This morning I fished Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with Jon Ashby of Abilene, TX, and his 8-year-old grandson, Christian, of Colorado City, TX.  The two “road tripped” in last night, found a nice local hotel with a pool to relax in, grabbed a burger at the marina where we were to meet this morning, and were up bright and early to come out and catch some fish.

Jon Ashby and his grandson, Christian, brought in a boat-load of white bass today on both downriggers and slabs.

Jon is a professor at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, home of “The Cowboys” where he teaches on the subject of audiology, among other things.  He also owns his own audiology practice there.

Fortunately, Stillhouse continued to produce very well under the current stable weather conditions we are enjoying.  We caught fish from less than 10 minutes into the trip and kept catching fish right up until minutes before putting the boat back on the trailer.

As we got going this morning we encountered a loosely schooled congregation of white bass in the same vicinity that multiple, massive schools of small shad were found in.  We used one 3-armed umbrella rig and a tandem rig to present 5 baits at one time right at the depth the white bass were using.  Pass after pass yielded anywhere from 1 to 4 fish per pass for the first 2.5 hours of our trip.

Just as that school begin to disperse and lose interest, we spotted some surface activity that led us to even more white bass action.  This time the fish were in the lower third of the water column and tightly schooled enough to allow for a vertical jigging approach to be used.  We broke out the spinning gear with 3/4 oz. TNT180 slabs and went to work.  The fish bit aggressively for the first hour, then continued to bite, albeit with less enthusiasm in the final 45 minutes or so of our trip.

Since Christian has a small body of water near his home, I was sure to show him how to use a pole and line to catch sunfish from the shore by doing a little “sunfish demo” near the boat ramp as we wrapped up our trip.

By 10:30 the fish action was waning and the sweat was starting to pour, so, we called it a great morning and turned our thoughts toward lunch and air conditioning.  We boated 51 white bass  and 1 sunfish.

TALLY = 52 FISH

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30am

End Time:  10:30am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  76F

Water Surface Temp:  85.5F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE7-8 increasing and shifting to SSW10-12 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions:  Cloudless, fair skies

Other: GT=20

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1245-258 Downrigging for white bass

**Area  856-868  Smoking for white bass

**Area 200 Sunfish

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

This morning I fished Belton Lake with father-in-law/son-in-law team Robert Woods and Warren Mellin, both originally from Maryland, and now living in Copperas Cove, TX.

Warren played his hand right even though he was new at using circle hooks with live bait.  When the rod when down, he eased the rod out of the holder and just started reeling nice and easy, allowing the circle hook to find a place to catch.  The result was this nice deep-water largemouth.

Robert and Warren’s primary fishing experience was on the Chesapeake Bay complex pursuing striped bass (locally called “rockfish”) mainly via trolling in saltwater.  When Warren got orders to go from Germany to Ft. Hood following a tour to Afghanistan in between, life got busy with family, a new baby, military requirements to make rank, and more, so fishing has taken a back set.  When their baby came along, Robert made the move to Texas to be near her and is now re-established in Texas, but has also found limited time to fish.  The two had limited success pursuing catfish in the Lampasas River near Lampasas, TX.

Today, all the conditions seemed right — a new moon, stable weather, winds with a southerly component and at a manageable speed, but the fishing was really off.  We stayed at it for a full 6+ hours (on a 4 hour trip) putting together the catch of 11 fish that we ended up with.  In the low-light period just before and to 90 minutes after sunrise, we found abundant schools of white bass in ~30 feet of water, but, despite both downrigging very accurately through them and vertically jigging right amongst them, came up with precious little.  We also hung some bait to try to up the ante a bit, but even that did not produce well.

I spoke to fishing buddy Tony B. who was out today until around 11:30a.  His results downrigging and jigging were also very soft.  I also spoke to a number of outgoing anglers at the boat ramp, and their results were poor, also.  We only spotted a single school of topwater feeding fish appearing for just seconds all morning.  Other anglers I spoke with reported no topwater.  From the looks of the fishing boats zigzagging every which way in the first 2 hours of the day, it appeared no one was finding fish and that everyone was in search mode.

