Fished a short evening trip with my mom, Charlotte, who is here from Kentucky on her yearly visit with us for a few weeks.

MY MOM, CHARLOTTE, WITH A PAIR OF NICE WHITE TAKEN 2 AT A TIME ON A PET / LICKER COMBO

Start Time: 6:15p

End Time: 8:45p

Air Temp: 98F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~87F

Wind: Winds were from the SSW at 4-5 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were clear and blue the entire trip under the influence of a strong high pressure cap.



We fished just 3 areas tonight and found fish at two of them.

First stop came at Area 478. The fish we suspended over 35+ feet at 24-26 feet deep, and were concentrated right on top of Area 478 with a few fish breaking the surface on occasion, all generally over water shallower than 25′ and up as shallow as 12′. We caught these fish both via downrigger with a Pet and a Pet / Licker combo, and via casting with blades worked at all depths as dictated by sonar and fish activity. We stayed here until nearly sunset (at 8:34) and boated a total of 29 fish, including 4 just legal hybrid.

We moved to Area 473 and took a hard look up against the S. shore for topwater and saw nothing. Bait was abundant but gamefish few. After a few downrigger passes we could only come up with a single stray blue cat.

We finished up at Area 147, again, looking for topwater, but finding none. Sonar did reveal active, bottom hugging fish from 17 to 12 feet deep here, so we used blades in both horizontal and vertical presentations and quickly added 7 more fish to the tally — all average white bass.

TALLY = 37 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Fished a half-day morning trip with Marty and Kyle W. of Killeen and their family friend, Ray, on leave from the USAF stationed in Japan.

Marty and Kyle have fished with me previously and decided to try a little something different this go ’round in the way of pursuing hybrid stripers.

Hybrid can get a little tough in the summer, but we boated 4 today, as well as a good take of white bass with a few largemouth and crappie thrown in for good measure.

RAY WITH A SPOON-CAUGHT BELTON LAKE HYBRID

3 OF 50 CAUGHT TODAY – TYPICAL HIGH PRESSURE WEATHER CONDITIONS MEAN STEADY, RELIABLE RESULTS

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 1:15p

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86-87F

Wind: Winds were from the SSW at 8-9 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were clear and blue the entire trip under the influence of a strong high pressure cap.



After meeting at the courtesy dock and exchanging pleasantries, we did a little practice casting on the off chance that we’d encounter some topwater action in the chop. We then headed out and looked over Area 348 to 302 for topwater, but found none.

We then headed to Area 155 and looked it over with sonar and found a few fish hanging right on the fault. We picked up a single largemouth and a small white on subsequent passes and noted a bit of bait in the area. Continued downrigging didn’t yield much, so we gave live bait a try as some of the sonar signals appeared to be hybrid. We had 2 teases on the bait, but nothing in the boat.

Next we headed to Area 473 and downrigged from there to 472 for nearly 2 hours boating mainly white bass very consistently on Images. The action started strong at Area 473 and tapered off while Area 472 then picked up and went quiet a little more quickly. Two times during our visit here we picked up 2 white bass on the same lure at the same time!

After these fish had all but shut down we headed to the expanse of water bounded by Areas 474, 475, and 477. We found ample bait here, but few interested gamefish, and only managed a white bass and 2 crappie after multiple passes.

We then gave livebait another try at Area 168 and had 2 takes resulting in one fair largemouth boated.

We checked Area 155 again with live bait, but found no bait and few gamefish here.

We wrapped up our trip right over top of Area 181 and found some shallow, active whites there willing to take a lift-dropped bladebait. We worked these fish over boating 5 on the blade, and then continued working them for another 45 minutes with the downriggers until we caught our 50th fish of the day. By then it was after 1:00p and the fellows were ready for lunch.





