This morning I fished with Mr. Kim Dietmeier of Lubbock, Texas.  Kim took a few days of vacation to accompany his wife, Heidi, to a church secretaries’ training session being held in Salado, Texas.

This morning I fished with Steve Niemeier and his 9-year-old grandson, Caleb.  Steve is a CPA with the Temple, Texas-based firm of Brockway Gersbach Franklin & Niemeier and has been fishing with me since 2010.

9-year-old Caleb saved the best for last.  As we brought the trip to a close around noon, he brought this solid 6.00 pound hybrid to net all by himself.  This was the largest fish Caleb had ever caught.

I complimented Caleb on his perseverance at the end of our trip.  He worked hard for the first 3 hours catching his share of our first 54 fish, then when the lull occurred and the temperature started to rise, I recruited him to help me do a few things around the boat that needed doing to take his mind off the waiting as we tested the waters at our final stop of the day and allowed our baits and chum to work.  He didn’t whine or complain, and his persistence paid off.  He landed 3 of 5 keeper hybrid we attracted into our spread at this final area and was able to finish well.


TALLY = 59 FISH, all caught and released

This morning I fished with a really nice young couple from Academy, Texas – Cory and Kelli Hargrove.  Cory is a Texas A&M graduate now employed as an engineer on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.  Kelli is the stay-at-home mom of Hunter, now a 1^st grader.  The couple first met at church in 1995.

44 of our 51 fish caught today were “legal” 18+ inch hybrid striped bass which came from 30-35 feet of water.

Cory takes a moment for a quick shot with our trip’s largest fish before releasing it to fight again another day.   It went right at 5.25 pounds.

With continued (6 straight days) of southerly winds, there was a continued solid hybrid striped bass bite and solid threadfin spawning activity making both gathering bait and then catching quality fish with that bait very straightforward.

We fished our first area for 3 straight hours and caught fish there steadily until 11am when the action began to soften.  We spent about 20 minutes searching for more fish and were fortunate to find yet another concentration of fish so late in the game on a morning bite that rarely lasts more than 4 hours.

We were able to pull 7 more keeper hybrid from off of this last area and then called it a day around 11:45.

Despite the fact that Cory was already a knowledgeable fisherman, he listened very closely to the instructions I provided at the beginning of the trip concerning the use of circle hooks.  Kelli, who was not as experienced, also listened out of a genuine desire to do well.  With both Cory and Kelli willing to be coached, we avoided the steep learning curve that many anglers go through as they try to fish with circle hooks as they normally would using conventional J-shaped hooks and getting frustrated by losing fish after fish as they make their way through that curve.  

We landed a total of 51 fish on this trip including one “short” hybrid striper of less than 18”, 5 blue catfish, 1 white bass, and 44 legal (18+ inch) hybrid striped bass.  In the 22 years I’ve been on Belton, I have never seen the proportion of legal fish to sub-legal fish that I’m seeing this year, nor have I seen so few other species mixed in with the hybrid stripers I’m catching.  This has been a remarkable spring.

TALLY = 51 FISH, all caught and released

This
morning I treated my wife, Rebecca, and mom, Charlotte, to a morning of hybrid striped bass fishing.  We are in the peak of the spring hybrid bite that coincides with the annual threadfin shad spawn, and had an unexpected postponement from some new clients, so, we made it a family day on the water.

It was good to be with family today!

TALLY = 66 FISH, all caught and released

This
morning I fished with mother and son team Kelly and Matthew Morrison of Temple, Texas.  This was the Morrison family’s 14th outing with me over the past 4 years.

Matthew is now 16 years old, involved in baseball and golf, learning to drive, and is a big University of Texas Longhorn’s fan and Texas Rangers baseball fan.  Both dad (John) and mom usually accompany Matthew on our trips, but a speaking engagement in the Dallas area found John away from home today.  Kelly had just spent a very full day outdoors with her niece at a school field day yesterday, so she was ready to take it easy and let Matthew do most of the rod work today.

One of the things I most enjoy about fishing is that no two days are alike.  There are so many variables at work — wind speed, wind direction, day length, cloud cover, water level, and the list goes on.  Trying to make correlations between what I’m observing and fish activity is an engaging mental exercise which I’ve long enjoyed.

Just when you think you’ve figured things out, you learn how much more there is to learn.

TALLY = 33 FISH, all caught and released

This
morning I fished with father and son team Steve and Nick Stewart of Georgetown, Texas. 

