This morning I went white bass fishing on Central Texas’ Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir, near Salado.  This was a family trip with my brother, Andy Maindelle, and my nephew, Trent Maindelle.

New Aggie Trent Maindelle with a low-light white bass taken on a horizontally retrieved bladebait.

My brother, Andy Maindelle, with a mid-morning fish taken on a 3/4 oz slab from out of 34 feet of water.

Trent just successfully completed his first semester at Texas A&M Corpus Christi  — one down, seven to go!  With great conditions for this time of year apparent in the weather forecast, we made some plans to fish until lunch and then drop in on mom for some soup and sandwiches.

The conditions this morning were great as far as grey cloud cover and good water temperatures (high 50’s), but we were lacking in the wind department with just a bit of a ripple on the water most of the morning.

We encountered a solid low-light bite under birds right at sunrise, then kind of picked our way through a slow mid-morning time until, around 10:30, some SE wind developed and the fish put the feedbag on.

In our final 45 minutes on the water we caught a fish per minute, literally, and took our tally from 34 fish up to 80 in no time.  Not only did we catch more fish in these last few minutes than during the remainder of the trip, but the technique we used (easing) was a much more active and aggressive technique than the more lethargic fish of the mid-morning were willing to respond to.

We used both 3/4 and 3/8 oz. slabs this morning to get the job done.  For our efforts today we wound up with 78 white bass and 2 freshwater drum.

The vertical jigging bite won’t get much better than it is right now with the water temperature plateaued in the high 50’s.  If you ever wanted to learn vertical technique and or learn to read sonar while fishing vertically, now is the time to call.  2 or 3 more severe cold fronts will make the fishing much more like work than the easy pickings taking place now.

TALLY = 80 FISH

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  43F

Water Surface Temp:  57.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S6-9

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies with no direct sunlight.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1496/1310 casting with Cicadas for 21

**Area 1499 vertical jigging for 13 fish

**Area 1172 vertical jigging for 46 fish

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide

Belton Lake Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I went white bass fishing on Central Texas’ Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.  This was a scouting trip — something I do in between trips with clients in order to stay abreast of the movements of fish and bait and, this time of year, bird activity which is helpful to solving the fish-finding puzzle.

At mid-morning, as skies lightened and the winds rose, the white bass got more and more active.  This large school of white bass holding tightly together is very typical for wintertime conditions.  This school numbers several hundred fish .

I fished for 3 hours and landed 54 fish from 3 locations, all of which were initially revealed by bird activity.  The fish responded well early on to a horizontal retrieve as I used Cicada bladebaits, and, later, as the action moved deeper, they responded well to a 3/8 oz. slab.

 

TALLY = 54 FISH

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  52F

Water Surface Temp:  57.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE6-10

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies with no direct sunlight,  Some cloud thinning allowed for some brightening at the midpoint of the trip.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1496/1500 casting with Cicadas for 19 fish

**Area 1497 vertical jigging for 6 fish

**Area 362 vertical jigging for 19 fish

**Area 1498 for 10 fish

 

Bob Maindelle

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide

Belton Lake Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I went white bass fishing on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with a trio of fishing buddies from Temple, TX, including MJ Linder, Claude Ross, and Jason Clark. These fellows all first got to know each other as part of the Church of Christ.  MJ runs his own physical therapy business called “Mobility Therapies”, Claude works for the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, and Jason is a U.S. Army vet and former City of Temple fireman who now devotes his time to working with the homeless in Temple.

Claude Ross thumbs our largest white bass of the trip – a 3 year old fish going 14.25 inches.

Jason Clark picked up a bonus largemouth from out of 27 feet while we vertically jigged for white bass.

The 3 amigos with a sampling of our catch, including 2 and 3 year class fish.

We had continued fair conditions today with cloudy skies, balmy temperatures (which have actually caused a net warmup of about a degree on the water’s surface this week), and southerly winds.  The lack of an early, stiff breeze cost us a bit of action today, but we caught fish from start to finish regardless.