We boated 8 white bass, 1 largemouth bass, and 2 blue catfish

TALLY = 11 FISH

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:20am

End Time:  12:30pm

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  76F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE10-12

Sky Conditions:  Hazy skies with less than 10% cloud cover.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1186-903 Downrigging for white bass

**Area  1413  Smoking for white bass

**Area 1410 Live bait for bluecat

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

I received a call from Rod Seaver this morning.  He was looking for a Six Flags alternative and decided to give me a try.  I described to him what I anticipated the fishery would do this evening and he was interested.  Long story short, he booked a trip on short notice, brought his 12 year old son, Owen, out, accompanied by Owen’s buddy, 12 year old Landon Mulcahy.  The whole gang is from Lampasas, TX.

Largemouth ruled the top…

And white bass reigned on bottom.

Before we set out in search of fish, I made sure all of the spinning rods I have dedicated to the “smoking” technique used with slabs had the handle on the correct side for everyone, and we then rehearsed what to do if we encountered a big school of white bass, as I had a feeling we’d run into some big schools of white bass as we downrigged this evening, based on what I saw on sonar during last night’s trip with some other youngsters.

Well, that worked out perfectly because, as I was barreling our way to where I thought the fish would be located tonight, something caught my eye.  I saw a tern dive over open water.  I watched the area where it dove and saw splashes coming up off the fairly calm surface.  Those splashes were being made by largemouth bass pursuing shad at the surface.  I pulled a hard turn and headed toward the action, just idling into the area as I got closer to where I’d mentally marked the activity.  As I did, the screen absolutely light up with hundreds of white bass schooled together tightly, suspended over open water and feeding on shad.

We put the “smoking” lesson we’d just practiced to immediate use and landed fish non-stop for 2 hours, putting 84 fish in the boat before things began to ease off.  The boys were working the slabs non-stop, and Rod was splitting his time between catching white bass down low and largemouth on the surface.

After the strong bite ended at around 6:30pm, we then spent the remainder of our time downrigging in pursuit of a 100 fish day.  It took us about another 1.25 hours to meet this goal, but we did it and then some, putting exactly 102 fish in the boat for our efforts tonight including 6 largemouth bass, 2 freshwater drum, and 94 white bass, mostly in the 2-year old class, going right at 12.5 inches.

The following 3 phrases came out of the mouths of these 12 year olds:  “Dad, this is way better than Six Flags!”, “I’d rather watch this downrigger rod than watch TV.”, and “I’d rather do this than play X-Box.”    Those are truly compliments in this day and age!!

Rod, who is recovering from rotator cuff surgery, was about done as we hit the 100 fish mark, so, at that point he called an early end to our adventure and got the boys’ mouths watering by promising to hit a chicken joint on the way home.

TALLY = 102 FISH

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30pm

End Time:  7:45pm

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  93F

Water Surface Temp:  86F

Wind Speed & Direction:  ENE4-6

Sky Conditions:  Hazy skies with 40% cloud cover.

Other: GT=45

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1031/1415 Smoking & Downrigging for white bass, topwater largemouth

**Area  1417 Downrigging for white bass

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This morning I conducted the 14th SKIFF trip of the 2014 season by welcoming aboard 10-year-old Kyla Harding and her mom, Liz.  SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S.  All it takes is a phone call from a parent to me at 254-368-7411 to reserve a date.

Kyla and her mom, Liz, enjoyed a cool, peaceful July morning of fishing while dad and husband, SGT David Harding, serves in the U.S. Army away from home in Maryland.

A pretty girl with a pretty fish!