Steve
owns Deskmap, a geologic mapping company, and his son, Nick, works for
the Dept. of Defense. Nick just returned to the U.S. from a stint in Afghanistan and was enjoying some downtime with his folks before heading back and reestablishing himself in the Washington, D.C. area.

TALLY = 61 FISH, all caught and released

This morning I welcomed the Oliver clan aboard including “Paw” Oliver, and 3 of his sons — Joe, Jamie, and Jack, all for a morning of hybrid fishing.

 “Paw” Oliver.

Joe Oliver.

Jack (L) and Jamie (R) Oliver.

Joe, who now serves as the Athletic Director at Central Texas Christian School, has fished with me on 10 previous occasions, and “Paw” has been along on most of those.  Jamie had been out with me once before, and this was Jack’s first (but hopefully not last) trip me, as he has sons of his own we hope to get on the water later this summer.

This evening I conducted a father-daughter trip for Mr. Jerry Fronczak and his daughter, Nancy.

 
Jerry with 2 of 7 nice hybrid we landed in a 20 minute span just before the setting sun sank below a thick cloud bank in the west.

Nancy with 2 more hybrid from the “run” of seven nice fish we encountered in that same sunset blitz.

Jerry and his wife just moved to Del Webb’s Sun City in Georgetown, Texas, from Chicago at the beginning of April this year to retire and escape the snow and extended winter cold.  Nancy is a graduated occupational therapist now residing in Kansas City, and was down spending a few days with her folks.

This morning I fished on Belton Lake with The Barfield Family of Georgetown, Texas.  Trey and Ann were accompanied by their two sons, 15 year old Brandon, and 9 year old Jonathan.  The Barfield’s have been out with me on several occasions, but always on Stillhouse, and always targeting white bass.  Today, we headed to Belton and gunned for hybrid stripers.

 
L to R: Trey, Brandon, Jonathan, and Ann — the Barfield clan caught a mess of ’em today.

Great job, boys!

Trey and I had actually been working on finding a “just right” date to get the whole family on good hybrid since late October last year.  By the time the hybrid cranked up under the first arriving gulls in the autumn, that magic first 3 weeks of November was already booked up.  Then, the super long, cold winter made Spring Break an iffy choice, so we punted again and made today the big day.

Big gizzard shad were hard to come by this morning, but there was still an abundance of threadfin shad spawning in the shallows, so I went with the flow and used what was in abundance.

We made only 2 stops today and found ample quantities of fish at both.  The first location gave up 42 fish in about 2.5 hours of fishing, and the second location gave up an additional 17 fish in just under an hour of fishing. Of the 42 fish boated at our first stop, roughly half were legal (18+ inch) hybrid and the balance consisted mainly of short hybrid along with a few white bass and blue catfish. Stop number two gave up a 50/50 mix of keeper hybrid and keeper white bass.

We had great conditions today which included thick grey cloud cover and a nice S. wind at ~12-13 mph. 

Trey, unfortunately, had to pass on the fishing today.  During a family crawfish boil his (small) dog went after a crawfish which had fallen to the ground and was trying to swallow it whole.  Trey tried to prevent this and wound up getting bit in the process (what’s that one about no good deed ever goes unpunished?).  To add insult to injury, the bite then got infected.  So, just Ann and the boys did the rod work today.

For our efforts we landed 59 fish, all on live shad.

This
afternoon I was joined on Belton Lake by returning guests Diana Angle
and her nephew, Tom Vilalta. This time, Tom’s mom (Diana’s sister) Donna
Vilalta joined us for the first time.  We got going at 4:15 and fished right until dark.

 
Diana Angle traveled 1,300 miles to battle this bad boy!!

Donna had her hands full when this fish started smoking her drag.

Tom was all smiles when he caught up with his mom and aunt and got on the board with a hybrid of his own! 

Diana, who works as a government contractor on the Aegis Missile system in California, visits Tom regularly.  Tom is an infantryman currently assigned to the 1^st Cavalry Division, and Donna is retired and lives in Riverside, California

The first two hours were very slow on areas that, just hours before during today’s morning trip, were producing very well.

Around 6:10p we hit into our first consistent fishing and that went strong right up until 7:40p when the deep water we were fishing began to get dark and me made a move into shallower, brighter water conditions hoping for a twilight bite.

At that first location we caught a mix of legal and short hybrid, a few white bass and a few blue catfish, taking our tally up to 34 fish.

At our final stop of the evening, we added a final 5 fish to our tally.

Our entire catch this afternoon came on live threadfin shad fished vertically beneath the boat on a tightline.