TALLY = 50 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Fished a half-day morning trip on Stillhouse today with a grand-dad, Don C. of Temple, his son-in-law, Scott, and Scott’s boys, Spencer (14) and Austin (12) of Carrollton, TX. We had a delayed start this morning on account of weather – lightning and rain on a a NE breeze – and so didn’t hit the water until 8:00am, but made up for lost time soon thereafter.

This is a really cool sonar shot. This shows 2 downrigger balls working at the same depth. As the balls pass over bottom-oriented fish, those fish (13 of them to be exact) swim upward to check out the ball and swim along with it for a few feet.

Grandpa Don and Spencer

Scott and youngest son, Austin

Start Time: 8:00a (rain delay)

End Time: 11:30a

Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85F

Wind: Winds were from the NNE at 8-9 from pre-sunrise through around 7:15am with lightning and rain. By 7:15 the winds began to calm, the rain lessened, and the lightning ceased.

Skies: Skies were heavy grey the entire trip.

As we waited for the rain to pass, I parked so as to be able to observe the lake’s surface. During the stretch from 6:30a until 8:00a, I didn’t see a single fish break water. As the wind died to calm, we launched out at 8:00a, and, as I was heading out to search for fish, began to see fish beginning to break the surface here and there. We headed to Area 471 and, due to a lack of aggressive surface activity and the fact that baitfish were beginning to band together at mid-depth, decided to go with a downrigging approach right off the bat.

As it turned out we were right at the lead edge of a feeding ramp up that went strong until around 10:45 and then began to taper off. During this entire time we fish twin downriggers with twin Pets tied on and fished at 22-26′. The boys did real well working together to keep our lures in the water by quickly re-rigging after a fish was brought in. We had multiple instances where we took doubles. By the end of the feed, we’d boated 30 white bass up to 15 1/16 inches, as well a 2 largemouth and a drum. All of these fish came between Area 471 and Area 476.

As the fish activity was starting to weaken, I graphed a solid school of white orienting to bottom in 22′. I buoyed them hoping to put the boys onto some fish they could cast to. I did a demo cast to show them how to work the blade bait back to the boat in a lift-drop fashion and hooked a solid white immediately. I then coached the boys to try to duplicat the success, but the fish moved off by the time the boys got their casts landing in the right spot. We never did come up with any more fish from that area.

By now it was about 11:30a and the fellows needed to hit the road on this last day of their trip to grandpa’s, so we took some photos, released our catch and headed back to the dock with 34 fish caught for the effort today.





TALLY = 34 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Fished a short, solo evening scouting trip on Belton Lake this evening. The fishing has been so consistent on Stillhouse that I haven’t made it out to Belton recently. However, knowing that all good things must come to an end, I wanted to keep my finger on the pulse here.

Start Time: 5:45p

End Time: 8:40p

Air Temp: 98F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.6F

Wind: Winds were steady from the SSE at 7-8.

Skies: Skies were bright and clear with the return of high pressure right over us.



I downrigged nearly the entire time 1) to cover water and watch sonar and 2) because I found very few fish relating to the bottom, rather, they were up suspended near bait.

Getting started, I found a lot of bait along the long breakline stretching from Area 210, through Area 472, to Area 473. The gamefish (white bass, hybrid and largemouth) were hovering off the E. facing slope a bit distant from the bait. I used twin riggers with a Pet and and Image and caught fish equally well on both telling me the bait was on the larger side. After catching my first hybrid on the Image, I switched over to twin Images. After sacking up 9 fish here (1 largemouth, 1 hybrid, 7 whites up to 14 1/8″) I moved elsewhere to explore.

Next stop came at an area triangulated by Areas 214, 474, and 475. With twin Images on the ‘riggers I had immediate and consistent success here boating 2 largemouth, 6 hybrid (all 17-19″), and 4 average white bass.

By this time, the sun was within 20 minutes of setting, so, hoping to spot some topwater white bass action, I headed out and patrolled from Area 133 over to Area 302 but found nothing doing.