Kyla is the daughter of U.S. Army Sergeant David Harding, and his wife, Liz Harding.  Kyla is now nearly 11 years old and, as a result of his military service which has included combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and unaccompanied tours to South Korea, SGT Harding has only been living under the same roof for 4 of those 11 years.  Over the past 2 years he’s only been able to see his family for a total of 3 weeks, thanks to an unaccompanied tour to Korea, followed by an assignment to a post in Maryland.

Kyla is a pleasant, inquisitive, energetic young lady and very willing to give new things a try.  She handled and released the fish we caught with no fear whatsoever (after naming most of them, of course).

We were actually expecting a second girl to join us today and for that reason hung around in the boat ramp area for a few minutes beyond our 6:30am start time.  While we were waiting, I moved us to some nearby hydrilla beds and Kyla effortlessly put 19 sunfish (greens and bluegills) in the boat with a slip-float rig using a Gulp! bait on a small hook to attract these fish.

When it was apparent our other angler was not going to show, we headed on out to open water in pursuit of the mighty white bass.  After looking over a few patches of bottom, sonar revealed what we were hoping to find — schools of white bass suspended down around 29-31 feet over deeper water — just right for a downrigging approach.  Kyla took care of letting our lines the right distance behind the boat using the Abu Garcia 5500LC line counter reels recently provided to SKIFF by the folks at Pure Fishing in support of the SKIFF program.  The line counter gives a numeric display of the number of feet of line going off the reel, so, I’d just call out a number and Kyla would get the job done.  Once the lines were the right distance behind the boat, I clipped the lines into the downrigger and Kyla would then press the “DOWN” button on the downriggers to get the baits to the right depth.  We’d then watch sonar for schools of fish, and, when they showed up, would turn our eyes on the rods to see if we’d get a strike. Kyla quickly got the hang of what our quarry looked like on sonar, and called them “herds” instead of “schools”, but, we all knew what she meant.

We picked up 8 white bass in this way, including 2 sets of doubles before the novelty wore off, after which Kyla requested we do some more sunfishing, which we did.

In our last 30 minutes I suggested we cap the trip off with a bit more white bass fishing, and Kyla was once again game for that.  We boated 4 more white bass at what was going to be our final stop.

On our way in, a gentleman fishing with what appeared to be his two grandkids flagged us down.  I idled over and he was kind enough to let us know he’d located a nice school of white bass and, seeing I had a child on board, invited us to join in the fun.  This allowed me to introduce Kyla to the technique of vertical jigging with a slab spoon.  We caught a final 3 white bass in short order here before the fish dispersed.  We thanked the man for his courtesy and headed on in.

Our catch today consisted of 15 white bass and 31 sunfish (greens and bluegills).

TALLY = 46 FISH

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30am

End Time:  10:45am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  70.6F

Water Surface Temp:  83.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  N3-5

Sky Conditions:  Fair skies with thin grey clouds in the east, clearing by 10:15am

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area    Sunfish at 200, 1416, and 239

**Area   White bass via downrigging at 883 and 961

**Area  White bass via vertical jigging at 1415

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This evening I fished with a crew of 5 on Belton Lake.  Joining me were Tony Bagliore, Darrell Pierce (the husband of Tony’s office manager), Darrell’s two step-sons, Tarren and Taylan McMahon, and Darrell’s nephew, Daniel Pierce.  Tony and his wife are from near Jarrell, TX, Darrell and his family are from Georgetown, TX, and Daniel is in for a visit from Waxahachie, TX.

L to R: Tarren, Darrell, Taylan, and Daniel with some white bass we downrigged for right at sunset this evening.

Tarren (with fish) and First Mate Tony Bagliore.

Tony and his wife are new houseboat owners out on Lake Belton and enjoy entertaining employees and clients from their Bagliore Concrete business.  Tony is a life-long fisherman who got started in the salt off of Long Island, NY.  He’s just recently begun using downriggers and tonight served as mate instead of angler, helping me keep the downriggers managed.

