The S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Program exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families. The following is a note to SKIFF supporters about this most recent outing…

Monday, August 15, 2011

Dear Friends of S.K.I.F.F.,

This morning I was joined by 3 young people — 10 year old Lauren Vieth and 8 year old Zachary Vieth both from Ft. Hood, TX, and 13 year old Colton Verdine of Salado, TX. The Vieth’s dad, Major Craig Vieth, is currently serving in Afghanistan with the 1st Cavalry Division at Bagram Airfield. Colton’s dad, Staff Sergeant Verdine, is deployed as a National Guardsman out of Camp Mabry, Austin, and is an infantryman now stationed in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan.

The moms got the kids to the boatramp on time, about 15 minutes before sunrise. This allowed us to take our time getting goodies stowed, work our way through the no-wake zone, and do some hands-on training with both spinning and conventional tackle before the sun rose and the fish started working.

We remain under the influence of a strong high pressure system and that made for clear skies, light winds and high temperatures today. The fish have been behaving in nearly identical patterns for over a month now, and so again today we got right on top of the fish without having to do much probing or searching with sonar to make it happen.

We decided we’d use the downriggers first to find and catch fish, and, if we found any heavy concentrations of fish, we were already practiced at jigging for them. We went in height order, from smallest to tallest, so Zachary, then Lauren, then Colton took turns on the dual downrigger rods equipped with Pet Spoons. We had a very productive first two hours, catching fish consistently throughout this time, and boating a total of 29 fish, including 26 white bass and 3 largemouth. These fish came from between Areas 854 and 863.

Lauren (reluctantly!) holds her largest white bass of the trip without the help of a Boga Grip!

Our first fish of the day, landed by Zachary, took Texas Parks and Wildlife Department “Big Fish Award” honors (set at certain lengths for certain species) by surpassing the 15 inch mark with his white bass that measured 15 5/8 inches! Later, Colton boated a chunky largemouth that eclipsed the 2 pound mark, so, we had a nice mix of quality and quantity.

Zachary with his TPWD “Big Fish” award-winner – a white bass measuring 15 5/8 inches

By around 9:10, the light SW breeze we had went dead and it became very hot, very still, and very bright — not a good combination for white bass. We struggled for about 40 minutes trying to get back on fish. I knew this was an uphill battle without some wind blowing, so, by 10:00, with no winds on the way, we changed over to fishing for shallower panfish and hunted up some sunfish over some deep-growing hydrilla beds. The kids got the hang of the slip float technique I showed them in no time at all and in about 45 minutes time on our first and only hydrilla bed, the kids landed 24 sunfish (23 bluegill and 1 green sunfish). These fish came off of Area 231. So we had a great “opener” and great “closer” and everyone returned to the dock and to mom very enthusiastic about our adventure.

But, it isn’t over until it’s over…

Mrs. Vieth showed up first to pick up Lauren and Zachary. As they headed out of the parking lot, Colton gave his mom a call on her cell phone to check on her arrival time. That’s when we noticed several “wolfpacks” of largemouth bass driving shad to the surface about 100 yards away from the us (Area 199). It was hard to miss on the now-glassy surface. I looked at Colton and he knew exactly what was going through my mind — WE NEED TO GET OVER THERE! So he hopped in, I shoved off, we motored near the fish, and cut the outboard and trolled into them to keep from spooking the fish. We then fired casts with swimbaits into the frenzy and put an extra 4 fish on the tally as a result of our 11th hour efforts.

The following photo is NOT staged. It shows Colton, with a bass he just landed out of a school that blew up on topwater, talking on his cell phone with his mom, asking if we could stay another 10 minutes longer to fish for the schooling largemouth!!! The action died off pretty quickly as it often does under windless conditions, and we headed back in for keeps, now with a total of 57 fish instead of 53!!

Read the paragraph above for details on the cell phone!!