As we got going this morning, we found some light bird action in the vicinity of Area 1310/1312.  Although a pair of loons were present and were fueling the gull action, both bait and white bass were present here.  We fished about 45 minutes on these fish and boated 9 white bass and 1 drum on a combination of bladebaits worked horizontally, and slabs worked vertically in ~24-26 feet.

Next, we spotted a flock of about 9 gulls working over open water in the vicinity of Area 1034/338.  As we approached, a small flock of cormorants flushed out of this area, too.  We found fairly active, albeit mostly smaller, white bass spread along the bottom over a roughly 80 yard patch of water and made 3 “short hops” fishing where I found small packs of these fish more heavily congregated.  We boated a total of 12 fish from this location and moved on.

Next, I spotted 3 gulls working over an area triangulated by Areas 1493/1266/988.  This area is where we spent a majority of our time, and where we caught our best quality fish — most going right at 13 inches, plus a nice “bonus” largemouth for Jason.  We vertically jigged here and added 24 fish to our tally, taking our total up to 46 fish before the action tapered to zero.

I searched a few deep, open water areas as the winds picked up to 10-11 mph, but, that was too little, too late.  It seems these deep areas only get truly active with a good, stiff 13-15 mph breeze.

We picked up a few fish to the NW of Area 074 including 3 small white bass and 1 drum.  We wrapped up the day on top of Area 1492, putting a final 19 fish in the boat from out of 25 feet of water near the old Lampasas River channel.  These fish were also mainly small or barely keeper sized fish, but among the most aggressive we encountered all day.  Although it was late in the morning, these fish responded to the sudden brightening of the skies as the sun began to break through for the first time all day, and as the winds finally ramped up strongly enough to create some whitecaps (13-14mph).

We ended up the day with 1 largemouth bass, 3 drum, and 65 white bass in the 0, 1, 2, and 3 year classes.

 

TALLY = 69 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  12:40p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  64F

Water Surface Temp:  58.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S4-5 at trip’s start, staying around S7-8 most of the trip, then increasing to S13-14 in the last hour.

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies with no direct sunlight.

Other: GT=20

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1310/1312 = 10 fish (BA=8G, 2L)

**Area 1034/338 = 12 fish (BA=8G,10C)

**Area  1493/1266/988 spot-hopped several times within the bounds of this area for a total of 24 fish

**Area 074 boated 4 fish

**Area 1492 boated 19 fish

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide

Belton Lake Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I fished on Belton Lake with long-time friends Mike Hoock of Morgan’s Point, TX, and Harold Snipes, who calls the road his home, and has ever since retiring (the second time).  Harold continuously tours the nation in his motorhome.

Mike put the steel to this largemouth that raced off bottom over 20′ to nab his 3/4 oz. slab.

Harold shows one of the several white bass & hybrid we caught today — mostly scattered and lethargic.

Mike and Harold first met while serving in the same organization caller S.O.W.E.R. which stand for Servants On Wheels Ever-Ready.  This is a non-denominational, non-profit, evangelical organization of RV-owners who go where help is needed to repair, replace, remodel, refurbish, and do anything else that needs doing at churches, camps, conference grounds, orphanages, schools, colleges, missionary retreat centers, missionary training facilities, refuges for neglected or abused children, recovery homes for adults, and the like.

I have to say the company I had today was much better than the fishing.  Despite extending our time on the water and fishing essentially a trip-and-a-half, we still just didn’t pull a whole lot of fish over the side today.  The fish were very deep, very scattered, and generally turned off.  We really just kind of pecked at them today, finding fish on sonar, buoying them, catching 1 or 2, only to have any schoolmates that may have shown themselves on sonar just drift off without engaging.

I heard from a fellow guide who was using live bait that he encountered essentially the same thing.

By the time we’d put in 6 hours on the water, we finished up with just 17 fish today including 1 largemouth bass, 1 blue cat, 3 white bass, and 12 hybrid striped bass.

