June | 2019 | Fishing Report

A FISH LARGER THAN THE FISHERMAN WHO CAUGHT IT – 74 FISH

June 13th, 2019 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Wednesday morning, I welcomed back Mr. Frank Killoran. Frank fished with me once before, along with his wife. On this trip, he was joined by his son, Scott, and the two men assisted me in making Scott’s three kids (Frank’s grandkids) successful. Whenever I have younger kids aboard we shoot for quantity over quality and really “mix it up” so we’re not doing one thing for too long, lest the kids get bored for fidgety.

PHOTO CAPTION: 5-year-old Chris Killoran and his grandpa, Frank Killoran, with a 5.5 pound longnose gar which was, literally, longer than Chris. This fish fell for a downrigged Pet Spoon while we were otherwise fooling white bass.

PHOTO CAPTION: From left, siblings Ericka Taylor (age 9), Chase Killoran (age 6), and Chris Killoran (age 5) put the hurt on 74 fish. Each child landed their very first fish during this morning’s trip.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: Multi-species; mainly white bass and sunfish

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: 12 June 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED: We broke this trip down into four short segments which fit into a 3.5 hour timespan (which, over the years I’ve found is about max for kids aged 5-7). Segment 1 was deep-jigging for white bass with tailspinners. While we did catch fish this way, and while it did afford each child the opportunity to catch the first fish of their lives, the fish were not overly aggressive, and they moved frequently, so, we didn’t spend too long doing this. Segment 2 was downrigging for suspended fish. This put a few fish in the boat, including Chris’ gar, but was pretty slow. Segment 3 was deep downrigging near bottom. This paid off well, producing multiple doubles and steady action for as long as the kids stayed interested. Before long the novelty of this method wore off on the boys and so we left these fish biting to move on to Segment 4, our final adventure, which involved fishing for sunfish in shallow water using bait and slipfloats. This also went well and the boys wore out just about the same time the fish at this location got thinned out enough to require patience.

TALLY: 74 fish caught and released, including 32 white bass, 3 short hybrid, 1 longnose gar, and 38 sunfish

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 9:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 2.11 feet high on a 24-hour fall of 0.13 feet and with a flow of 2705 cfs

Water Surface Temp: 81.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: WNW3-4 all morning

Sky Conditions: 40% white, high, thin clouds all morning

GT = 15

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 150 produced white bass via vertical work with tailspinners and deep downrigging with Pet Spoons on a 3-armed umbrella rig

**Area 502 produced 38 sunfish

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)

HYBRID HAUL!! – 95 FISH/44 LEGAL HYBRID

June 4th, 2019June 4th, 2019 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, June 4th, I welcomed aboard Derrick Fontenot, his girfriend, Veronica Merritt, and their friend, Tony Siefner, whom Derrick works with. All three are veterans — Derrick and Veronica served in the U.S. Army, and Tony served in the U.S. Navy.

This trip was a long time in the making. Derrick originally scheduled this trip last summer, but weather hindered our efforts and the peak spring hybrid bite was over by the time things settled down. Once again, Derrick was scheduled during the peak spring hybrid bite this year, but, flooding rains with lightning moved in the morning of our trip. So, this makeup to the makeup finally happened, and, according to my crew, it was well worth the wait.

This morning’s catch included our greatest tally of legal hybrid striped bass in this 2019 season — 44 in all.

PHOTO CAPTION: Veronica Merritt led the big fish contest with the 4.75 pounder until late in the game when Derrick came up with a dandy.

PHOTO CAPTION: Derrick Fontenot with our single largest fish of the trip. This thick rascal went 5.50 pounds.

PHOTO CAPTION: U.S. Navy vet turned Samsung engineering tech Tony Siefner with a sweet 5-pounder that crushed his live shad hung in 48 feet of water.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: Hybrid Striped Bass

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: 04 June 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED: We met this morning at just before 6am and looked for some pre-dawn topwater action from white bass and hybrid stripers chasing shad in shallow water. The forecast called for light winds, but in reality, the winds were 9-10 from the SE before sunrise, which put both a chop and a bit of swell on the water, thus making spotting topwater fish very tough. We landed 1 largemouth, 1 white bass, and 2 bluecat on paddletail grubs, but wrapped that effort up early and went right to live shad fishing in deeper water.

We fished 3 deepwater areas this morning. The first was loaded down with white bass and short hybrid to the point where I was concerned about just burning through bait, so, we used bait just long enough for everyone to work out the kinks on when to do what with the barbless circle hooks so they were good to go once we encountered larger, legal-sized hybrid, and then we worked the whites and short hybrid over with tailspinners in 48 feet of water, landing 25 fish and then moving on in search of large hybrid.

The second and third areas we hit today were similar in depth and topography. Thanks to the ideal weather conditions, the hybrid on both areas were on the prowl, up off bottom, thus making them much easier to spot on sonar as we searched for them. After we found them, fishing was straightforward. Smaller shad once again outperformed medium- or large-sized threadfin (and I tend to avoid gizzard shad).

Everyone quickly got the hang of the timing of their response when the bait-clicker alerted them to the presence of a fish taking the bait, and from then on our results were solid. We ended up with a total of 95 fish, of which 44 were legal hybrid, with the top two fish going 5.00 and 5.50 pounds. We had very few issues with bothersome blue cats today and only occasionally got visited by white bass once we moved away from that first location.