As I try to squeeze in as many SKIFF trips as I can before school goes back in session, I appreciate all of you who have helped contribute the pieces to make this whole greater than the sum of its parts. You’ve helped with rods, reels, tackle, sonar, line, funding, mementos for the participants, notes of encouragement to me, and more. This is a great relationship and makes a real and positive impact here in the Fort Hood area. Thank you all!!

Sincerely,

Bob Maindelle

The S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Program exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families.

As the moon (to the right of Braden’s ear!) rose and the sun set, the fishing tapered off very quickly, but not before both kids loaded the boat with white bass and a few largemouth this cloud-cooled August evening.

This is a side-by-side screen shot showing a sonar (L) and DownScan (R) image of the huge school of white bass we hovered over for nearly and hour. This school numbered several hundred individual fish. On the left half of the screen, the massive school is the collection of red “streaks” at between 30 and 40 feet deep. This school was nearly 8 feet thick and about 20 yards in diameter!!

The following is my report to the membership of the Austin Fly Fishers and other SKIFF supporters who make this program possible …

Friday, 12 August 2011

Dear Friends of S.K.I.F.F.,

This evening I fished with Rebecca Knowles (6th Grade), the daughter of Chief Warrant Officer Jay Knowles and his wife, Susan, and with Braden Eldridge (Kindergarten), the son of Captain Kyle Eldridge and his wife, Caitlyn. Rebecca not only saw her dad head to Afghanistan this past month, but earlier today sent her oldest sister off to Texas Christian University, so, we planned a pick-me-up fishing trip to help keep her spirits up. As for little Braden, he’s been wanting to go fishing for a while, but wound up breaking his arm up near the elbow a while ago and was on “no fishing” status for about 6 weeks as he mended from that injury.

Braden’s dad, Kyle, is currently stationed at Contingency Operating Site (COS) Marez in Afghanistan with the 5/82 Field Artillery as a battery commander. CW4 Knowles is stationed in Kabul and will look forward to retirement shortly following his return from this deployment.

I looked ahead at the weather for this weekend and saw a lot of turbulent activity headed our way from the west and decided to bump this trip up a few hours to Friday evening ahead of what could be some stormy weather for Saturday morning.

As it turned out, a small disturbance that dropped a bit of rain on Lampasas county passed to the north of us during our trip. The grey clouds on the southern edge of this system covered the sun for us and dropped both the light level and temperature substantially. The grey conditions coincided with some great fishing.

We got right on the fish less than 10 minutes into the trip right between Areas 868 and 870 using downriggers rigged with Pet Spoons on the business end of the line. Braden took the first crack at the fish and then he and Rebecca took turns thereafter, boating 18 fish in the first 90 minutes of the trip. This catch consisted of 15 white bass and 3 largemouth. Things then went soft here as the winds slacked off and we experienced a lull until around 7:00pm when the winds began to pick up again, this time from just W. of S.

At this time, I searched with sonar along a breakline which is normally too deep to hold fish, but, with Stillhouse down over 12′, things have changed and I found a great many fish suspended just off the face of the slope here at Area 871 to 872. The fish were so thick (see sonar screen shot) that 3 out of 5 times we dropped our slabs down towards bottom, the fish would strike the slab before it reached the bottom. This was easy fishing for the last hour of the trip, and just the scenario you’d hope for with a 5 year old on board. The fish were so active and competitive in this heavily schooled situation that technique really didn’t matter. If a bait got to the right depth and moved, it was going to result in a hooked fish! We boated the balance of our fish right at this area — 30 fish in all — until the fish stopped as the full moon rose, right at sunset.

One little “funny” on the way home … I had the radio tuned to “KLOVE”, a Christian radio station. Rebecca listened for a while and asked if we could put it on “AIR-1” because it was a Christian radio station. I let her know that the station I had it on was a Christian station. To that she said something to the effect of, “Yeah, but they play old songs that mainly old people listen to.”. I just grinned and pushed the button!