TALLY = 21 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Fished a half-day morning trip on Stillhouse today with Jerry M. and his son, Evan. Jerry is retired military and now works as a military contractor; Evan is a student at Harker Heights High School who recently earned his Eagle Scout badge. Both are solid Christian men.

Father and son with a pair of deepwater white bass.

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:00p

Air Temp: 75F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.6F

Wind: Winds were calm with light puffs from due S barely rippling the surface on occasion.

Skies: Skies were bright and clear with the return of high pressure right over us.



I met the fellows dockside and right off the bat had them do a little practice casting as they said it had been over a year since they’d wet a line.

Once they were doing well, we shoved off to search for fish. Things were very quiet until around 7:40 when Area 061 began to show some activity on top; this was very light and scattered — so much so that I started us out with downriggers down. We were immediately hooked up with a schoolie largemouth on a Pet Spoon. I made a few more passes paying more attention to topwater than to sonar.

Soon, consistent topwater action began to crop up in an east-bowing arc from Area 205 to the north, going through Area 459 to the east, and terminating at Area 471 to the south. This action consisted of multiple, congregated wolfpacks of largemouth, most short of legal size, herding young of the year shad to the surface. We all put on doctored 1/8 oz. Rattle Snakies and sight cast to surface feeders. Casts that immediately landed just past the boil and were retrieved right past it almost always got hit. Delayed casts and errant casts took nothing. We chased these fish for about 90 minutes until the sun got so bright they pushed down. We boated 12 fish during this run.

At this point, we started right where the surface action ended (Area 471) with downriggers and got right into some hot white bass action for right at an hour with one or both rods going off nearly as quickly as we could get them down. We added 23 fish to the tally (that’s about a fish every 3 minutes!) in short order including 18 white bass, 3 drum, 2 largemouth. These came on tandem Pets.

Around 10:10, in the vicinity of Area 205, and between there and southwest toward the bank, I spotted consistent largemouth action on the surface (some spotty clouds and bit of a breeze combined to diffract enough light to get them going). I gave the boys a choice of continuing to downrig or try some more sight casting, and they chose the latter.

We stayed on them for about 50 minutes and found these fish much tougher to fool than earlier due to the brighter conditions. Regardless, we boated 4 more blacks during this effort before we had to head back in for Jerry to make an appointment. We’d boated a total of 40 fish by this time.

After dropping the fellows off, I headed back out and experimented with a new approach to catching these stubborn topwater fish. I’ve dubbed this method the “Minus Rig”. For this experiment, I headed over to Area 333 where I’d spotted some topwater largemouth popping small shad as I was carrying Jerry and Evan back in. I got to these fish and found wolfpacks of small fish appearing just briefly due to the brightening and calming conditions building in. I cast the rig to the first bunch of fish that came in range and was immediately hooked up — not a bad start. Long story short, I hooked and landed 9 fish in 11 casts over about a 35 minute period, and made a mental note of some modifications that would make this work even better — more on the Minus Rig later once all the kinks are worked out. By now the wind was dead calm, the surface was light glass, and the mercury had cracked the 90 mark so I headed to the dock.



TALLY = 49 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

I post a monthly summary of results so those looking to plan a trip in advance can have a feel for where the fishing typically has been for that particular month in years past. Note that the cooler months (when bookings often fall off) can offer some of the most productive fishing of the year.

Fished a half-day morning “Kids Fish, Too!” trip with two young men from Harker Heights — Wes P. and Isaac C. They live right down the street from one another and go to church together and are pretty good boys. We experienced a mix of light topwater and solid mid-depth downrigging today.

WES & ISAAC AND A FEW OF THE 42 WE BOATED ON THIS HOT JUNE MORNING.

“MR. BOB”, AS THE BOYS CALLED ME, AND ONE I TOOK TOPSIDE WITHIN 15 FEET OF THE BOAT — SOUNDED LIKE A GRENADE WENT OFF!

