25 | May | 2020 | Fishing Report

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Memorial Day 2020, we donned full raingear and took on the elements for a great trip on a deserted Lake Belton with Steve Niemeier and his grandson, Caleb Fowler.

PHOTO CAPTION: Steve Niemeier braved the elements this morning and was rewarded with a 108 fish day, which included a mess of white bass and some icing-on-the-cake hybrids.

PHOTO CAPTION: Caleb Fowler, Steve’s grandson, started us off right with this, our first legal hybrid of the morning, and our third fish of the day.

WHEN WE FISHED: 25 May, 2020, AM

HOW WE FISHED: This spring’s peak hybrid bite seems to be fading as more and more white bass teem on the deep-water haunts the hybrid typically use earlier in the spring, and as some thermal separation begins to show on sonar, along with the appearance of fry-sized young-of-the-year shad beginning to show up on the surface when calm.

We pursued hybrid this morning with live shad, but did not hesitate to work over the multiple schools of white bass we encountered, at least until their energy level dropped from its peak and they began to settle back to bottom after we initially got them stirred up.

We ended up with just 2 legal hybrid and 1 short this morning. One of those legal fish came on live shad right within minutes of getting our baits down at the first area we fished. The other came at the last place we stopped and popped up out of a large school of white bass as Steve worked a slab through it.

The white bass were aggressive and bottom-hugging, but, once we started working our slabs through them, they fired up and rose higher in the water column. Lots of 2- and 3-year class fish in the mix which has been a real change versus the plague of small fish over most of 2019. These fish are strong and aggressive as their rising metabolism drives them to feed.

TALLY: 108 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: No spawning shad observed, thanks to turbulent weather, rain, and N. wind right at first light through (obscured) sunrise.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:10A

End Time: Noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Elevation: 0.7′ high, 0.1′ fall, 17 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 73.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: NE 10, shifting and increasing to NW14 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies with light rain for the first 2 hours, then occasional brief breaks in the cloud cover.

GT = 60

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0039G – 6 fish incl. 1 legal hybrid on bait in an area I was drawn to by low-light topwater action

**Area vic 717/B0037C – white bass blanketing bottom here. Caught them at will on slabs; moved in search of hybrid

**Area vic B0075C – a smaller cluster of what turned our to be white bass; moved in search of hybrid

**Area vic 1556 – saw a few fish as we searched for hybrid; developed the bite with bait and thumping; turned into more white bass

**Area vic 344 – white bass blanketing bottom here, 1 hybrid on smoked slab

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)

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Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday evening I welcomed the Beavers family aboard. Joining me were James and Andrea, and their 4 kids: William (age 4), Emersyn (age 6), Annistyn (age 8), and Brylynn (age 10), all of Salado, TX. James is employed in the oil and gas industry, and Andrea holds a degree in nursing.

We originally had this trip planned during the COVID-related non-essential business closure and, fortunately, were able to reschedule, which, in retrospect, help us out as the warming water put more fish up shallow than would have been the case on our originally scheduled date.

I chose to conduct this trip on Stillhouse to avoid the congestion and recreational traffic on Lake Belton on a Memorial Day weekend afternoon, and because of Stillhouse’s better population of sunfish.

PHOTO CAPTION: Back row: Dad and mom, James and Andrea. Front row, from left: William, Annistyn, Emersyn, and Brylynn.

WHEN WE FISHED: 23 May, 2020, PM

HOW WE FISHED: With a 6 year age spread, you can imagine the great differences in attention span between the four kids. My goal was to start off with some smaller, more numerous, “instant gratification” sunfish in order to get fish in the boat and build the kids’ confidence, and then move on to tactics requiring a bit more patience in tradeoff for some larger white bass.

This plan worked well, thanks to the capable hands-on assistance by James and Andrea.

We made four stops at similar, shallow water areas looking for sunfish moving up into these warming areas now in the mid-70’s with some fresh aquatic vegetation and some flooded shoreline vegetation (thanks to the reservoir being about a half-foot high).

At each of these locations we used worm fished beneath a float to present these baits to sunfish. Each of the four locations produced multiple fish from 2.75 inches up to 6 inches, including bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, and green sunfish.

After about 2 hours’ time the novelty of this sort of fishing wore off on the kids, in age order. Once Brylynn lost interest and headed for the snack collection, only James and I were holding rods in our hands and we knew it was time for a transition.

So, we took a boat ride to a new fishing grounds and, using downriggers, quickly hooked up with 3 white bass using a 3-armed umbrella rig equipped with Pet Spoons. Things looked good after that initial success, but the action waned and sent us searching over multiple areas before we connected with our next bunch of fish.

When all was said and done, the kids landed 34 sunfish and 10 white bass, all of which were released to fight again another day.

TALLY: 44 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:45P

End Time: 8:30P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 90F

Elevation: 0.52′ high, 0.17′ fall, 565 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 76.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE14

Sky Conditions: 40% white cloud cover on a bright sky through 6:45, then a low bank of grey clouds in the west obscured the setting sun.

GT = 55

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1967, 1572 (2 hops), and 641 for sunfish

**Area vic 754, SH0035C, and 0281 for white bass