I got to speak with both moms before and after the trip and both were anxious to get this summary so they could pass it on to their husbands. Mrs. Eldridge was going to use the downtime during our trip to get some “honey do’s” done in advance of Captain Eldridge’s return in a few short weeks, so she was very appreciative of the opportunity this trip presented for both her and Braden.

Thank you all for your support to both our soldiers serving in harm’s way, and to their spouses doing double-duty as mom and dad for a year a time.

Sincerely,

-Bob Maindelle

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 4:20p

End Time: 8:35p

Air Temp: 96F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.8F

Wind: Winds were S13 at trip’s start, settling slowly down to near calm at sunset.

Skies: Skies were entirely overcast as the southernmost edge of a storm system that passed to the north of us obscured the sun, cut the heat, and sparked some good fish activity.

This morning I picked up 6 1/2 year old twin brothers Kevan and Kristian from their home in Killeen and they were ready to go fishing!!

Twins Kevan (R) and Kristian (L) paid attention to detail in their technique and were rewarded with a quality catch of 59 fish today!

Kevan and I pose for cameraman Kristian and show off a potbellied largemouth.

Kristian conquered his fear of holding fish and shows off this nice black bass all by himself, even if it is at arm’s length!

The boys’ live with their grandparents, but right now “Pop Pops” is deployed to Afghanistan with the 615th Air Cavalry, so “Nana” Tina signed them up for a fishing trip with a ride to the boat ramp included!

On the way to the lake we got to talk about how it was to be twins, what they thought their 1st Grade year in school would be like, how karate lessons had just ended, and about how they enjoyed the ice cream at Vacation Bible School.

We got to Stillhouse and had the lake to ourselves. Between the low water and high temperatures it seems like all the other fishermen have given up on things.

As we got going this morning, things were kind of slow in the vicinity of Area 040; we picked up two fish on the downriggers at Area 517, two more at 040, and little else. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the totally overcast skies kept the sunrise bite, which is normally triggered by the suddenly increasing light levels, from happening. Eventually the fishing got going, and we managed to find plenty of action to keep the boys’ mouths smiling and their hands busy.

Today’s action was atypical of this summer’s action on Stillhouse thus far, as we caught far more fish by slabbing than we did on the downriggers. Our best success came at 2 of 3 anchorages that we made. We hovered over Areas 867, 868, and 869, and caught the majority of our fish at Areas 867 (32 fish), and 869 (16 fish), with only two boated (but many more lethargic fish seen on sonar) at Area 868, and 4 more fish picked up on downriggers between Areas 868 and 869.

I’ve fished with a lot of younger elementary-aged kids over the years, but these boys were among the quickest 6 to 7 year-olds to catch onto the slabbing techniques we used today. Granted, there was still a learning curve, and it took a lot of repetition and hands-on examples, but, by the end of the trip both boys were catching fish consistently and independently — I was really proud of them for that. All of our slabbed fish came on TNT 180’s in 3/4oz. and in the colors white and silver — both doing equally well with the grey but bright conditions. Our downrigged fish all came on Pet Spoons.

We ended today’s trip with 59 fish boated including 55 white bass, 3 largemouth bass, and 1 drum (BA: 5AT).

On the ride home the boys made sure I was up to date on all the current happenings in the world of “Transformers” and I got a fairly good technical description on how to be successful while playing “Halo 3” in case I ever want to try that.

TALLY = 59 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 10:40a

Air Temp: 79F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.4F

Wind: Winds were SSE7 at trip’s start, building to SSW11 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were 100% greyed over with a low layer of clouds and no direct sun shining the entire trip.

This morning I had the pleasure of fishing with Mrs. Seanna H. and her 3 children, Hadley, Kerstyn, and Audric.

Hadley, being a great big sister, volunteered to be the last of the three kids to take her turn battling a fish. Here is a one of the white bass she caught.