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:50a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~87F

Wind: Winds were very light from the SSW at sunrise, then around 8:15, turned W, then WNW and picked up speed until around 10:45 when they again slackened.

Skies: Skies were fair at sunrise. There was no cloud cover whatsoever today. Once the sun got up it burnt off the little moisture there was in the air and the skies went clear until a windshift in the afternoon clouded things up.

Environmental Note: This was to be the 1st day of the last 16 not to reach 100+ degrees, as a cool front dropped in turning winds N and creating cloud cover.

As we headed out today we initially searched for topwater action and, as expected on a slack wind, saw little at both Area 056 and in the vicinity of Area 061. Around 7:15, still in the vicinity of Area 061 to 062, a few single largemouths and a few wolfpacks of them began to push shad around. This was very widely distributed and the fish were very particular and did not stay on the surface very long. We stuck with sight casting for just shy of an hour during which time the boys, both amateur casters, only managed one fish, while I only fooled 4. This was too tough to stick with despite the regularity of sightings.

I then trained the boys up on downrigging and they caught on pretty quickly. We were staggering our weights at 25 and 27 feet and immediately got into fish in an area bounded by Area 070 to the north, Area 071 to the east, and Area 467 to the west. The 45 foot mark was our southerly boundary. We took some very solid 14+ inch white bass and some barely keeper sized schoolie largemouth at a ratio of 3 or 4 whites to every one largemouth. We stuck with downrigging from around 8:15 to about 9:30 when a fairly sudden wind shift to the west, accompanied by an increase in wind speed, spurred a brief flurry of topwater action by both largemouth and white bass. Despite the aggressive nature of the fish, the results were similar — I was doing all the catching (3 more black bass in about 8-10 minutes) and the boys were missing their targets — so, we stuck with our strong suit and went back to downrigging. We got right back into the fish at mid-depth and, by 10:45 had put together a total sack of 42 fish including largemouth, white bass, and one token drum.

TALLY = 42 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Fished a half-day morning “S.K.I.F.F.” trip on Stillhouse with brothers David and Jonathan Dalcourt of Harker Heights. This was the third S.K.I.F.F. trip that I’ve run. S.K.I.F.F. stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun. The Austin Fly Fishers (AFF) have commissioned me to take the children of soldiers deployed in harm’s way and the children of soldiers killed while on active duty on guided fishing trips. S.K.I.F.F. trips are funded by donations both given by and collected by the members of the Austin Fly Fishers. The boys’ dad, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dalcourt Jr. is serving with 1-227th Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Calvary Division, out of Camp Taji, Iraq. This is his 2nd tour to Iraq.

DAVID WITH OUR FIRST LARGEMOUTH OF THE DAY – IT HAD A CONCAVE BELLY TYPICAL OF LARGE FISH TRYING TO MAKE A DIET OF SMALL SHAD

DAVID AND JONATHAN WITH A PAIR OF HEALTHY WHITE BASS TAKEN ON DOWNRIGGERS THEY SET AT AROUND 26 FEET DEEP.

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 84.3F

Wind: Winds were flat calm with only an occasion puff from the SSW.

Skies: Skies were clear with 10% cotton ball clouds here and there.



I picked the boys up and it was off to Stillhouse to start our big adventure. Casting lessons were the first order of the day. I chose closed face reels for the boys as they told me they had little fishing experience. They were fast learners and soon the were launching 60-70 foot cast and fairly straight at that. Next we talked safety and then it was out to the fishing grounds.

At Stillhouse in the summer no wind = no topwater and today was no exception. It was obvious that we needed to start at mid-depths and so we got the downriggers down doing what they do best and immediately began putting fish in the boat.

I noted two concentrations of boats where “last weekend’s” fish were (Area 222 and 061), but those fish were long gone. We opted to avoid the crowd and slipped off by ourselves to between Areas 452 and 453. With the riggers set at 24 and 27 feet, we caught 1 drum, 3 largemouth, and 6 white bass in right at an hour. Things then got a little quiet so we headed out to look for more bait and gamefish on sonar.