 

TALLY = 17 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  1:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  42F

Water Surface Temp:  57.8-58.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S8 at sunrise until around 10:30, then shifting sharply to SW13-15.

Sky Conditions: 60-70% clouds.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1467 – a few loosely grouped fish

**Area  1488 – a few loosely grouped fish

**Area 1341 – a few loosely grouped fish

**Area 1374 – a few loosely grouped fish

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I fished on Belton Lake with Israel Garcia and his wife, Mari.  I normally wouldn’t fish on Thanksgiving, but, this couple seemed really nice and, when weather forced a postponement of our originally scheduled date last Saturday due to rain, we agreed to make a second attempt today.

Mari Garcia with a nice fish jigged up from 44 feet of water.

Israel Garcia with a twin to his wife’s fish caught just minutes after hers came over the side.

Both Israel and Mari, who have been married for 7 years now, work full time jobs, so their options for fishing are limited to weekends and holidays.  Given that the water temperatures have fallen into the high 50’s now, I didn’t want to take a chance on one or more major cold fronts pushing temperatures down further, so we got out as soon as we could.

Israel was as interested in understanding why we were pursuing fish as we did as he was in catching fish.  If you’ve fished with me, you know I enjoy coaching/teaching, so, as opportunities allowed, I was sure to point out all I could to Israel today and answer all of his questions the best I could.

Despite fairly light NE winds that nearly diminished in our last 90 minutes on the water, we did pretty well, although much of our catch consisted of smaller fish today.

The approach was, without exception, the same at all 5 areas where we contacted fish.  First, I ran sonar very thoroughly over suspected fish-holding terrain, buoyed fish when we found them, hovered over them using i-Pilot technology, and then tried to lure fish in from a distance using a flashy “smoking” technique.  Typically, the most active fish would respond within a few minutes allowing us to catch several fish quickly, then, we “mopped up” on the more lethargic fish using a vertical jigging tactic.  We used Redneck Fish’n Jigs model 180 slabs in silver/white and silver/chartreuse interchangeably today.

I smiled when Mari commented to the effect that, by the time our 20th fish came over the side, she and Israel had already caught on this morning’s trip more fish than they had in all of their previous fishing trips combined.

When all was said and done, we boated 39 fish today including a mix of hybrid striped bass and white bass.

TALLY = 39 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  39F

Water Surface Temp:  58.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNE11 at sunrise and through 10:20a, then shifting to the NE and dropping off to 5-6mph

Sky Conditions: Cloudless bluebird sky.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1469 early with 2 spot hops

**Area  1486 thru 1485 mid-morning with 2 spot hops

**Area 1491 late

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I fished on Belton Lake with Steve Niemeier of Temple, TX, his grandson, Caleb Fowler, and his great nephew, Tevin Gilmore.

Caleb Fowler with a deepwater smallmouth bass taken after noon today.

Tevin Gilmore with a deepwater largemouth bass taken just minutes after we boated Caleb’s smallie.

“The Team” worked together for a 30+ fish day resulting in cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes for all.

 

Long story short, I expected a better day than we had this morning.  Although the winds got off to a sluggish start, once they picked up, they came from a typically productive direction (SW, W, and WNW) and at a manageable speed (12-15mph), but the fish just never really turned on real strong for us today.  I noted that the few other anglers out chasing whites and hybrids were moving from place to place frequently, as well, indicating they were struggling, as well.

We caught no fish before the winds began.  As soon as a SW breeze picked up, the bite began, allowing us 2 fish at Area 1490.  After the wind had worked on the water for about 20 minutes, I moved us to what I felt, based on the past few trips’ results, would be the most productive area.  We found biting fish here at Area 1485/1487 in ~45 feet of water,  and caught 16 fish, but once the bite died after about 30 minutes, we could not find solid fish or bait elsewhere for quite some time.