Kerstyn was our cheerleader; she was bubbly, full of energy, and ready pitch in and do whatever she needed to be done so we could keep on catching fish.

Audric stayed engaged much longer than most 5 year olds as I tried to “mix it up” using a variety of different techniques spread out over the span of the 4+ hour trip.

All four are anxiously awaiting dad’s return from his 1 year long deployment to Iraq. During our trip, and despite the 16 hour time difference, we actually got to speak with him by phone and send near-real time Facebook photos of our catch directly to him while we were still on the water!!

As our day began, we got everyone fitted with lifejackets and went over all the safety considerations. We also got to practice a “jigging” technique that I hoped we’d get to use later in the trip. Then, it was time to launch.

We headed to the fishing grounds near Area 040 and found things a bit tougher than they’ve been of late. Today’s weather was “off” from the cookie-cutter weather we’ve had for the last 3 weeks in that we had abundant low cloudiness and a stiff wind this morning versus the near-cloudless and near-calm conditions we’ve had over the past weeks. We had to work for the fish today, but caught plenty and caught them consistently, so the kids stayed enthusiastic the entire trip.

At first, we downrigged, finding most of our fish from Area 041 thru Area 864 and thru Area 863. Downrigging is a form of controlled-depth trolling that very precisely places a lure at the depth at which fish are seen on sonar. In all, over the first two hours of the trip, we boated 17 white bass, all of which were of legal size, with most going 12.5 to 13.75 inches.

As we moved along covering water by downrigging, I kept a close eye on the sonar, looking for tightly-schooled bunches of fish on or near bottom. Around 8:45am we found such a school of fish in 32 feet of water, right at Area 866. We put into practice the jigging skills we’d learned at the boat ramp, and each child got to land at least one fish on the TNT180 3/4 oz. slabs we were using before the school swam off, never to be relocated. Our fish count now stood at 21.

So as to introduce the kids to a form of fishing they could enjoy just about anywhere, and without requiring the use of a boat, we set aside the last hour of the trip to fish with “poles” without reels, using very sensitive balsa floats with maggots for bait. In about an hour’s time the kids caught fish continuously from out of a deep hydrilla weed bed we had stopped near. In all, the kids landed 23 bluegill sunfish and 1 green sunfish at this location.

By 10:45, little Audric had “hit the wall” of his attention span and looked like he could either get real grumpy real fast, or take a long nap, so, we called it a great day right there, took some photos, and headed back in to the ramp.

TALLY = 45 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 10:50a

Air Temp: 82F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.4F

Wind: Winds were SSE12 at trip’s start, building to S14 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were fair with 20% low grey clouds this morning, gradually and totally clearing.

As I made my traditional night-before-the-trip phone call to Melissa R., I told her I expected that we’d do very well on this morning’s trip. Melissa had arranged a few weeks earlier for this trip for her son, Coleman, as a 14th birthday present to him.

Coleman with our two best white bass of the morning, both going just shy of 15 inches, and both falling for a 3/4 oz. TNT 180 slab.

Craig nabbed our only black bass of the day, also on a TNT 180, out of a school of white bass feeding hard on shad about 2.25 inches in length.

Chris, whose face here clearly communicates, “I am not a morning person.”, chipped in with his fair share of white bass, too.

Coleman was also able to invite his two buddies, Craig and Chris, along. The three of them will be entering Killeen High School in a few weeks as freshman in the class of 2015.

Knowing that 1) the white bass fishing has been excellent of late, 2) that the weather is extremely stable, and that 3) I’d have young men old enough to precisely follow the guidance I provided on the techniques we’d be using, all added up to a good forecast — and the fish did not disappoint!!

We met at 6:30a, shoved off, and did some on-the-water training on how to properly use a slab on a spinning rod if/when we encountered bottom-hugging white bass on today’s trip. The boys got the hang of the technique very quickly, so I was then especially hopeful that we’d find some fish schooled tightly enough to jig for, thus letting us maximize our fish-catching potential.