We looked over Area 462 and found little.

We then went to between Areas 056 and 126 and, as we were idling in, saw occasional small, single largemouth popping shad on top. I could tell by looking at these that they’d present a marginal opportunity for casting, but we went ahead and tried it so at least the boys would get some casting under their belt. I worked a Cork Rig and caught 2, they threw Krocodile’s and each hooked but lost 1 — all short largemouth. So, we went back to downrigging and, over the next 2 hours boated 15 more gamefish (10 largemouth, 5 white bass), all on Pet Spoons and with all the downrigger work done by the boys — I just steered and used sonar to keep us in the fish — great teamwork!!

By around 10am I let the boys know we’d likely have active fish for another hour based on when the fish shut down on trips run earlier in the week. I gave them the option of continuing what we were doing or of bobber and bait fishing for a change of pace. They went with the latter option.

We headed to Area 203, broke out out the floats and nightcrawlers and got both boys accustomed to placing their baits where the fish were — in cover and in shade — and they did well, landing 5 fish each including 2 blacktail shiners and 8 bluegill sunfish.

By 11:15 it was already in the 90’s, there was not breeze and all 3 of us were sweating through our clothes, so we wrapped it up with 36 fish to show for our efforts.

Tomorrow the boys head to Piney Woods summer camp. I suspect they’ll be inquiring as to whether there is any fishing tackle available for signout!!

TALLY = 36 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Fished a morning “Kids Fish, Too!” trip today with Josh Bitle and his sons, Nicholas (10) and Taryl (7). Josh just got back from Iraq and his nice wife, Vesper, planned this trip about 3 months in advance just waiting for his return.

Nicholas helped me work the downriggers today with solid results!

Taryl, a non-morning person, pulled in a few while struggling to keep his ‘lids open!

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp: 84F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.6F

Wind: Winds were flat calm for about the first 90 minutes of light, and then picked up from the ENE at only 3-4.

Skies: Skies were fair.



It was bound to happen sometime … the topwater party ended with today’s flat calm and bright start, followed up by an E. wind forecast to persist into the following day. I was really hoping to get these boys into an aggressive school or two of whites or black bass, but it wasn’t in the cards today. After about 20 minutes of looking, listening, and glassing, it was apparent that the bite was off. We saw single fish popping here and there, but no manner of surface schooling, so, we switched over to the downriggers and stayed in this general vicinity (Area 061) to see if anything would develop on top. Topwater never did materialize, but the fish were feeding moderately at depth.

We ran the ‘riggers between Areas 061 and 059, between Areas 467 and 468, and again from Area 458 halfway east to 457. All three area held solid concentrations of fish and the key depth was 26-27 feet today. We’d put exactly 20 fish in the boat, all on Pet Spoons, when I asked Nicholas (as Taryl was napping heavily by now) if he’d like to continue catching numbers of fish on one Pet Spoon and try for fewer but larger fish on a large crankbait. He opted for this crankbait approach and was almost immediately rewarded with the biggest fish of the day to that point, a 2.25 pound largemouth. Later, at Area 458, after sticking with that decision, he bagged the biggest fish of the trip, another largemouth going 2.75 pounds.

We wound up catching a total of 30 fish on downriggers, including a 30%/70% mix of largemouth bass/white bass, as well as one drum.

Because this downrigger fishing is quite techical, we decided to end the trip doing something low tech that the boys could duplicate the next time the go bank fishing, etc. We baited up the bream rods and worked over some sunfish at Area 239. In the time it took me to get the boat ready for trailering, the boys caught 19 sunfish, including a mix of green sunfish and bluegills.

All told, Nicholas and Taryl teamed up for 49 fish today. Dad was a great coach and encourager which helped a lot.

Good job boys!

