MAYBE “STANDBY” IS FOR YOU – 51 FISH @ BELTON

WHO I FISHED WITH:   This morning, Monday, 03 June, I fished with Mr. Ken Powell, a retired teacher and coach now living in the Lake Buchanan area.  Ken has a very flexible schedule in his retirement, and so he’s asked me to put him on a “permanent standby status”.  This means anytime I have a scheduling glitch, he gets a call and has a shot at taking what often is a reduced price trip, allowing me to recoup most of the day’s wages I had planned on earning.

Sometimes I have folks that must cancel, get ill, miss a flight, etc. and wind up not being able to fish as planned.  Such was the case today.  Life got busy for the folks due to join me today and they just couldn’t make it.  I shared with Ken what was going on in the fishery, and, although he’d fished with me before, we’d never targeted hybrid with live bait together and he wanted to experience this on Lake Belton.  We had an enjoyable time, Ken caught 3 limits of keeper hybrid,  we landed a bonus 8.5 pound bluecat, and Ken paid less than full price for the adventure.  It was a win-win.

If you have a very flexible schedule and would like to be on my “short notice standby list”, please just call or text me at 254.368.7411 and let me know.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION:   Retired educator and football coach Ken Powell with an 8.5 pound Lake Belton blue catfish taken in 50 feet of water on cutbait as a “bonus” fish as we targeted hybrid striped bass.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:    Ken also put 15 legal hybrid in the boat this morning.  This stocky 5.5 pounder was our largest of the trip.  All of our hybrid came on live shad.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR:  Hybrid Striped Bass

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED:  03 June 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED: Based on my observations on Saturday morning, Ken and I met at 6am to spend that time before sunrise in pursuit of fish we could sight cast to which were feeding on shad and spawning shad up in shallow water under low-light conditions.  We picked up about a half-dozen fish this way, but the large schools of fish I saw Saturday did not materialize this morning.

After that window closed, we headed out to deeper water to fish live baits for large hybrid stripers.  We had good success through 8:30, then the winds calmed and the sky brightened and the bite went right downhill.  Later, after having a tough 90 minutes or so to wait through, the wind began to ripple the surface once again and some cloud cover built back in.  The fish responded pretty quickly and we were able to enjoy a strong close to our trip.

OBSERVATIONS:  Fish were still very tight to the bottom today.  We caught most of our fish 3 cranks off bottom, and never came more than 4 cranks up.

TALLY: 51 fish caught and released, with 15 legal hybrid in this mix of hybrid, short hybrid, white bass, largemouth bass and blue cat

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time: 11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:   77F

Elevation:    6.20 feet high on a 24-hour fall of 0.50 feet and with a flow of 4597 cfs

Water Surface Temp:   79.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE5-6 through 8:30, then going calm, then picking back up at S6-7 around 10am

Sky Conditions:   90% cloudy through 8:30, then sunny during the period of calm, then clouding back up to 60-70% as the wind picked up again around 10am

GT = 15

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:     

 

 AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic  187 – 24 fish with 1 legal hybrid

**Area  vic  1277 in 50′ – 26 fish with 14 legal hybrid

 

 

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