As we got underway, we started fishing for suspended fish by using downriggers rigged with Pet Spoons. Over the past 2 weeks, the action has been nearly the same on a daily basis — suspended fish appear in the lower third of the water column at sunrise and until about 8:00 to 8:30, then small schools of white bass begin moving towards shore and congregating on the bottom. Next,largemouth bass begin to feed on the surface around 9:00a with larger white bass schools underneath. The action then comes to a peak, followed by a slow tapering off of the action by around 11am.

This same pattern played out again today. We downrigged for 24 fish from 6:48 to 7:55a, all in the vicinity of Area 040. We then spotted our first bottom-oriented school of white bass. We worked these fish over with TNT 180 slabs in both silver/black back (3/8 oz) and white (3/4 oz). The 3/8 oz. bait was definitely closer to matching the forage size and definitely caught more fish for us. We encountered these fish at Area 863 and spent over 45 minutes on them, catching fish continuously, and taking our fish count from 24 up to 81 fish boated. When the vertical action ended, we added a horizontal component by “blasting” with tailspinners to add a few more fish to the count. After most all of the school dissipated, we moved slowly into the wind and along the same topographic line to try to find another nice school of white bass. We put the downriggers in, and, no sooner did we do that, than we nailed 2 whites, saw the sonar screen load up with gamefish, tossed a buoy, and went back to e-anchor and fish for these fish We had about 25 minutes on top of these fish right at Area 864, and, while continuing to slab for them we managed 22 more white bass.

Again the action slowed, and again we searched out fish, found them with the downriggers, and manuevered back on top of the fish we’d found and again jigged for a final haul at this area (Area 865) of 42 white bass and our sole largemouth bass of the day.

By 10:45 bait was beginning to relax and the fish were turning off, so we neatened things up, took photos of our catch, and delivered America’s 3 most enthusiastic new anglers back to mom who was anxious to hear of their adventures.

Happy Birthday, Coleman!!

TALLY = 147 FISH, all caught and released.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:50a

Air Temp: 82F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.4F

Wind: Winds were SSW7 at trip’s start, building to SSW9 by 10:00, then stabilizing.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.

Mr. Ryon D. and his kids had such a good time out on the water Monday, they came back again today, AND brought friends with ’em!!!

L to R — Logan, Waylon, Brooke, and Lorna team roped a mess of white bass today!!

It was 6:32am, the winds were calm, the day was as cool as it was going to get at 84F before sunrise, and out of the Dunlap family pickup came four very excited cowboys and cowgirls!!

We got everyone suited up with lifejackets and headed out to the fishing grounds. At 6:49 we boated our first fish just seconds before the sun came up over the horizon. We kept right on boating fish, 61 of them to be exact, until the novelty wore off around 10:15. Along the way, siblings Lorna and Waylon learned how to fish with downriggers as cousins Logan and Brooke had on Monday’s trip, and they both got really good at it.

We also captured a live mayfly, plucked a dead threadfin shad and a dead crawfish out of the water, we wore Mr. Bob’s bait net on our head, we got to practice landing fish using a landing net, we ate snacks, we had brother/sister squabbles, we practiced taking turns and using good teamwork, we ate more snacks, we “popped wheelies” as I throttled up to go from place to place, and, did I mention, we ate snacks. It was a very active 3 1/2 hours, afterwhich I told Ryon that I thought I’d be taking a nap this afternoon (which I did!).

With such strong high pressure set up firmly over Texas, the cookie-cutter weather has made for some incredible predictable fishing. The fish are doing nearly the same thing at the same times each day.

As we got started, we downrigged with Pet Spoons from Area 040 to Area 853. By 8:00am, the fish had shifted north slightly and were best caught between Areas 854 and 862 also via downriggers. We did have a brief shot at some bottom-huggers right on top of Area 862, but it didn’t last long, so we resumed downrigging. By around 10:15 the winds were slacking off, the sun was getting high and hot and the kids ready to head to the house, so we made our way back in, took some photos, and said our good-byes.