Around 10:35-10:55am, I spotted 2 gulls and a flock of cormorants flying, 6 deer feeding, and a few crows moving about, all of which is unusual for this late in the morning.  I felt that perhaps a feeding window was about to open, so, we stuck with our pursuit, and, finally, around noon, got into another school of fish.  This time, we encountered a mixed bag of white bass, short hybrid stripers, largemouth and smallmouth all bunched up together in 49 feet of water at Area 1491.

As often happens on a late morning bite, these fish got excited for a while, but then turned off fairly quickly and the bite died.

To keep the boys engaged, Steve opened the bidding this morning offering a cheeseburger at a restaurant of the winner’s choice to whichever boy caught the first fish.  Once that milestone had been surpassed, the boys took it upon themselves to up the ante.  Caleb chimed in first, making a new “rule” that whoever got to 10 first would get fries, then Tevin voted to change that to a shake, and so it went.  Wisely, Steve, by executive order (those are popular lately), declared that if the “team” got to 30, the “team” would go get cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes.   Now, we were competing against the fish and not one another.

We stayed hard on it until we had cleared the 30 mark by 2 and then called it a day having had to work for each of the fish we caught this morning.

 

TALLY = 32 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  12:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  39F

Water Surface Temp:  59.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE3-4 at sunrise, turning quickly from the SSW and ramping up to 11mph by 8:30a, then shifting steadily through the W to NW at 13-15 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: Cloudless bluebird sky.

Other: GT=55

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1489 early

**Area  1383 mid-morning

**Area 1487 mid-morning

**Area 1488 late

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning, 21 Nov., I welcomed aboard Anthony Vaughters of Killeen, and his mother and brother, Velvet and Karon Vaughters, both of Connecticut. Velvet and Karon are visiting for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Anthony landed our largest fish of the trip this morning, a nice 21″, 4.00 pound hybrid.  That’s his proud mama, Velvet, looking on.

Karon got the hang of smoking early and steadily caught fish throughout our trip this morning.  This was the second of our two legal hybrid, going right at 19″.

Anthony is the owner of Kids’ X-pression Child Care in Killeen, near Killeen High School.  I first met him early this past summer when his girlfriend bought him a fishing gift certificate because, according to her,  “he works all the time and needs a break”.  We had a good day catching hybrid on live shad at that time.  Karon had never fished from a boat before, and Velvet was just along for the ride and did not fish, so, we had 2 rods going, plus my own rod on occasion.

Now that the water has cooled, the fish are much deeper and vertical jigging is the ticket.  Unfortunately, we were greeted this morning with a thick fog — so thick in fact that I pushed our launch time back 30 minutes.  Foggy conditions don’t allow for a “normal” sunrise and brightening of the sky and deep water, and generally puts a damper on the fishing.

A number of times today we searched for and found fish, only to catch just a few out of the much larger schools of fish they came from.  Usually, once the most active fish are caught with a smoking retrieve, we can “mop up” with a standard vertical jigging tactic, but even that was not well accepted by the fish today.

So, we simply worked hard, covered ground, and slowly but surely put together a decent catch of 39 fish, including 2 nice hybrid of legal size and many more “short” hybrid and white bass.  The fish we caught were primarily the minority of fish that were willing to give chase to our slabs presented in a “smoking” style from amongst a generally disinterested majority.  I noted that the Redneck Fish’n Jigs 180 in silver halo and white did a bit better than the all-silver halo color today.

It was interesting to note that none of our fish regurgitated shad and that the two legal hybrid we boated both had concave bellies, indicating the fish population has not fed heavily very recently.

A little inside joke:  If you ever see Mrs. Velvet, just ask her about “jiggly” — you’ll be sure to get a smile!

 

TALLY = 39 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time:  1:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  61F

Water Surface Temp:  60F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE7-10

Sky Conditions: 100% clouded, grey skies with fog for first 2 hours

Other: GT=30;

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   1290/1325 early

**Area  1485-1486 all along this breakline from when the fog lifted to trip’s end

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This morning I fished with Dr. John Updike of Austin on Decker Lake (a.k.a. Walter E. Long Reservoir).