Long story short, our trip ended like I thought it would, which was not like I’d wished it would have.  Fishing on Belton has been tough for about a week now since the strong topwater bite ended just in advance of the full moon.  Add to that an evening trip (which, statistically, only gives up fewer fish then mornings), and a north wind, and experience told me we’d have to work for every fish we caught.  Well, work we did, and we had a few fish to show for our efforts by the time all was said and done.

The staple of the trip was downrigging for suspended fish.  We hit three areas, each showing fish but giving up none, before we landed our first fish at Area 1413.  We picked up a fish fish here as we combed over the area multiple times until finally there was nothing to comb out.

We made a move and gave live bait a try between Areas 1405 and 1401, picking up just one short hybrid here.  Again, we had numbers of fish approach our baits but, just as with the downrigging, couldn’t get them to pull the trigger and strike our offerings.

We returned to downrigging, picking up a few fish near Area 084 before returning to Area 1413.  Once there, I saw feeding white bass spread through the water column, so, I very quick got the i-Pilot deployed so we could hover over these fish in the light N. breeze that was blowing.  We picked up 3 more fish by aggressively working slabs through these fish, but, that action didn’t last long.

We closed things out by downrigging for the last 45 minutes of the trip in an area triangulated by Areas 084, 1271, and 496.  We added a few more white bass and short hybrid to our tally until dark fell and the fishing was over.

We put a total of 15 fish in the boat tonight.

TALLY = 15 FISH

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 5:00pm

End Time:  9:00pm

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  77F (possibly the lowest high temperature for this date, thanks to an unusual summer cold front)

Water Surface Temp:  83.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  N4-6

Sky Conditions:  100% heavy grey skies and spitting drizzle the entire trip

Other: GT=D-60

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1413 downrigging and smoking

**Area 084/1271/496 downrigging

**Area 1405-1401 live bait

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This morning I fished with long time Central Texas residents Jim Mobley and John Cornelius.

Downrigging for tentative, scattered fish today under north wind conditions produced a few nice hybrid striped bass for Jim Mobley and John Cornelius.

Jim works for a well-respected local accounting firm and John, after retiring from government service, including a stint as a Corps of Engineers Park Ranger at Belton Lake and 25 years as a Fort Hood wildlife biologist, runs his own wildlife management consulting firm.  Both were quite well-traveled when it comes to angling, and both have a bent toward flyfishing when conditions are right.

In summary, fishing was very subdued today yielding below average results thanks to a mild front that came in yesterday, turning our winds northerly before sunrise this morning.

We looked intently for some first-light topwater action, but there was none to be found.

We put live baits down on downlines over some decent schools of hybrids and only drew a few strikes, failing to land even a single fish on bait today (which is very telling, in and of itself).

Between 8:50a and 9:50a we landed the majority of our fish for the morning.  Our first bit of success came as we ran downriggers at 23-26 feet down over a deeper bottom for hybrid stripers.  We used 3 arm umbrella rigs and landed a single limit of 5 keeper hybrid in about 20 minutes’ time on about 4 passes over the same stretch of water.  We did try putting bait down, but these open water fish were moving about too much to be interested in what we offered.

Around 9:20a, I got a call from long-time Belton angler Bill Pasko.  He spotted me and gave me some “good intel” on some bottom-oriented hybrid he’d found willing to strike artificials, and invited me over to join him.

On our way, we encountered a brief bit of topwater action from a school of white bass mixed with short hybrid.  We pulled 4 out of that school before they left the surface, never to return.

When we joined Bill, he had been pulling fish steadily from the area, so I duplicated his efforts and both Jim and John got to hook up on a few more legal hybrid at this area before the whole bite shut down as the winds went calm, the clouds began to clear, and the heat really started pouring it on in the humidity left in the wake of yesterday’s storms.

We put only 2 more fish in the boat after that, both on downriggers, and called it a day with 16 fish boated for our efforts.