Our highlight of the trip today was a magnum white bass caught by Miss Lorna. This fish measured 15 1/16 inches long, and therefore qualified her for a Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. “Big Fish” award. This is the second trip in a row in which we’ve boated a qualifying white bass. If you fish for whites much, you’ll know a 15+ incher doesn’t come along too often.

As we headed in, I noted some schooling largemouth action on top just getting going. After getting everyone safely to shore and getting photos taken and fish released, I headed back out to the scene of the crime to investigate.

The hotter, brighter and more still the conditions, the harder those small largemouth would feed as they silhouetted the shad against the surface and then used the surface as an edge to trap that bait against. The lake had long cleared of any other boats, so I had these all to myself. Between 10:40 and 12:45, I boated 57 more fish, of which 44 were largemouth bass ranging from 12 to 15 inches, with the remainder being white bass that I picked up off bottom below the largemouth whenever the topwater action lulled.

TALLY = 118 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:35a

End Time: 10:15a

Air Temp: 84F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.3F

Wind: Winds were SSW4 at trip’s start, building to SSW7 by 10:00, then tapering to near calm thereafter.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.

I fished this morning with Mr. Ryon D. of Salado, and his children, Logan and Brooke.

Brooke and proud papa Ryon smile behind her 15 3/8 inch white bass which qualified her for a Texas Parks and Wildlife “Big Fish” award

Logan matched his big sister fish for fish right to the very end of the trip.

I knew right off the bat that Brooke was my kind of fisherman. Last night, her horse, Roanie, ran her right into a barrel as she did her best at the rodeo. That cost her 3 stitches (right above a previous injury that took 6 stitches) and a very stiff leg this morning, but, she hopped out of her daddy’s truck with a big smile on her face and a big cowboy hat on her head and let me know she was excited to go fishing — during which time she worked spinning gear, baitcasting gear, downrigging gear, and lip-handled over 2 dozen fish by herself, including a magnum white bass measuring 15 3/8 inches. Did I mention she’s a 4th grader???

Little Logan did well for about 2 hours’ time and then faded on us a little, but, that’s what 5 year olds do, even on the best of fishing days. He definitely got the hang of “poppin’ ’em loose” when fish hit the downriggers!

Well, suffice it to say we all had a good time on the water this morning. The impacts of Tropical Storm Don were very minimal on Saturday, essentially just turning the morning sky red and the winds easterly for a few hours. Today, we’re back to high temperatures, clear, dry skies, and high pressure dominating the weather.

We started off with slabbing lessons just in case we hit into bottom-oriented and schooled white bass, and then went downrigging. We nailed 17 white bass and 1 largemouth by 8:05am between Areas 040 and 854, then went in search of bottom-hugging white bass holding beneath surface-feeding largemouth bass. The action was tentative as the S wind was in the process of shifting W, but was nearly slack for the time being.

To wait out the wind, we headed to Area 231 and fished with poles baited with maggots and tore up the sunfish (all bluegills today) on slipfloat rigs, boating 16 of the little rascals by 9:30, thus taking our tally up to 34 fish.

Once the wind picked up from the WNW, we headed back out to open water and searched. We found fish (largemouth up high in the water column and white bass down low) at a section of water bounded by Areas 860, 857, 658, and 858. We polished off the day here by 10:45 by boating an additional 17 fish here (16 white bass and 1 largemouth) using mainly slabs, with a bit of downrigging thrown in for good measure.

TALLY = 51 FISH, all caught and released (except to “pet” sunfish that went home in their very own Gatorade bottles destined for the home aquarium).

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.1F

Wind: Winds were SSW5 at trips start, going nearly slack 8:00 to 9:00, then picking up WNW thereafter.

Skies: Skies were ~10% cumulus clouds on a blue sky.