In the face of the season’s strongest cold front to date, John still managed to put 4 nice hybrid stripers in the boat.  These fish were suspended at around 20′ beneath large schools of small shad suspended at 15-20 feet.

Amongst the shad and hybrid, this largemouth also decided to join in for an easy meal of small baitfish.

John contacted me by phone about a week and a half ago.  He retired from a career in dentistry back in January and now wants to devote some time to fishing.  Because Decker Lake is a convenient drive for him, we wanted to get a good overview on what it takes to catch white bass and hybrid stripers in that body of water.  He emphasized that the learning, not the catching, was most important to him.  If we landed a few fish, he’d consider that “icing on the cake”.

With this in mind, I came prepared to demonstrate, if not employ, the five most common tactics I use throughout the year in pursuit of these two members of the the temperate bass family:  live shad, downrigging, vertical jigging, smoking, and the use of blade baits.  I also planned to provide clear guidance on the use and interpretation of sonar.

I had really hoped to catch the tail end of the west wind before it ramped up and transitioned to NNW, as that can offer some of the best fishing in this fall season.  The NOAA forecast actually showed we might have 2.5-3 hours worth of a chance at this as of the 3:00am forecast, but, no sooner did we launch and begin heading to our first area, then the wind shifted suddenly, almost violently, to the NNW and the temperature immediately begin to drop.  Our job just got much, much tougher.

We started off by throwing bladebaits in 15-20 feet of water after marking a single school of white bass, but, by the time we got positioned, they moved on.  We then tried live shad for about 30 minutes near this same area after marking fish on sonar holding at the base of a drop.  This did not produce, either.  Then, after observing 2 gulls working over open water over one of the cove mouths, we employed the downriggers to allow us to cover some water and see if these gulls were on to something.  This, too, failed to produce.

I left this area behind and headed out to check a deep-water area between two main lake points.  As we neared the area I hoped to search, I saw several swirls of feeding fish in the very heavy waves now on the water, and suspected these were white bass or short hybrids.  As I slowed down to inspect, sonar revealed heavy concentrations of small shad “balled up” about 15-20 feet beneath the surface, and, on occasion, beneath these balls, were the unmistakable sonar signatures of hybrid striped bass.  “Balled up” shad are in a defensive posture and are being threatened by something.  Whenever I see bait so regularly and tightly balled up, I slow way down an really look for the root cause, which is typically threatening gamefish of some sort.  We once again deployed the downriggers into this action and drew a near-instant response.

Using a pair of tandem rigs, each equipped with twin Pet Spoons, we placed the downrigger balls at 18 feet over the hybrid holding at 20-21 feet.  We scored 3 hybrid, followed by a largemouth, then another hybrid, all in about 45 minutes’ time.

As the wind got harder, the waves taller, and the temperatures colder, we decided to call it a day a bit early this go-round.  Before we wrapped up, though, we sought out a shallower, wind-protected area where I could do a hands-on demonstration with John showing him how both the smoking technique and the vertical jigging (or “slabbing”) techniques are correctly used.

We headed back in for around 10:15am and had quite the experience trying to get tied to the dock in a 20+ mph crosswind (think aircraft carrier landing in heavy seas), but, we managed, and by 10:30, John was warming his hands up in his truck, now a good bit wiser about the pursuit of these species on his “home lake”.

TALLY = 5 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time:  10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  54F (dropping to 46F over the ~4 hour span of our trip.

Water Surface Temp:  66-67F

Wind Speed & Direction:  W5 at 6:20a, shifting and increasing suddenly to NNW18-20 by 6:40a and staying at NNW17-20 for the duration of our trip.

Sky Conditions: 100% clouded, grey skies

Other: GT=50

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1470 through 1480 through 1481 through 1477

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This morning I fished with Tony Bagliore, owner of Bagliore Concrete, on our fifth trip together on Belton Lake this year.

