinger combination.
OBSERVATIONS:
TALLY: 55 fish caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:15p
End Time: 7:15p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F
Elevation: 1.31 feet high with a 0.02 foot 24-hour drop
Water Surface Temp: 57.4F
Wind Speed & Direction: Winds were NE3 at trip’s start, picking up to NE6-8 by trip’s end
Sky Conditions: Nearly cloudless blue skies through 5:15p, then a bank of high, thin, grey clouds moved in from the SW to NE and aided our efforts
GT = 90
#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area B0141C
**Area B0131C / B0133C
**Area B0142C to B0143C
Bob Maindelle
Full-time, Professional Fishing Guide and Owner of Holding the Line Guide Service
Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
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