S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families.

Kei and Taryn followed instructions to a “t” today and were very successful as a result of their attentiveness.

The twins kept up the teamwork and kept the fish coming over the side. Here, Kei is hooked up with a white bass and Taryn clears the downrigger line to prevent a foul-up for her brother at boatside.

The following is my report to the membership of the Austin Fly Fishers and other SKIFF supporters who make this program possible …

28 July 2011

Dear Friends of S.K.I.F.F.,

This morning I fished a “S.K.I.F.F.” trip with 8 year old twins Kei and Taryn Klamert, the children of Sergeant Chris and Mrs. Julie Klamert. SGT Klamert is a U.S. Army cook serving with the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq. He has 10 months remaining in his tour.

The kids were really a joy to have on the boat. They were well-mannered, considerate of one another, and enthusiastic.

As we started our day, I explained to the kids that we’d mainly be fishing in two ways: downrigging to both catch fish and find big groups of fish, and then jigging with slabs to take advantage of any big groups of fish we found. With this said, before the sun rose and the fish began feeding, we practiced the necessary jigging technique until both of the children were able to get the cadence and action down well enough to catch fish. We then put the jigging rods away and headed out to search for fish with the downriggers.

The ‘riggers worked their magic this morning helping us consistently boat fish that were primarily suspended and scattered. We landed 18 fish in our first 2 hours on the water, all on the downriggers using Pet Spoons. These fish came from between Areas 258 and 853, with the stretch of water from Area 258 to Area 040 producing best.

At around 8:30a, we spotted the first indicators that the fish were beginning to school up in advance of a good feed. We saw “wolfpacks” of largemouth bass chasing shad at the surface and coalescing groups of white bass forming on the bottom. We brought in the ‘riggers and I began making sonar sweeps over the areas where we spotted such activity. Eventually we found what we were after on sonar and I e-anchored over these fish and put the kids to work.

The “practice” round done before the fish got going really paid off here as there was no learning curve for the kids to go through. As soon as their slabs hit bottom, they knew what to do and they began catching fish immediately.

Our last two hours on the water consisted of spot-hopping from place to place as we found topwater action, fleeing bait, and white bass bunched together on bottom. In the last two hours Kei and Taryn caught 33 more fish, nearly doubling the catch rate of our first two hours. We boated fish at Area 857, 858, 859, 860, and then, after this shallower bite settled down, found them out at Area 856 in about 5-6 foot deeper water.

By 10:30 we were idling through the no-wake zone for an on-time linkup with mom who was able to enjoy some kidless down time for 4 hours. As we neared the dock, Kei looked up at me and said, referring to our catch today, “Not too shabby, Mr. Bob.” I smiled a very big smile!!

We kept our last two fish in the livewell for a bit of show-and-tell and a quick photo op with mom.

We ended the day with 51 fish caught, including 47 white bass and 4 largemouth bass. Kei had visions of boating a longnose gar, and indeed we saw a number of them surfacing today, but the capture of one would elude him … thereby establishing grounds for another trip in the future!!

Thank you AFF and friends of SKIFF for providing opportunities like this!

Sincerely,

-Bob Maindelle

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.2F

Wind: Winds were S5 at trip’s start turning SSW6 my mid-trip, then WSW4 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were ~10% cumulus clouds on a blue sky. A grey cloud bank in the east obscured the sunrise for ~10 minutes, then cleared to bright and near-cloudless for the remainder of the trip.

This morning I fished with Mr. Rob R. of Round Rock, and his two sons, Drake and Grayson.

From L. to R., Rob, Drake and Grayson show the best 6 of the 68 white bass we boated today. We also landed 2 largemouth and a drum.

Though not yet in their teens, both boys have had a great variety of angling experiences from bank fishing ponds for catfish to pursuing offshore grouper and kingfish in the Gulf and the Caribbean. Despite all the experience, neither boy had ever landed a white bass before, and with a strong white bass bite going on at Stillhouse right now, we set out to change that statistic. We met before sunrise, did some practice casting in case we found topwater, then we did some practice jigging in case we found white bass near bottom, then we set out on the hunt for fish.