Derrick came prepared with a lot of good questions and determined he would join me for on-the-water sonar training sometime later this summer.

OBSERVATIONS: Today’s weather conditions were PERFECT. This is just what I would have ordered if the weather was selectable. Fish were still very tight to the bottom once again today. We caught 100% of our fish 3 cranks up.

TALLY: 95 fish caught and released, with 44 legal hybrid in this mix of hybrid, short hybrid, white bass, largemouth bass, channel cat, and blue cat

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Elevation: 5.68 feet high on a 24-hour fall of 0.51 feet and with a flow of 4586 cfs

Water Surface Temp: 79.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: S7-8 all morning

Sky Conditions: 100% cloudy all morning with perfect “squinting light” brightness

GT = 15

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1646/1653 – pre-dawn drift and cast for 4 fish

**Area vic 187 – 25 whites/short hybrid on tailspinners

**Area vic 1556 – solid hybrid bite on live shad

**Area vic B0152JWC – solid hybrid bite on live shad

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)

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

June 3rd, 2019 by Bob Maindelle

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)

A LAKE BELTON PERSONAL BEST – 6.75 POUNDS

June 2nd, 2019 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning I fished with returning, long-time client Steve Niemeier and his 14-year-old grandson, Caleb Fowler. Caleb had been all day the day before on an end-of-school-year trip to Six Flags, and didn’t mentally join us until around 9 a.m., but he was physically present, nonetheless! Caleb is one of the select few freshmen who will be entering the “Belton New Tech High School” as a freshman in the upcoming school year. The process for entry was widely anticipated and heavily competed for.

PHOTO CAPTION: Steve Niemeier’s personal best hybrid striped bass – 6.75 pounds. This well-proportioned fish was strong and clean — no missing scales, no sores, no scars, and no evidence of prior capture. Thanks to the barbless circle hooks we use, the fish was hooked cleanly in the corner of the mouth for a quick, simple hook removal and was released after a brief pause for this photo.

PHOTO CAPTION: Steve Niemeier and his grandson, Caleb Fowler, with a pair of hybrid which came under the boat as part of a wolfpack of about 14 fish. All 4 of our baited rods went down, and the spinning rod Caleb was working a tailspinner on also got hit. We landed 3 of the 5, including the two largest of the bunch, shown here.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: Hybrid Striped Bass

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: 01 June 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED: We had pretty tough conditions coming out of the shoots this morning. I had hoped to cash in early on some topwater action which I noted was taking place pre-sunrise on yesterday’s trip. Due to timing issues, that didn’t quite work out, so, we devoted our entire trip to angling for deep water hybrid with live shad. The still, partly-sunny conditions did not do us any favors in the first 90 minutes on the water, but, once a light southerly ripple got going (which turned into a light, steady breeze later on), the fish began to perk up. We enjoyed a full 2-hour bite sitting atop one area. We noted boats moving around all over prior to this bite starting, leading me to think others were experiencing the same scenario. By the time this bite died, there were few fishing boats left going into the 11 o’clock hour as the temperature started to climb, the wind slacked off, the skies brightened more, and the fishing slumped.

To get bit by legal hybrid this morning (that’s 18+ inches), we had to wade through some short hybrid, white bass, and blue catfish to do so, but, with a teenager on board, the action produced by those smaller fish kept things interested. Occasionally, during a lull in the action, both Caleb and Steve would drop down a tailspinner and fairly quickly would come up with a short hybrid or white bass while the live baits continued to work.

With the tough conditions and lack of enthusiasm by the fish as seen on sonar wherein the fish rarely came up more than 2-3 feet off bottom, we fished just 2-3 cranks up off bottom the entire morning.

Large baits went largely ignored, and those smaller shad just barely staying inside a 3/8″ mesh on my smaller castnet did all the catching this morning.

Steve, whose family goes back several generations to the Gatesville area, has fished Belton his entire life. Today, he landed the single largest hybrid he’s ever landed. That fish struck Steve’s bait in 49 feet of water and absolutely buried the rod to the last guide closest to the reel when Steve engaged the reel on it. After bring the fish to net, we weighed it carefully twice; it went exactly 6.75 pounds on a certified scale. That was the single largest hybrid I’ve had come aboard the boat this season and it was a personal best for Steve.

I believe Steve was fine to head for lunch after landing that big fish, but we persisted, checking two more areas after the area that gave that fish up stopped producing. We did not find any more biting fish after ~10:30a, and therefore called it a done at about a quarter past 11am.

OBSERVATIONS: For the second consecutive morning, no shad spawning en masse this morning on calm winds.

TALLY: 43 fish caught and released, with 11 legal hybrid in this mix of hybrid, short hybrid, white bass, and blue cat

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Elevation: 7.16 feet high on a 24-hour fall of 0.50 feet and with a flow of 4617 cfs

Water Surface Temp: 79.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: light and variable until 8:30, then <S7 the remainder of the trip

Sky Conditions: Partly sunny at start of trip, then 70-80% cloudy until 10:30a, then beginning to clear to 40% cloudy

GT = 20

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0152JWC – cheated a bit shallower up onto the flat and away from the channel on this stop

**Area vic 787 – fished on the channel drop here

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)