TALLY = 16 FISH

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15am

End Time:  10:30am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  71F (rain cooled from previous day)

Water Surface Temp:  82.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  N5-7

Sky Conditions:  30% until clearing around 10am

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  307-506 – hybrids on downriggers

**Area  499/181 – brief topwater

**Area 1411 – bottom-oriented schooled hybrid

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This Independence Day morning I took my brother, Andy, and nephew, Trent, out on Belton Lake.  This was a “consolation trip” in that it was to make up for not being able to get out on Stillhouse Hollow the night before to do some bowfishing as we had originally planned to do thanks to some heavy rainfall and high winds stemming from afternoon thunderstorms.

My nephew, Trent Maindelle, with 10.25 pounds of fish taken 20 seconds apart.

My brother, Andy Maindelle, and nephew, Trent with fish taken on live baits fished on downlines over 40 feet of water.

Our trip broke down into 4 distinct “chapters” — early morning topwater, mid-morning livebait fishing, downrigging for suspended fish, and pursuit of “popcorn” white bass and hybrid stripers on topwater at the close.

Beginning at exactly 6:05am, moderate-sized mixed schools of white bass and hybrid striped bass began forcing shad to the surface thus making enough commotion that they could be seen and heard in the low light conditions.  We kept our distance and threw long casts into these fish using Cork Rigs and pulled 19 fish in over a 35 minute span before the short feed ended.   That feed probably would not have gone even that long were it not for a grey cloud bank in the eastern sky that kept the sun’s direct rays off the water for a few extra minutes.

Next, we rigged up with live bait and fished downlines set at 24-29 feet over a 40+ foot bottom and focused on larger, 18+ inch hybrid striped bass.  What we actually caught was a nice mix of 2 largemouth, 1 smallmouth, and 5 hybrid, with the largest largemouth weighing in at 6.00 pounds and the largest hybrid going 4.25 pounds (both measured on a certified scale).   When the sun began to shine brightly and what little wind was blowing began to lay down, this bite died.

Next we did a bit of downrigging using umbrella rigs set down to 19-24′ for suspended fish.  We never really found more than some scattered schools, none of which stuck in one area very long, so, we boated 4 fish with this method and, since a light wind had returned, decided to give live bait another try at a different location.

As we got setup for live bait, a large grey band of clouds began to move into the area.  Not minutes after these clouds obscured the sun, mixed schools of white bass and hybrid stripers began feeding on the surface once again.  We broke out the Cork Rigs and, with the trolling motor on high, did all we could to keep up with several fast-moving schools.  We chased these fish for about 6/10ths of a mile and for about 35 minutes, catching fish constantly, and adding a final 28 fish to our tally.  Once that band of clouds passed and the direct sun shone hot and bright once again we called it a good morning and headed in.

TALLY = 60 Fish

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:05 am

End Time:  10:15 am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  Rain-cooled 68F from showers the previous night

Water Surface Temp:  83.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE 3-6

Sky Conditions:  Grey thin cloud bank in the eastern sky at dawn, followed by clear, bright skies, with a thin layer of clouds causing some obscuration of the sun in the last hour on the water.

Other: N/A

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  834-793 Low light topwater

**Area  1405 Live Bait for Largemouth, Smallmouth, Hybrid

**Vicinity of Area 483-830

**Vicinity of Area 155

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This morning I fished with retirees Lynn Niedermeier and Michael Vlies, both originally from Wisconsin.  Both are occasional anglers who often cashed in on “destination fishing” in conjunction with business trips taken to watery locales during their working years.

Lynn, Michael, and I enjoyed some topwater action on white bass and short hybrid stripers in the first 2 hours of light this morning.  Fishing was otherwise pretty tough given the clear skies, bright sun, and low wind speeds.

TALLY = 20 FISH

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15am

End Time: 10:45am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 80.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE-9, tapering off to S3-4

Sky Conditions: 20% cloudy

Other: N/A

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 814-080 topwater at sunrise

**Vicinity of Area 1084-678 openwater topwater action

** Vicinity of Area 1402-483 downrig

** Between Areas 180-1400 live bait for hybrid

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com