We encountered abundant, scattered, suspended white bass along the contour running from Area 258 to Area 040 to Area 854. From sunrise to exactly 8:57am we boated 24 fish, including 23 white bass and one keeper largemouth bass.

At exactly 8:57, I spotted the first (and only) school of congregated, bottom-oriented white bass that we would find this trip. I buoyed them and we went to work with our TNT 180 slabs. In about 35 minutes’ time, with all three of my guests boating fish each time they jigged, we took our fish count from 24 up to 69. Of these 45 fish, 44 were white bass and 1 was a freshwater drum. This was our second “first” of the trip, as Drake had never boated a drum before, so, he got to add another notch to his species belt with that accomplishment While the bite was hot, I had all three using slabs. When the intensity began to fade, I left the boys using the slabs, and had dad turn to a “blasting” technique to try to coax fish in from around the perimeter of the boat to the boys’ slabs. This extended the bite a bit and netted us a few extra fish. This bite took place on top of Area 854.

Once this bite died, the morning bite was all but over. We returned to downrigging and combed back over this area taking only one lone largemouth (a short fish) for our efforts.

We packed up and headed to between Areas 855 and 495 and, despite seeing tremendous amounts of bait, came up with only two short whites to close out our trip with a tally of 71 fish.

TALLY = 71 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:50a

Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.2F

Wind: Winds were SW5 at trip’s start turning WSW and increasing slightly to 8mph near trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were ~10% cumulus clouds on a blue sky. A grey cloud bank in the east obscured the sunrise for ~15 minutes, then cleared to bright and near-cloudless for the remainder of the trip.

I fished today with Mr. Andy S. of Belton, and three of his four children — Sullivan (13), Jaxson (8), and Kelsey (6). This was a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip, so only the kids fished — and they tore ’em up!!

Jax walked away with the trophy today when he boated this 4.75 pound, 20.25″ largemouth.

Sully bagged a big one of her own, boating this 16.5 inch largemouth.

And Miss Kelsey contently displays one of the 47 white bass that turned on well for us with the breezy south winds.

Fishing really couldn’t have been much simpler today. We found abundant fish at the first area I began searching over this morning and although the fish slowly transitioned from place to place, they never left this vicinity, so, we spent no time traveling in search of fish nor scanning hopefully with sonar, we simply fished from start to finish over willing schools of white bass with occasional black bass mixed in.

We fished along the contour stretching from Area 258 to Area 040 to Area 481. From sunrise to around 8:35, our best success came from the southern end of this expanse of water, close to Area 040. As the morning progressed, the fish slowly moved north, and were located closer to Area 481.

In the midst of all this, I spotted a tightly bunched school of white bass on bottom right on top of Area 853. I buoyed these fish and, for about 25 minutes the kids boated fish after fish putting a quick 15 fish in the boat using slabs, and taking our tally from 24 fish (all of which had been downrigged) up to 39 fish very quickly. When the school dissipated, we returned to the downrigging that had treated us so well up to this point, and we continued to put fish in the boat.

Our last 90 minutes on the water was (as is often the case on morning trips) slower than the first part of the trip. During this time, we boated 10 additional fish, 8 of which came on the downriggers and 2 of which came on slabs. These slabbed fish were our last two fish as my youngest guest Miss Kelsey was beginning to play out and it was clear the the best of the morning bite was now well behind us.

TALLY = 49 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.7F

Wind: Winds were S7 at trip’s start, slowly increasing to S13.

Skies: Skies were ~30% cumulus clouds on a blue sky. A heavy grey cloud bank in the east obscured the sunrise for ~30 minutes and high, thin cloud cover at our trip’s mid-point made the increasing temperatures bearable.