This evening I fished on Belton Lake with fishing buddies Robert S. and John S., both currently stationed at Ft. Hood serving with the 36th Engineer Battalion.

The fishing really turned on near sunset with some great subsurface action prior to sunset and moderate topwater schooling action thereafter. We didn’t want to stop catching them long enough for a photo before it got too dark!!

Robert and John have read this blog for a long time and have just shaken their heads at the quantity of fish my clients catch in the summer months while the two of them often struggled to put single digits in the boat on their hard-earned weekends.

So, they called me up and asked for a lesson on downrigging, and specified Belton as that is where they like to fish. We had everything set for Saturday, Sept. 8th until the weatherman spoke his piece. Cold front … 25 mph winds sustained … gusts over 30mph. I made a quick phone call to John and Robert to find out if their schedule would allow us to bump up a few hours to fish in advance of the front on this Friday night; and it did!

As we got going, I covered some basics about summer time fishing … about the thermocline, about horizontal motion, about feeding windows occurring early and late in low light conditions, about matching forage size, and more. I urged them to be patient as the trip unfolded, as we typically catch as many or more fish in the last hour of a summer evening trip than we do in the first several hours of the trip, combined.

So it was tonight. We downrigged successfully for what we found to be very lethargic fish. We found that the 28′ mark was the key depth tonight, just a few feet above the top of the thermocline. For our efforts primarily in and around Area 685/905 and Area 478, we boated 16 fish up until 7:05 PM, including white bass, channel and blue catfish, and drum (no hybrids, not even short ones, strangely enough). Both Pet Spoons and the White Willow performed equally well tonight used on tandem rigs.

At 7:05, we ran sonar slowly over Area 814/1129 and found a heavy school of white bass just “waking up” and going on their pre-dusk feed, lifting off bottom in pursuit of shad. We e-anchored over these fish and worked them over with 3/4 oz. TNT180 slabs, moving just a few yards whenever sonar indicated the fish had moved out from beneath us. We kept up with this school down beneath us for about 20 minutes and in that short time boated an additional 29 fish very quick in this manner.

As this tapered off the white bass began to force bait to the surface and, on the light SSE chop, we could begin to see “wolfpacks” of fish feeding on small shad in the vicinity of Area 1070/010. We broke out our rods rigged with Cork Rigs and wore the fish out as long as they remained on top, putting another 29 fish in the boat. All I could do was take fish off as John and Robert made short, accurate casts and kept the fish coming in the boat.

After everything died down, we slowly retrieved blade baits near bottom to comb out a few more still-active fish from the many inactive ones now settled back to bottom. We put a final two fish in the boat this way and called it a night with a tally of 77 fish boated. We caught 5 times more fish in the last hour of fishing than we had in the entire balance of our trip.

And now about that UFO (unidentified floating object). Well, it happened like this … as soon as it was pitch dark and the winds got really still, John, Robert and I spotted this eerie green glow to the northeast of us — about 100 yards away. Slowly, ever so slowly, we crept closer with our trolling motor down running as quietly as we could. Was it an alien craft downed in the water? Was it a Las Vegas-style casino being erected on Lake Belton? We still weren’t sure. Closer we crept … now just 20 yards away. The light was now near-blinding. I put my polarized glasses back on … at that moment a voiced boomed forth out of the light “Hey there, Bob!!”. Well shoot, this was no alien — it was Bill T., long time Belton angler with a new night fishing accessory affixed to his fishin’ rig. A picture is worth a thousand words …

Bill T.’s new night fishing light system. LED-based, 12-volt powered, and ~5 amp draw. Don’t laugh … those green lights attract fish, sure enough!! Sorry I mistook you for an alien, Bill. You really are a handsome guy.

TALLY = 77 FISH, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time:

End Time: 8:15p

Air Temp: 101F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 84.5F

Wind: SSE 5-8.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.

This blog entry was authored by Bob Maindelle, owner of Holding the Line Guide Service, Belton Lake Fishing Guide and Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide.

I have had quite a number of e-mails come in this summer concerning the success I’ve had by targeting fish holding just above the thermocline (typically with downrigging equipment).

Subscribing to the notion that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, I’ve inserted the above photo which clearly shows what the thermocline looks like on my Lowrance StructureScan with the contrast set to 74%.

Once you identify the thermocline, you must target your fishing entirely above it. Rarely will any fish of any kind be found below the thermocline, as the water here is oxygen poor, despite the fact that the cooler temperatures at that depth might otherwise be more desirable. Most of the fish I catch in the summer months are found at the bottom of the upper, warm layer of water just above the thermocline, known as the epilimnion. Just FYI, the cold water layer found beneath the thermocline is known as the hypolimnion.

As for the fishing, well, I had a little wrinkle in the fishing plan today — the folks I was supposed to take out had a medical emergency to tend to in San Angelo, so, I took lemons, and made lemonade by doing some scouting on parts of Stillhouse I don’t normally fish this time of year. I love to catch fish on topwater — size and species do not matter if they are hitting on top where I can see them rush the bait and take it. Today, I found loosely schooled bunches of small

(6-8″) white bass and even smaller (5-6″) largemouth. These fish were chasing very small, late-hatch threadfin shad on the surface and thus gave their positions away. I boated a mix of 18 fish, all caught and released to grow and fight another day. This action took place in the first 90 minutes after sunrise. As soon as the topwater action died, I departed.

TALLY = 77 FISH, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 8:40a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 84.5F

Wind: SSE1-2.

Skies: Skies were fair and 205 cloudy.

This blog entry was authored by Bob Maindelle, owner of Holding the Line Guide Service, Belton Lake Fishing Guide and Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide.

The following blog entry appears in the form of a report to those who support the Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (S.K.I.F.F.) program which serves to put the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on the water at no charge to their families…

Joseph (L) and Dillan (R) display 2 of the white bass we picked up just seconds apart as our spread of Pet Spoons intercepted some aggressively feeding white bass holding ~26 feet under the surface. That’s Grandpa Brotherton in the middle.

03 September 2012 (Labor Day)

Dear Friends of SKIFF,

Today I fished with brothers Dillan (13) and Joseph (11) Gibson of Kempner, TX. The boys are the sons of the late SSG Theodore Gibson who passed away several years ago during an unsuccessful rescue attempt of eldest son following a boating accident. SSG Gibson was serving with the 1st Cavalry Division at the time he and his son passed away, and was a combat veteran of the Gulf War. The boys are being raised by their maternal grandparents, Bob and Vicky Brotherton. Bob is a Viet Nam era veteran of the 101st Airborne Division.

We were also glad to have Mrs. Sophia Stamas on board today. Sophia is a reporter with KCEN-TV (NBC channel 6 out of Waco) and is responsible for the “Military Matters” segment of each newscast. Her intent today was to feature the existence and scope of the S.K.I.F.F. program. Her report will run today (03 Sept. 2012) during the 5p and 6p news hours.

The boys both arrived with some fishing fundamentals under their belts, including the ability to cast, albeit with closed-face equipment. They quickly adapted to the spinning and casting gear I introduced them to and off we went.

We’ve enjoyed a 3 day streak of SW winds (very favorable) and the fish were ready to feed. We divided our trip into two distinct adventures — the first 3 hours spent in open water in pursuit of white bass, and the last hour spent in shallow cover in pursuit of sunfish for variety’s sake.

We found hungry white bass schools in the vicinity of Area 040/481 and primarily used downriggers to keep our presentations consistently deep enough to attract these fish. Over the 3 hours spent in this area, we boated 25 fish including 24 white bass and 1 largemouth. 21 of these 24 white bass came on modified Pet Spoons, with the remaining 3 taking blade baits cast from a fixed position after we located particularly heavy concentrations of fish as we downrigged and then stopped over top of them to work more thoroughly for them.

Our last hour was spent in the vicinity of Area 1098. We used slipfloats and attempted to finesse sunfish out of heavy, submerged cedar brush. The boys were very accurate with their presentations and were able to place their maggot baits in small holes in the cover and were handsomely rewarded for their efforts — 33 sunfish in less than 60 minutes!!

As we returned to the dock, Mr. Brotherton reported that he and his bride were able to enjoy a peaceful breakfast together as the boys were out with me. We took a few photos at dockside to commemorate the trip and then parted ways.

I thank each one of you for being a part in the engine that drives S.K.I.F.F. Sophia Stamas’ reporting efforts today will no doubt bring some new and much needed attention to our program. Although the number of troops deployed from Ft. Hood to Afghanistan is limited right now, this TV spot will definitely help let folks know we are ready and willing to serve them. Ft. Hood’s population is so transient that even established programs and businesses here have to keep publicity up in order to get recognized and stay recognized by the community. Thank you once again for your ongoing support!!

TALLY = 58 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:05a

Air Temp: 77F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 85.6F

Wind: SSW7-10.

Skies: Cloudless and fair.

The following blog entry appears in the form of a report to those who support the Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (S.K.I.F.F.) program which serves to put the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on the water at no charge to their families…

Mattieu caught 3 sets of “doubles” today (that’s 2 fish at a time on one rod rigged with a tandem rig). These are 2 of our 4 largest white bass.

Ryan proudly displays this pending Lake Record crappie, measuring 14 3/8″ and weighing 1 3/8 lbs. Ryan also boated the first fish of his life earlier this summer while fishing with an uncle near DFW. Hey Kevin Van Dam, look out for this little guy — he’s on the fast track!!

01 September 2012

Dear Friends of SKIFF,

Today I fished with Matthieu Bull, the son of Staff Sergeant Erik and Mrs. Suzanne Bull of Killeen, TX. SSG Bull is on a year-long deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan where he serves in an Army engineer battalion. Matthieu is a brand new 6th grader going to Manor Middle School, and is big brother to 2 younger siblings.

To fill out the boat today, I also welcomed Mr. Al N. and his 5 year old son, Ryan, aboard. Ryan just started Kindergarten at Saegert Elementary School in Killeen. The boys hit it off well and did a great job of helping one another and taking turns catching the fish so all was pretty even by the time the trip had concluded.

Our conditions today were ideal — a moderate SW breeze with wind having just returned to this direction from a NE blow over the past 3-4 days. Traffic was light as folks either traveled this Labor Day weekend, or opted for dove hunting.

Simply put, we got on fish within 10 minutes of our start and stayed on them for 3 hours and 15 minutes straight. By 10:15am we left the fish still biting in order to introduce a bit of variety in advance of Mrs. Bull’s return to the courtesy dock for Matthieu.

70% of our effort today came on the downriggers in an area bounded within Areas 1130/1132/196. We ran twin ‘riggers with tandem rigs, thus putting 4 baits in the water at a given time. We found very willing schools of white bass ranging in size from a half-dozen up to 50+ individual fish in the school. Most of the fish were solid, 3 year old 12.50-13.75″ fish. We used modified Pet Spoons to imitate the small threadfin shad these white bass have been foraging on and caught fish very consistently within 6 feet of bottom. As one boy caught a fish, the other would bring in the downrigger ball, then they’d swap roles and do it all over again. Over the course of 3 1/4 hours, we boated exactly 60 fish, including 2 drum, 1 crappie, and 57 white bass.

Of these 60 fish, 14 of them came in a flurry of action as we e-anchored in the vicinity of a large, active school of white bass which we initially located as we were downrigging for them. We worked these fish over thoroughly with Cicada blade baits and the fish responded well to a hasty retrieve.

As we neared the 4 hour mark, both boys were ready for a change of pace, so, we left the still actively-feeding white bass behind and went shallow to target sunfish using poles and slip floats baited up with maggots. We spent all of 30 minutes or so getting the hang of things in this very delicate style of fishing, and the boys were able to put 6 more fish in the boat fro off of Area 200.

One special note: the crappie that Ryan N. boated will replace the existing Junior Angler Lake Record which has stood since 2009. Ryan’s crappie measured 14 3/8 inches and weighed 1 3/8 pounds on a certified scale. Congratulations, Ryan!!

I thank all of you Friends of SKIFF, and in particular the Austin Fly Fishers for providing opportunities like this for kids whose parents are serving in harm’s way, or have given their lives doing so. I appreciate your efforts.

TALLY = 66 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time: 10:50a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 85.5F

Wind: SSW7-10.

Skies: 40% early morning cloudiness decreasing to 20% cloudiness by trip’s end.

This morning I fished Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with active duty medic Specialist Michael M., originally from the Phoenix, Arizona area.

After years being “bound to the bank”, Mike saved up his pennies and headed “offshore” today. That investment paid off!

Mike was a cop before coming on active duty, and, following this term of enlistment which included a combat tour in Iraq, will return to law enforcement. Most of Mike’s previous fishing experience has been with light or ultralight spinning tackle pursuing trout and panfish in the high elevation lakes in Arizona and near the Stillhouse Marina here in Central, Texas.

Our conditions this morning were “made to order” until around 10am. Until that time we had a SW wind, enough grey cloud cover to completely obscure the sun, and wind speeds at 8-11.

We started off our day pre-sunrise gunning for some largemouth on soft plastics up shallow. Mike wasn’t well-practiced at this, so, there was a bit of a learning curve to get through, but we managed to hook one fish going ~14+ inches which stayed on to within about 5 feet of the boat and then got away on a jump and a head-shake. That bit of action came at Area 433.

One the sun rose (albeit obscured), it was time to focus on the white bass. We probed with downriggers set at 28-29 feet today based on what sonar was revealing and immediately got into a very large and aggressive school of white bass. These fish were within the bounds of Area 1130/1131/1132 and were found scattered from bottom up to 15 feet below the surface. Our first success came seconds after encountering these fish as Mike broke the ice with a double. We e-anchored and began to work slabs (TNT180’s in 3/4 oz) through these fish both vertically and horizontally and did consistently well. Over the next 2 full hours we downrigged very briefly to find fish and then e-anchored to exploit what we’d found. We determined that the 1/2 Cicada bladebait performed better than the slabs today (for whatever reason!?!) and worked these in a lift-drop motion putting a grand total of 55 fish in the boat including 1 drum, 1 largemouth bass, and 53 white bass. We only had 3 fish that didn’t make 10 inches, and all the rest were 12-14+ inches.

By 10am the winds cranked up two notches to around 17mph, still from the SW, and boat control became an issue. This wind increase coincided with a drop in the fish action; from 10 to 10:45 we only picked up 6 of our 55 fish. At this point, we decided to take one final poke at largemouth bass on soft plastics. We headed to Area 469 to escape the high wind, and Mike pulled a solid 1 7/8 pound largemouth off a gravel point here on a Zoom worm. We made attempts at two other areas, but they were heavily wind-impacted and line and boat control were just a bit much for someone new at fishing soft plastics. So, we called it a day right at noon and headed on in.

TALLY = 56 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 12:05p

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 83.7F

Wind: SSW10-18.

Skies: Skies were 70% cloudy and overcast.

This blog entry was authored by Bob Maindelle, owner of Holding the Line Guide Service, Belton Lake Fishing Guide and Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide.

This morning I fished on Belton Lake with Javier K. and his 3 sons, Javi, Miguel, and Gabe, ages 17, 15, and 13, respectively.

The Kane boys all celebrate the second keeper hybrid striped bass that we boated today. From L to R that’s Javier, Gabe, Miguel, and Javi.

Javier is a pediatric oncologist at the new Scott & White Children’s Hospital and is a new arrival here in Central Texas, having previously worked at St. Jude’s in Memphis,TN. When Javier first contacted me, he simply wanted to give his boys a good introduction to fishing in Central Texas. We chose Belton over Stillhouse for this trip as Belton has offered more variety.

Indeed, over the course of this trip we caught fish via topwater, downrigging, vertical jigging, and on live shad with a special “sunfish demo” thrown in for good measure at trip’s end.

I was immediately impressed that Javier really loves his sons and that his sons love their dad. The way they spoke to one another, recalled good times shared in one another’s company, and were considerate of one another all pointed to a very tight knit family. That was good to see.

As the sun rose, partially obscured by some low clouds to the ENE, we encountered about 15 minutes of moderate topwater action by white bass and short hybrid striped bass. This action occured in the vicinity of Area 1019/133. The bait these fish were feeding on was small, so the gamefish did not make a big commotion on the surface trying to capture these forage fish. Due to the chop on the surface, the action was difficult to see from any distance away. Despite the presence of ~6 other boats nearby, we were able to fish for these schooling fish relatively undisturbed. By the time everything was over, we had boated 14 fish.

We remained in this area, searching with sonar to follow these fish back out to deeper water, and used slabs to target them when we encountered them. We had but one successful encounter at Area 1129. We saw these fish on sonar, got our slabs down to them and quickly boated an addtional 5 fish before these fish moved on and broke contact.

Things got a little tough at this point — we headed to Area 214/905 and worked the downriggers with mid-sized modified Pet Spoons fished tandem on the downriggers. We boated our first keeper hybrid, a crappie, and several white bass in this area before deciding to try elsewhere.

We headed to within the bounds of Area 369/382/788 and, upon arrival, spotted some mid-morning topwater action that actually stayed on top for more than a nano-second. We manuevered to within casting distance and fired away with Cork Rigs, boating another 6 white bass before the school sounded for good, however, these fish had shown their hand and we now knew they were in the vicinity. So, we used a search technique with twin downriggers deployed to try to locate the “spot on the spot” and added white bass to our tally steadily as we worked this area over. Several times, upon seeing heavy congregations of fish on the bottom, we stopped to vertically jig, but the fish did not respond well to that approach today. Observing this, I placed the boys all on one side using slabs and hung live baits on the other side. The live baits caught fish, but, for better or worse, these fish all had whiskers — blue cat and channel cat! Time to move…

We headed back to Area 214/905 and once again ran downriggers at around 28′. We immediately hooked and lost a keeper hybrid, then hooked and boated another. We thought we were on to something, but, our final 40 minutes worth of passes yielded only small white bass on the downriggers. We had now boated a total of 49 fish for our efforts and decided to head in.

Knowing that this family does not have a boat and that they live in Salado (and spend some time on the golf course there), I took some extra time to show them a “sure-fire” way to consistently catch sunfish wherever they swim (Belton, Stillhouse, golf course pond, Salado Creek, or anywhere else). We baited up a slipfloat rig with maggots and went to work on a nearby sunfish population. We landed 11 bluegill and blacktail shiners in no time flat, giving each of the boys a couple tries at the technique so they could replicate it on their own and then sent them on their way following this, their last “big event” before the start of the school year.

TALLY = 51 FISH, all caught and released.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:55a

End Time: 12:15p

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 83.7F

Wind: SSE 5-8.

Skies: Skies were bluebird and clear.

This blog entry was authored by Bob Maindelle, owner of Holding the Line Guide Service, Belton Lake Fishing Guide and Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide .

This morning I welcomed back two long time clients — father and daughter Jim and Shena S. of Cedar Park, TX.

Persistence paid off. We worked for every one of the 42 fish we boated on this post-frontal fishing trip.

Today we launched in the wake of an unusual August cold front which came in wet on Saturday and left clear, cooled skies and a NE breeze in its rearview mirror today. You may know the old fishing truism:

Winds from the West, fish bite best.

Winds from the East, fish bite least.

Winds from the South, blows the hook in the fish’s mouth.

Winds from the North, the fisherman goes not forth.

Without fail, when I recite this verse, people then ask “Why is that?” This is where some speculation is called for. Jim, a learned fellow, threw his hat in the ring voting for “witchcraft voodoo” being the driving force behind this. I’m an analytical type, so, I voted for barometric pressure being the culprit. Shena, a pragmatist, just said, “It is what it is!” and kept right on catching fish.

As long has men have correlated fishing success and weather, a negative correlation has been made to the north wind, and with good reason. But, not all north winds are created equal — dry north winds still allow for fish to be caught, whereas wet north winds make for great days to stay home, tie flies, and do boat maintenance!

Today we had a dry north wind, and, given Jim and Shena’s tight schedules and fairly rare opportunities to fish together given their responsibilities, we decided to make a go of it.

I was very pleased — surprised, really — when, not 2 minutes after our downriggers were set (literally) we’d boated 3 fish. I thought my concerns about the north wind were for naught, but, as we were to discover, the fishing got tougher as the morning went on.

We focused our efforts on Area 1127/1128. We started the day catching here, and, despite looking elsewhere (actually, many elsewheres!) we kept returning to this area as it had fish, bait, and was consistently producing, albeit reluctantly.

I half jokingly told Jim and Shena that finding fish and having them not bite is in many ways worse than not finding fish at all. When you don’t find fish, there is always the possibility that you can press on, check more areas with sonar, and find fish. But, when you find fish and they don’t bite, all you can do is hope; and hope doesn’t impress the fish much in my experience.

Right around 11am the wind, which had almost died to calm, picked up suddenly to NE8-9 again. Almost instantly we saw 3-4 wolfpacks of largemouth begin to blitz bait on the surface, but this was very short-lived. We redoubled our efforts on the downriggers and did experience an uptick in our catch, but it was far from gangbusters.

Well, all this said, we downrigged for 27 white bass and 2 drum using tandem rigged and doctored Pet Spoons. On several occasions we encountered loosely schooled fish holding on or near bottom and worked these fish over with TNT slabs. Shena was the slab-master on this day, landing 2 more white bass in this manner (which is a depressed result in and of itself), for a total take of 31 fish.

By 12:15 I let Jim and Shena know that we’d likely see a plateau in the action, as they had mentioned doing a “refresher” on sunfishing so that son/grandson James could be coached a bit better on this technique when the two returned home. So, for our last 45 minutes or so we headed to Area 200 and baited up with maggots and managed to put a variety of sunfish (greens, bluegills, and longears) in the boat, adding 11 more fish to our count, and finishing up the day with a tally of 42 fish boated.

Along the way, we enjoyed one another’s company and good conversation ranging from surgical procedures for the supraspinatus, to great recipes on the Six Sisters Stuff website, and from Miss Norma’s stalwart watch over Jim’s Christian character to young James’ upcoming school year and everything in between. Good stuff (except that darned witchcraft voodoo)!!

TALLY = 42 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 12:45a

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 83.7F

Wind: NE7.

Skies: Skies were bluebird and clear.

This morning I welcomed Pathom and Tammy T. aboard for what would be a rain-shortened Saturday fishing excursion.

Pathom and Tammy with the four largest white bass we caught before the rains came.

Pathom and Tammy have been in the Central Texas area for less than a year now. Pathom serves as a physician on the medical staff at Darnall Army Medical Center on Ft. Hood and Tammy is a registered nurse enjoying some down time from nursing at present. Pathom brought quite a variety of fishing experiences to the table — from angling on Lake Okeechobee in Florida, up the East Coast to Currituck Sound, over to the Great Lakes, and now here on Stillhouse.

As we got going I explained the fundamentals of summertime fishing on reservoirs — mainly concerning appreciating how the water stratifies by temperature, with most of the “life” found above the thermocline. We got immediately down to downrigging and never did anything but that during the two hours of fishing we got in before the storms moved in on the lead edge of a rare summer cold front.

During this time we found fish in “wolfpacks” of 4-6 fish each showing up suspended at 1 to 6 feet off bottom generally in the vicinity of Area 658/1115. The fish were in a neutral mood, neither aggressively chasing after bait, nor completely shut down and inactive. No surface feeding, bird activity, nor bait schools were seen the entire morning.

We used modified Pet Spoons on a tandem rig and, over the two hours we fished, boated 12 white bass, 1 drum, and 1 largemouth bass.

At exactly 8:45 the first bolt of lightning could be seen out to the west as rain enveloped that portion of the lake near the Cedar Gap Park and the long bridge. We had about 10 minutes to run for cover and made it back to the dock in time to take shelter and watch the storm roll in. Weather radar revealed a “training” effect where storm after storm developed out near Lampasas and headed eastward right down Highway 190 and towards us. We camped out in the marina for 3 hours hoping for a break, but a break never came. By 11:45, with more rain on the way and no breaks in the thunder and lightning, we decided to scrub our plans.

So, the day ended prematurely with the 14 fish we’d boated.

TALLY = 14 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 8:45a

Air Temp: 77F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind: NE7.

Skies: Skies were 100% greyed over with rain falling from 9a to 1p.

This morning I welcomed long-time client Ryan S. of Temple aboard. On Ryan’s last trip his wife, Lacey, landed the current Catch & Release lake record hybrid striper. I wasn’t sure how we could beat that!

Ryan with 1 of 15 hybrid we took on large topwater plugs during a 25 minute feeding spree.

If Ryan is nothing else, he’s persistent. He’s been in this area several years now working through his residency at Scott & White hospital and recently landed a full-time physician’s job there upon concluding his residency. A “toy” in the form of a 22′ NauticStar center console recently found it’s way into his garage, so, he’s really stepped up his efforts on trying to locate fish on his own. For various reasons (which we discussed and worked on resolving) he’d met with little success so far. Today was intended as a confidence booster.

As we got going pre-dawn this morning, we looked for some topwater action but found none in the fairly heavy chop of the SSE wind already blowing 10mph. We did find bait and suspended fish where we’d hoped to see some topwater, so, we took advantage of what we did find, put downriggers to work for us, and came up with 8 fish, all white bass, at Area 014/133, including a double (two fish caught at the same time on the same rod) — always fun!!

We next headed to the vicinity of Area 188 where, after spending a little while fishing with live shad (for 1 blue cat and 1 channel cat), we saw some surface action erupt. We got into the fray pretty quickly and, by the time all was said and done, boated exactly 20 fish here including 15 hybrid and 5 white bass of which ~12 of the hybrid went just-keeper size (it is pretty uncommon to catch many keeper hybrid from off the surface, so we were particularly please with this!). We started off throwing small shad imitators on a Cork Rig, but, when the hybrid smashed the cork instead of the imitator, we knew we had to increase the size of our offering. This stood in stark contrast to the very small fish that our downrigger-caught fish vomited up, and in stark contrast with the preference the fish showed today for smaller shad (at least the few willing to hit live shad). After the topwater action died, we continued to work the area over with slabs using a lift-drop method and Ryan did well on that method.

We next worked in the vicinity of Area 1106 with downriggers to find fish and then with live shad to zero in on them. We caught 1 white bass on the ‘rigger, then e-anchored, then boated 2 keeper hybrid and 1 blue cat on the live shad before things got difficult.

We finally left this area behind and headed to Area 1126. We found abundant, heavily schooled, bottom-oriented white bass here inhabiting the bottom 4 feet of the water column in ~31 feet (just above the thermocline). We literally sat on top of these fish for 2 hours and 45 minutes boating fish non-stop the entire time. The bite was strongest at first, but never stopped over the entire time span. Our best tactic was smoking and lift-dropping 3/4 oz. TNT 180 slabs (silver and white). We decided to stop at exactly 125 fish taken off of this one area. Of these fish, only 1 was a keeper hybrid, and only 4 others were short hybrid; the balance consisted of all white bass ranging from some short 6-7″ fish, up to some nice, beefy 13+ inch fish.

This trip was intended to be a confidence booster. Ryan walked away more confident in his sonar interpretation skills, more confident in solving the location puzzle for summertime fish (above the thermocline!), more confident with a handful of methods for taking these fish from on top, from off the bottom, or suspended in between, and more confident his ability to formulate a fishing plan and know when to stick with it and when to flex.

TALLY = 159 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 2:45p

Air Temp: 80F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 85.6F

Wind: SSE10 at sunrise and increasing to S12 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were 60% cloudy at trip’s start, clearing to fair and cloudless by trip’s end.

This morning I welcomed long-time clients David, Jack, and Jay B. of Temple, TX, aboard, accompanied by their Uncle Chip from Bartlett, TX.

From L to R: Uncle Chip, Jay, David, and Jack with our 4 best white bass, all at or over 14″.

This is the family’s 4th year fishing with me and I always enjoy getting David’s call (always well in advance) letting me know he and the boys are headed my way! Each year the boys’ interest and skills increase.

As the days slowly get shorter moving towards the fall, the white bass slowly coalesce into larger and larger schools. Before we began the pursuit of fish today we practiced what to do if, as we were downrigging, we encountered a large school of white bass. This “drill” really paid off as it allowed us all to know just what our role was on the boat as we worked together to quickly get our lures down to the fish and work them effectively before the fast-moving schools of fish move off. This “battle drill” paid big dividends today as we encountered 3 scenarios while downrigging where this tactic paid off. Instead of going through the learning curve and losing out on the potential to catch fish, we practiced first and scored on the schools we had worked hard to find.

We began our hunt for fish in the vicinity of Area 1112/658 finding suspended white bass in schools of up to 20 fish holding around 23-27 feet in water ranging from 24-32 feet deep. We worked two downriggers with two tandem rigs, each outfitted with modified Pet Spoons matching the size of the forage now most attractive to the white bass. With two men and two boys on board, and great teamwork going on between all four of them, there was scarcely a time when we didn’t have our rods in the water and working for fish. We boated 24 fish in the first 90 minutes of the day in this area after which things slowly began to taper off here, indicating it was time for a move.

As we transitioned to Area 1124 and were slowing down to begin searching this new area with sonar, I spotted a tightly congregated school of white bass holding tightly to the bottom in 27 feet of water. I put the boat in a hover over top of these fish and we got 5 slab spoons (TNT 180’s in 3/4 oz. chrome/white) down and working among them. The first fish — the ice breaker — is always the toughest nut to crack. After that first one is reeled in, the rest of these school turns on, at least for a while, and subsequent fish from the same school are then easier to fool. We boated 11 fish in just minutes here on this “postage stamp”-sized area before things cooled off once again indicating it was once again time to work the downriggers over Area 1123/1122.

And so it was — we downrigged to find fish and worked slabs vertically if and when bottom-oriented concentrations were found. We connected at Areas 1112 and again at Area 197/1102.

By 10:45 things we on the downhill slide. The fish were getting tight-lipped, the wind was calming and the heat was building. We had to do a lot of looking to find any fish at all and those we found were more likely to ignore our offerings than to go for them. By 11:45 it was all over. We ended our day with 66 fish boated and a few more lost. We put 2 drum, 5 largemouth bass, and 59 white bass in the boat today. Of the white bass, only 4 were “throwbacks” at less than 10″; the rest were upwards of 12″, with our best 5 fish all exceeding 14″.

TALLY = 66 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 12:05p

Air Temp: 83F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 87F

Wind: SSW9 at sunrise and tapering to near calm.

Skies: Skies were 50% cloudy at trip’s start, clearing to 20% by trip’s end.