Tony Bagliore with a just-legal hybrid taken from 39 feet of water on slabs as a approaching dry cold front brought westerly winds and good fishing today.

As the season progressed from spring through summer and now into fall, I introduced Tony to the particulars of live shad fishing (spring) and downrigging (early summer).  This morning’s weather offered an excellent opportunity for yet another introduction, this time to multiple vertical techniques, including easing, jigging, and smoking.

Tony is a rare sort in that he is a middle-aged man who is still both eager to learn AND willing to be coached.  Many middle-aged men think they are eager to learn, but are not willing to be coached and so never really actually learn (and then you have those that don’t want to learn or be coached — they usually get their fish at Red Lobster!).  Anyway, this trip was originally scheduled for next Friday, but when I saw near-perfect weather conditions forecast less than 24 hours out, I suggested to Tony that we bump the trip up.  Here again, instead of stubbornly sticking with “the plan”, he took his guide’s advice and benefited from it.

As we got going this morning, a mild, dry cold front was due to make its way into central Texas during the morning hours.  We kind of “piddled” around for the first 30 minutes targeting some suspended fish with downriggers waiting for the skies to brighten and the wind to build.  The only reason we didn’t start a bit later is because I had hoped some birds (terns and gulls) might have shown up with this week’s mid-week cold front, and such birds often begin working at first light.  No birds yet, so, we downrigged, missing one fish on a tandem-rigged Pet Spoon setup trolled at 38 feet along a breakline between Area 511 and 1304.

By 7:15 I judged the clear skies to be bright enough for the deepwater bite I suspected would be turned on today to crank up.  We headed out to graph our first area with sonar and were fortunate enough to find deep, concentrated fish on our first sonar pass.  We buoyed these fish, set up on top of them with Spot Lock and went to work.  We spent 3 hours on these fish, putting 53 in the boat, consisting of hybrid of all sizes up to 18″ and white bass of all sizes up to 13.25″.  Over the course of our time spent over these fish, we used a smoking retrieve (primarily), an easing technique, and a jigging technique, all with TNT180 slabs in both 3/4 and 3/8 oz., and in both white and silver.  The 3/4 oz. bait edged out the smaller version, and white and silver performed just about equally.

As the action at this first area began to decline (indicated by fish no longer responding to a smoking retrieve when they previously did so) we spent a few minutes searching elsewhere for more fish in a similar scenario (deep water on a bottom feature being wind-impacted).  We found more fish almost immediately, and spent our final 30 minutes atop an aggressive school of fish that contributed another 23 fish to the count in short order.  Mrs. B. gave us an 11:00am curfew so as to be on time for a wedding this afternoon, so, we “left ’em biting” at 10:45 and headed back in.

I enjoy all of my trips with all of my clients, but I particularly enjoy fishing with more advanced anglers because with the “basics” already under their belts, we are able to take full advantage of the opportunities the fish present.  Such was the case with Tony.  Although we both missed a few fish, we just about maximized the potential we had before us today.

One thing I did specifically to help Tony improve his own efforts when fishing from his own boat was to configure my sonar and position the two of us in the boat in a way he could replicate with his boat, trolling motor, and sonar setup.  This placed us both in full view of my console-mounted sonar unit and allowed us both to observe our baits and the fishes’ reaction to them nearly 100% of the time.  A lot of learning takes place by simply observing the sonar screen for an extended period of time.

For our efforts today, we boated exactly 76 fish, including 3 drum, 4 legal hybrid striper, and a mixed bag of 69 legal and short white bass and short hybrid striped bass.

 

TALLY = 76 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  10:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  48F

Water Surface Temp:  68.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  W7 at sunrise, slowing tapering up to NW14 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: 10% clouds on a bluebird sky.

Other: GT=80

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   551/1304 downrigging early

**Area  1325 (53 fish over ~3 hours)

**Area 1468 (23 fish over 0.5 hours)

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com