TALLY = 49 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Fished a half-day morning trip today with Steve Smith and his adult son, Eric. These fellows are from the great state of Wyoming. Steve is a contractor working in the oil drilling industry, and Eric is a college student and National Guardsman. His unit is being sent to Iraq, so, he’s put life on hold for a while to serve his country and is now stationed at Ft. Hood for training before he deploys. Both fellows have done a good bit of north country fishing – lake trout, pike, walleye, and even some excursions to Alaska. I tried my best to give them a good impression of what Texas has to offer.

Steve (in background) and Eric with a nice black bass.

A 3.25 pound black bass with the quarter-pound bait he wolfed down.

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time: 11:40a

Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82-83F

Wind: Winds were light from the S at around 3-4 at the start of the trip; they then slowly built up to a peak of about 8mph. Light winds on clear, hot days can be a bad combination. Fortunately, as the winds peaked, they also turned SSW and the fishing stayed solid.

Skies: Skies were fair at sunrise. There was no cloud cover whatsoever today. Once the sun got up it burnt off the little moisture there was in the air and the skies went clear all day.



As has been the rule for the past 2 weeks, the fish began to feed on the surface in the vicinity of Area 057 right at around 6:45a and stayed active today until 8:55. The first 25 to 35 minutes have been most intense as both white bass and largemouth feed. Once the light level gets to a certain point the whites drop down in the water column leaving just the largemouth to target on the surface. The largemouth fishing then grows spotty past this peak until it gradually tapers to zero. Due to the nearly flat, bright conditions, the fish were difficult to fool with artificials today. We used the Cork Rig with downsized offerings on the business end to match the forage size, but, even with that done the fish were very particular. In a little under 2 hours of fishing we took 14 fish off the top. This was substantially fewer fish than we’ve taken during this early morning feed lately, and that was with 2 fairly good casters on board. We put 9 largemouth and 5 whites in the boat before the topwater period was over.

Following that, we made 4 increasingly shallower drifts from SW to NE across Area 222 headed toward Area 007 baited up with live sunfish I’d caught before our trip. We had 6 strikes and landed 4 fish including 3 largemouth bass and 1 drum. The fish were fairly scattered and the action was slow to moderate, so we transitioned to downrigging for the remainder of our trip, beginning around 10:15 to 11:30.

We downrigged in a N-S oriented elipse from Area 217 to Area 462 and found the fish concentrated on the E. facing slow on the W. side of the midline of this underwater feature. Fish were concentrated in a band from 26 to 30 feet deep with occasional more highly active wolfpacks of fish showing higher in the water column from 12 to 25 feet deep. We ran 2 sizes of Pet Spoons over these fish and did equally well on both. In a 75 minute span we put 28 additional fish in the boat including 2 largemouth, 3 drum, and 23 white bass. I noted that the drum all came on the occasions where I took us in a bit shallow on this bottom feature and the ball began rubbing bottom at 26-27 feet. We ran our balls at 26-27 feet for the first 2/3 of our efforts, then, as the wind slacked and the surface smoothed out letting the sun’s rays penetrate deeper, the fish moved another 1-2 feet deeper, and we then ran balls at 28-29 feet.

The fellows were very satisfied with their catch and enjoyed one another’s company on the water today. Steve paid me a nice compliment on our way in .. now he’s a fellow of few words, but he makes those count. I asked he and Eric if they enjoyed their Texas fishing experience and Steve just said, “Bob, you’re our hero.” Eric then asked if there was any way I could officially notify his mom that they caught the great number of fish that they caught, thinking she’d be suspicious of a fabrication if they told her they’d put 46 fish in the boat. I think Eric had a notarized statement or something to that effect in mind … but I’m letting this blog entry serve that purpose!

Eric, I hope you stay safe in Iraq and return to finish out your degree plan at school. Ya’ll are good people and represented Wyoming well!

TALLY = 46 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner, Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing