This morning I fished with John Duggan, his wife, Kristie Taylor, and Kristie’s mom, Sharon Taylor.

Sharon Taylor of Bernardo, TX, landed our first and largest fish of the day.

From left: Sharon Taylor, John Duggan, and Kristie Taylor.  White bass made up the majority of our catch this morning.  They appeared briefly on topwater after sunrise, and then fed again in the upper part of the water column for about 75 minutes beginning around 9:30am.

John works as an orthopedic surgeon with the Seton network of hospitals, and Kristie works for an Austin-based public relations firm.  The two split time between a condo in Austin and a condo in Morgan’s Point, just depending on John’s “on call” schedule.  Sharon traveled in from a small town west of Houston for this weekend’s reunion.

John phoned me about a month ago desiring to put together a family fishing trip over this Labor Day weekend.  His family has made a tradition of reuniting and fishing over the Labor Day weekend for several years now, although they’ve typically met at on the Texas coast somewhere to do so.  Although the gatherings have been great, the fishing had been disappointing, so, John decided to “stay local”, invite the family to Belton and fish freshwater instead.  A fellow guide and I split their party of 6 across two boats and headed out in pursuit of white bass and hybrid striped bass.

We experienced a slow low-light bite prior to sunrise downrigging along bottom and adjusting the downrigging weights as appropriate to present our baits at whatever depth fish appeared at on sonar.  We boated 1 hybrid striped bass and 5 white bass through 7:30am.  Around this time, my partner called and said they’d found some fish on topwater and invited us to join in.

As we idled in, I could see the fish were well-dispersed and smallish, and that the bait they were chasing was very small.  Instead of trying to get 3 relatively inexperienced casters on what I knew would be very temperamental fish, I decided to stick with the downrigging approach to present smaller baits down in a bit deeper, darker water to help mask the lures’ size with motion and a lack of light.  This panned out pretty well as we boated another 13 fish before the bite died altogether.

We experienced the very predictable 8:30 to 9:30am lull, and then encountered aggressive schools of white bass working in the upper third of the water column (but not quite to the surface) as they’ve made a habit of doing for nearly 3 weeks now.  On some days such fish will congregate tightly and can be worked over from a hovering position using slabs fished vertically, and on other days they seem to stay on the move more, thus requiring a downrigging approach to keep up with them.  Today they were on the move, and so that meant we were, too.

Over the span of our last 75 minutes on the water, we boated 36 fish, including numerous doubles and triples on our 3-armed umbrella rigs, all from a moving boat.

There was definitely above-average boat pressure today due to the long weekend, however, when the fish failed to show in big numbers on topwater (thanks, in part to that pressure and to a stiff SSE breeze), many folks just gave up and left, leaving us free to fish without much company for the remainder of the morning — the time during which we caught the majority of our fish.

 

TALLY = 55 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp:  84.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE9-12

Sky Conditions:  More humid today, with ~60% cloud coverage varying from white to grey.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.03 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 593.88 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1105 through 1236

**Area 1081 through 1579 downrigging to find fish; smoking slabs to catch them

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This morning I fished with Mr. Gabe Carreras and his 7-year-old son, Christian, of Round Rock, TX, and Gabe’s father-in-law, Chris, from Birmingham, AL.

From left: Chris, Gabe, and Christian, all with hybrid ranging from 18-20″ taken both on top and with slabs worked through actively feeding fish found throughout the water column in ~30-35 feet of water..

With the weather holding very steady since our last cold front 2 Thursdays ago, and the moon now waning toward new moon once again, the good fishing has gotten even better.

We started the day on fish feeding on topwater chasing larger bait today, thus making them a bit easier to fool.  We found a mix of white bass and hybrid stripers joining the fray and took them on both cork rigs and slabs.  Of course the slabs had to be retrieved quickly to keep them up high in the water column were the fish were.

Once the topwater action began to subside, we used downriggers to encounter fish, then stopped over top of the fish we’d found to fish for them more thoroughly.  Since it was still early and the sun not yet too intense, we found these fish spread through the water column (versus down near bottom as happens later in the morning) and were able to use larger 3/4 oz. slabs to fool additional white bass and hybrid stripers.  We’d boated 28 fish up to this point

As the sun climbed higher and the winds subsided, the white bass and hybrid action died.  To keep young Christian engaged, we headed up shallow and I demonstrated the use of a bream pole for targeting sunfish and other, smaller, shallow-water species.  We hit two areas for a few minutes each and added 13 fish to our tally, including bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, blacktail shiners, and a juvenile largemouth bass.

We closed out the trip today once again using the downriggers to locate fish, then slabs to exploit what we’d found.  As we searched with the ‘riggers, Christian managed to pull in a “triple”, catching 3 white bass on the 3 baits of his umbrella rig all at the same time.  We also landed a few doubles in this manner before finding a school of white bass sizeable enough to stop and use slabs over.  We wound up finding two distinct schools of white bass, mixed with short hybrid, and landed a total of 39 fish from these two schools before calling it a day with exactly 80 fish brought over the gunwales today.

TALLY = 80 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp:  83.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE3-6

Sky Conditions:  Thin, grey, low cloud cover to the east before and at sunrise, clearing to 20% clouds on a fair sky.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.03 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 593.93 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1271/302 topwater at first light

**Area 1129/834 topwater leading to smoking

**Area 1583 & 492 panfish

**Area 1580 & 1589/1081 downrigging to find fish; smoking slabs to catch them

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This Tuesday morning I fished with Mr. Carroll Hall of south Austin, TX.

Carroll boated this beautifully colored green sunfish from out of just 2′ of water where rock, wood and weeds all came together in a protected cove.  Check out the turquoise lines under the eyes and the bright orange trim around the tail.

Carroll got “hooked” on flyfishing soon after retiring and after giving thought as to how to best fish the Hill Country rivers that surrounded him.  One springtime trip to the Llano River for white bass after accumulating just enough gear to be dangerous, and the deal was done.  Like many things in the universe of angling, the genre of flyfishing has many sub-categories.  Carroll has really taken to, and excelled in, the arena of flycasting.  He’s actually become certified by the International Federation of Fly Fishers (IFFF) as a Certified Casting Instructor.  I can attest personally, after spending one coaching session with him, that he is a very good coach in that he knows his subject AND, more importantly, can tactfully and clearly communicate what the student must do to improve.  Beware: He does assign homework!!

Because there has been such consistent topwater action in quite a number of locations on Belton since about a week before our last new moon, I invited Carroll out today hoping that “streak” would continue, thus allowing him to land some fish on the fly.  He and I fished with live bait for hybrid striped bass on Belton Lake back in the spring, and he let me know he wanted to be made aware of any opportunities for catching fish on the fly as the season progressed.

We met at 6:30am and Carroll was fast to his first fish by 6:55am.  The fish did indeed show up, but, the feed was shorter and weaker than average, and the fish we encountered were on the small side, but, the challenge was to catch fish on the fly in slack water, and we did just that.  By the time the ~46 minute long feed ended, Carroll had boated a combination of 5 white bass and hybrid striper with a few more having pulled loose.  Carroll’s arsenal consisted of a 5 weight rod with full-floating line, a leader tapering to ~6 pound test, and a fly of my own design intended to imitate the small forage we’ve been encountering.

When the surface action died, it died hard.  As it died, a stiffer SSE breeze developed and made any further action that might have developed very difficult to spot.  At this point we transitioned to an even lighter 4 weight flyrod with full floating line and used a series of nymph patterns to target sunfish in wind-protected shallow cover.  In about 75 minutes of fishing, Carroll hooked and landed 9 green sunfish and 1 bluegill.  A gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear Nymph worked best.

We closed the trip out today spending our last 90 minutes in pursuit of deep, schooled white bass using “gear” instead of flyrod and reel.  I was able to locate two distinct schools of white bass in about 22 feet of water and get them excited enough to begin chasing the lead slabs we offered.   As the first school cooled off, I downrigged to locate the second school, thus giving Carroll some hands-on experience with the downrigging equipment.  Carroll’s son, daughter-in-law, and 2 grandchildren live near Puget Sound, and he’s often observed salmon anglers using these devices but never knew exactly how they were rigged.  We managed to boat several white bass during this “show and tell”, including a double (two fish on the same umbrella rig landed at the same time).  Between the slabbing and the downrigging, we put a final 27 fish in the boat and called it a day around noon.

TALLY = 42 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  12:00 noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  84.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8-9

Sky Conditions:  Thin, grey, low cloud cover to the east before and at sunrise, clearing to 10% clouds on a fair sky.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.04 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 593.96 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 80

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1585 topwater at first light

**Area 1583 panfishing

**Area 1081 downrigging to find fish; smoking slabs to catch them

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This Saturday morning I fished with Mr. Ben Vacula , his father Dennis, and Ben’s three children, Madeline, Olivia, and Gabriel. We fished Belton Lake for white bass, hybrid striper, and panfish.

From left: Gabriel, Olivia, and Madeline Vacula, each with a strong, healthy Lake Belton white bass taken from a topwater feed in the first hour on the water.

Olivia, who holds the Stillhouse Junior Angler flathead catfish record, and seems to have a knack for catching the big ones, landed the trip’s largest fish today, once again.

Ben makes his living as an anesthesiologist at Scott & White Hospital, Dennis is retired from the Texas Public Utilities Commission, and the kids are all just headed into a new school year in the Belton ISD.

We met at 6:30 AM, and by 6:46 AM were witnessing the first of what would be one hour’s worth of top water action.  A combination of white bass and small hybrid striped bass were forcing bait to the surface and feeding on that bait there in a way that was both visible and audible.  Because I had three anglers, all of them inexperienced with casting, instead of casting at these fish, we ran downriggers in the vicinity, and also ran one umbrella rig just barely subsurface. All three rigs performed equally well, and by the time the top water action shutdown, we had boated 28 fish.

Around 8 AM, we ran into the mid-morning lull which has been par for the course over this past week and a half or so. During this time, we did some downrigging without much success, and then went up shallow and fished with bait for panfish.  This turned out very well. All three kids regularly took bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, long ear sunfish,and orange spotted sunfish.  This fishing requires constant attention and is quite engaging with near-instant results in the warm-water season.

We left the shallows after making three short hops for panfish to begin the final chapter of this morning’s trip at around 9:45 AM.  The plan was to go to a mid-depth flat, run downriggers to try to find fish, and then hover over top of them with the trolling motor so that we could work slabs vertically through the fish we had found. Our first 20 minutes attempting this yielded only three white bass, and no schools of fish positioned so as to allow us to work slabs.  I could tell the kids were getting antsy, but I didn’t want to give up too soon.  In 23 feet of water, we finally found what I was after. We encountered a single large school of white bass numbering in the hundreds.  We hovered over top of this school with the Minn Kota Spot Lock function on the trolling motor, and, in the next 25 minutes, boated an additional 41 fish. At about 10:50 the action died hard and we decided to call it a day with exactly 102 fish caught for our efforts this morning.

TALLY = 102 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  86F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW3-6

Sky Conditions:  Cloudless conditions following the sun’s rise above a thin grey cloud bank in the east at sunrise

Note: Lake has dropped 0.02 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 594.05 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1118 topwater at first light

**Area 1583 panfishing

**Area 1589 downrigging to find fish; smoking slabs to catch them

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This morning I met U.S. Army Colonel Dave Mauser of Belton, TX, on Lake Belton for a morning of white bass and hybrid striped bass fishing.

Dave Mauser with our best fish of the trip — a Belton Lake hybrid striped bass that revealed its location during a brief surface feed on shad.

As I expected for an Army colonel, Dave showed up early, which I appreciated.  This gives me time to adjust equipment to my client’s preferences, allows me to evaluate a few practice casts so I know their range and accuracy, and otherwise allows us to get off to an unhurried start in a too-hurried world.

Dave had some widely varied prior fishing experiences, from flyfishing for bass in the northeast, to chasing bottomfish from a charterboat offshore inFlorida, to some bay fishing for redfish on the Texas Gulf Coast.  He handled a spinning rod well enough, so, I decided to try to put him on some topwater action in the low-light period just before, during, and after sunrise.

Although the topwater feed was not overly aggressive, it was steady and lasted for just over an hour, affording us the opportunity to land 31 fish on cork rigs equipped with my own hand-tied flies which were scaled way down to match the still-small forage size of the bait these fish were trapping against the surface.  The fish were a mix of white bass and hybrid stripers of all sizes.  After catching his 4th or 5th fish on topwater, and seeing fish feeding over the span of several acres, Dave said kind of matter-of-factly, “This is better than golf.”  I grinned.

After the topwater melee subsided, we went after “popcorn” schools of white bass and hybrid stripers appearing briefly on the surface out over open water.  These fish were relating to nothing but bait.  We would get to a school as quickly as possible, allowing Dave a cast or, at most, two.  While he was working the topwater, I would quickly rig at least one of our two downriggers up to run just under the surface.  More times than not, we found the school that had just sounded and were able to catch a fish or two from each eruption.  We landed another 11 fish this way prior to 9:30am.

At 9:30am, we headed out in search of a congregation of fish that have been patrolling a particular 25-27 foot contour for some time now.  Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve been able to find these fish with downriggers, then take advantage of what we’ve found by going back over the fish, hovering over top of them, and slabbing for them.  Today was no exception.  Although it took a bit of doing to find a “slab-able” population of these fish, once we did, they cooperated well, staying turned on for about 25 minutes and allowing us to boat our final 14 fish of of the day on 3/8 oz. slabs.

Dave will soon be headed back to Southwest Asia in his role as a civil affairs officer, this time returning to retire with over 25 years in the service.

Thank you for your service, Dave.

TALLY = 56 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp:  86F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW3-6

Sky Conditions:  Cloudless conditions following the sun’s rise above a thin grey cloud bank in the east at sunrise

Note: Lake has dropped 0.02 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 594.08 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 188 topwater at first light

**Area 1586 downrigging and surface casting for popcorn schools

**Area 210 smoking at trip’s end

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This past Tuesday morning I fished with Mr. Bob Schwartz of Temple, TX.

In just 4 hours, Bob was introduced to 5 different techniques for taking fish on top, on bottom, and from a suspended posture.  We boated 3 different species of fish and tallied 56 fish for our efforts.

Bob is an immediately likeable, easy-going fellow.  He began his adult life with a stint in the U.S. Air Force, later went on to law school, served as a judge, and, before retiring for good, served as an auditor to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture out of Temple, TX.  Now, at age 71, he wanted to figure out this whole fishing thing.

Every once in a while I get a call or email from a guy like Bob.  I can tell that he really wants to learn and already understands that an intentional, methodical approach to successful fishing is possible, but that such a thing has eluded him.  Bob has a boat, modern gear, and time on his hands, yet, in the last 8-9 attempts at fishing on Belton, and after covering the lake from beyond the Hwy 36 bridge on the Leon arm to near the East Range Road bridge on the Cowhouse arm, had managed only a single, small catfish.

I explained a number of things by phone before we ever met: about the relative infertility of our Hill Country lakes, about realistic expectations, about journaling, about the thermocline, about relative abundance of species, and more.  We then agreed to meet and fish one-on-one.  The point was not so much to catch fish, but to learn to catch fish.

My “Number 1” point was that fish are really not all that difficult to catch, but they can be extremely difficult to find.  Hence, we focused on location and how to systematically eliminate unproductive water and tactics.

In our first 40 minutes on the water, we were blessed to encounter a moderate topwater feed.  We caught nearly half of the trip’s fish on “cork rigs” with a trailer designed to imitate the size of the shad being fed upon there in that opening few mintues.

Next, we found bait trapped in a pocket in the back of a cove, being corralled and kept there by gamefish.  We worked these fish over with a bladebait fish just sub-surface and scored.

Next, we tracked down “popcorn” schools of white bass and hybrid striper feeding briefly on top and scored again.

Later, it was on to downrigging for fish pushing deeper thanks to calm, bright conditions — and we continued to score.  Finally, even though the conditions were less than ideal, we pinpointed some deep, tightly schooled white bass and used a smoking tactic with slabs to score one last time.  No giants or trophies today, just some down-and-dirty fishing basics to set Bob up for success in the future.

Along the way we discussed flats, breaklines, spurs, draws, channels, and other forms of fish-holding bottom features and how to find these with sonar.

Bob was one of the most eager students I’ve had aboard in a long time.  He invested (not spent) some money in hiring me as a guide and, I am confident, is well-equipped to tap into Belton’s fishery confidently and on his own as a result.

Any other students out there?  Let’s talk!!

 

TALLY = 56 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  83F

Water Surface Temp:  86.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE3-6

Sky Conditions:  Cloudless conditions following the sun’s rise above a thin grey cloud bank in the east at sunrise

Note: Lake has dropped 0.01 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 594.11 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 50

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1585/478 topwater at first light

**Area 1580 downrigging late

**Area 1097 smoking at trip’s end

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This past Friday morning I fished with Mr. Rodrick Rhoads and two of his five children, April (age 11) and Zoe (age 7).

From left: April, Rodrick, and Zoe Rhoads with a sampling of their catch from out of an aggressive bunch of schooling fish which turned on when skies greyed over after sunrise.

Rodrick and his wife are small business owners (dry cleaning) and live out between Georgetown and Liberty Hill, TX.  This is the 4th trip Rodrick and at least one of the kids have joined me on.

I was uncertain what Thursday’s early cold front would do to the fishing, but felt more confident than not about our chances, mainly because a south wind was to return overnight before the trip.  This windshift did, in fact, take place and a light SSE breeze blew as I launched.

Ending a 4-day run without topwater action, we found white bass (only) feeding on the surface in shallow water (Area 811 and shoreward) slurping up small shad, roughly 1.75 inches long.  I was really impressed at how quickly April picked up on casting with a spinning outfit.  She threw far enough and accurately enough to land several white bass that revealed themselves by the commotion they made while feeding.  The topwater feed died instantly at sunrise and we then experienced a lulll as we backed off from the shore and attempted downrigging without much success.

We next headed out looking for concentrations of fish both with the naked eye and using sonar.  Thanks to a nice blanket of grey clouds that moved in after sunrise and obscured the direct sun, we experienced an overall reduction of the light level which brought on a resurgence of topwater action.  This time we found larger white bass and short hybrids mixed together and feeding on larger bait in the vicinity of Area 1582.  Everyone hooked and landed fish consistently here for about a 25 minute span before the bait slipped out of the pocket they were trapped in and escaped into deeper, open water.

At this point, with skies brightening again, winds light, and no action to be seen on the surface, we re-tooled and headed up shallow in the vicinity of Area 1583 to enjoy some simple panfishing.  This method allowed Zoe to catch fish independently, and all 3 of my guest enjoyed both catching the fish and seeing the differences between the species we were catching (mature and immature bluegill, green sunfish, orange spotted sunfish, largemouth bass, and male and female blacktail shiners).  We stayed shallow for about 50 minutes until the “magic” 9:30 mark when, over the past 2 weeks, “popcorn” topwater action has been occurring.

As if punching a timeclock, as we motored to an area I’d hoped to find “popcorn” schooling action at, the first of such action began to be seen on the surface.  As we homed in on the action, we first found fish by downrigging, then worked to keep the boat over top of them so we could take them more efficiently with slabs than by making pass after pass with the downriggers.  Our downrigging efforts went well with multiple sets of doubles being landed.  Soon, as the fish became more active, we were able to position right over one solid school with, literally, hundreds of fish in it.  We slabbed these fish an added exactly 67 more fish to our tally in the last hour on the water.  By 10:20 the action had tapered to nil and we called it a good day.

 

TALLY = 120 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:36a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  71F

Water Surface Temp:  84.5F (a noticeable drop thanks to yesterday’s cold front and the related cloud cover)

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE3-6

Sky Conditions:  100% low, gray cloud cover until ~8:30, then gradually clearing to 40%

Note: Lake has dropped 0.03 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 594.09 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 55

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 811 to shore light topwater at first light

**Area 1582 aggressive topwater by large white bass and short hybrids

**Area 1583 panfishing

**Area 1581 slabbing/downrigging for “popcorn” white bass

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This past Wednesday morning I met the Colicher family bright and early for a half-day family fishing trip on Belton Lake.

 

CJ, Cadence, and their dad, Brandon, all caught a mess of white bass in addition to the panfish we landed.

U.S. Army Major Brandon Colicher phoned me early in the week wanting to get his family out fishing while they were still on summer vacation and while he was still on leave from his assignment with the Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) program out of Camp Mabry in Austin, TX.  He and his two children, son CJ and daughter Cadence, would be fishing, and mom, Amy, would just be along for the ride.

For the third day in a row, there was no topwater action at first light.  We are now 4 days beyond the new moon, and we were experiencing compressional warming and winds at the atmosphere was being squeezed between our current weather and the cold front that came in on Thursday.  This typically does not help the fishing.

We caught a few fish up shallow early on downriggers but all in all the first 90 minutes was the slowest start we’ve had to a trip in the past 2+ weeks.

When it became clear that the white bass and hybrid were just shut down for the early part of the morning, we turned our attention on panfish up shallow and, using bream poles and bait, worked over the resident population of green sunfish, orange spotted sunfish, bluegill sunfish, largemouth bass, and blacktail shiners, boating 42 fish in about an hour’s time.  I knew the kids would enjoy this, but wasn’t sure at first how Brandon would like it.  I explained that the technique were were employing would work from the shoreline on Lake Georgetown where he and his family occasionally go, so, he was eager to learn so as to be able to duplicate the success he and kids were enjoying.

Oftentimes where sunfish are involved, the largest fish in the area get caught first as they “bully” the other smaller fish and beat them to the bait.  So, I was a bit surprised when, after we’d been at the 4th area we’d tried for panfish at for about 20 minutes, Cadence came up with one of the larger sunfish I’ve seen taken on Belton Lake, a 1/4 pound, 7 inch long mature bluegill sunfish.  I immediately recognized this as a record breaker over the tie for the record held by two former child clients of mine, Lane Bolin and Emily Soupene, which stood at 0.13 pounds.  We measured and weighed the fish, as required, and took all necessary photos.

The final “chapter” of our trip involved fishing for “popcorn” schools of white bass in open water.  These fish gave their position away by feeding on shad, albeit briefly, on the surface and making enough commotion for me to spot them with my spotting scope.  We used a combination of downrigging to zero in on these fish and then “Spot Locked” over them with the Minn Kota Ulterra in order to exploit what we’d found using slabs worked vertically.  In our final hour on the water, we landed exactly 40 white bass in this way.

 

TALLY = 86 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  77F

Water Surface Temp:  87-88F

Wind Speed & Direction: S8-10

Sky Conditions:  15% cloud cover on a fair sky

Note: Lake has dropped 0.03 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 594.09 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 811/012 light downrigging action at first light

**Area 1583 panfishing

**Area 1584/1581 slabbing/downrigging for “popcorn” white bass

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This past Tuesday I fished back-to-back SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) program trips on Belton Lake with children from 3 Army families.

Deonte’ Tift with the day’s largest fish, a 19.5″ hybrid striper that struck a Pet Spoon fished at 14 feet at mid-morning.

 

Cameron Tift holds a white bass he brought in before the sun rose this morning.

As the sun set this evening, schools of white bass chasing schools of shad showed up in shallow water and gave Eli Tomes a shot a fish like this one.

Although hybrid striped bass were elusive tonight, the white bass surely cooperated for us.  Jacob Kent holds one of 84 fish he helped contribute to our tally.

At 6:30am, I met up with Mrs. Terri Tift and her two children, 17 year old Deonte’, and 9 year old Cameron.  The boys’ father, U.S. Army Sergeant Donald Tift, is currently assigned to Camp Casey, South Korea.  He has served in the military for over 11 years.  As Mrs. Tift left the boys in my care, I also welcomed along special guests Dave Hill and Manuel Pena, both of the Austin Fly FIshers — the non-profit organization which serves as the primary sponsor for the SKIFF program.  The pair had arranged for a donation of tackle boxes from Cabela’s in Buda, TX, and wanted to both hand-deliver these to me for distribution to kids on future trips, but also to personally present the first two boxes to Deonte’ and Cameron.

As many of my morning trips on Belton have gone of late, we had a strong start, a strong finish, and a bit of a lull in the middle.  We didn’t have lines in the water more than 2-3 minutes before the boys were hooked up with hybrid striped bass that devoured our downrigged Pet Spoons.  There was no topwater bite this morning as the moon phase has passed new and is now waxing toward full.  For variety’s sake we did a bit of shallow-water panfishing in the middle of the trip when the pelagic fish action died down.  By trip’s end we’d discovered numerous schools of small white bass feeding near the surface and once again broke out the downriggers to capitalize on these fish, catching singles and multiples using umbrella rigs.  After pulling the boat out of the water, we proudly flew the Cabela’s banner behind the boys as they received their new tackle boxes.

Fast forward 6 1/2 hours — at 5pm Mrs. Lisa Tomes and Mrs. Katrina Kent arrived at the boat ramp with kids in tow.  This evening I would fish with Jacob Kent, age 9, and Eli Tomes, age 7.  Eli’s mom, Lisa, also joined us.  She was planning ahead to Eli’s upcoming birthday and wanted to see how the trip was conducted with the possibility of doing a fishing birthday party for Eli in the future.

Jacob’s father, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Brian Kent is serving at Camp Casey, South Korea.  Eli’s dad, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Bryce Tomes is currently in the field.  Upon his return, he’ll head to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, CA, and upon his return from there, he’ll head to Korea in the new year.  CW2 Tomes has served for 17 years.

We experienced a bit of a rarity this evening in that our evening catch outpaced our morning catch.  Normally, the evening will produce approximately 70% of the morning’s catch.  As we launched, we’d only been motoring for a few minutes when we spotted surface action erupting before us.  Multiple schools of white bass were forcing shad to the surface and feeding upon them there.  This “clue” helped us solve the location mystery early in the trip, and allowed us to maximize our time spent catching fish instead of searching for them.  We boated 50 fish in our first 90 minutes and could have kept right on catching, but the novelty of the downrigging was wearing off, so, I thought a change of pace was in order.  We went up shallow after panfish, and stayed up shallow until around 7:40p when I suspected larger fish, possibly including hybrid stripers, might move up in the water column and into shallower water where we could capitalize on that migration.  Although the twilight bite wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped, it did afford us a shot at white bass that were, on average, larger than those we’d found schooling in open water earlier in the evening.

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, organizations, and companies 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. SKIFF is open to children in elementary and middle school, as well as teens in high school.
AM TALLY = 50 FISH, all caught and released

PM TALLY = 84 FISH, all caught and released

TRIP TALLY = 134 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES (AM):

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp: 87-88F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE9-11

Sky Conditions: 20% cloud cover on a fair sky.

Note: Lake has stabilized with no water being released, and now stands at 594.09 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 0

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES (PM):

Start Time: 5:00p

End Time: 8:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 96F

Water Surface Temp: 87-88F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE11-13

Sky Conditions: 20% cloud cover on a fair sky.

Note: Lake has stabilized with no water being released, and now stands at 594.09 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS (AM):

**Area 811/813 downrigging for 1st hour of the trip

**Area 1108 & 308 downrigging for 2nd hour of the trip

**Area 492 panfishing

**Area 1579/1580 downrigging for white bass late; popcorn white bass action visible

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS (PM):

**Area 181/676 downrigging for first 90 minutes of the trip

**Area 493 & 166 panfishing

**Area 027/024 downrigging for white bass at twilight

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

This Saturday morning I met Mr. Mike Duecy and his son, Jacob, and Mr. Brad Littrell and his daughter, Madilyn, for a morning of white bass and hybrid striper fishing on Belton Lake.  The plan was for the two dads to come along as extra eyes and ears, but to let the kids do all the fishing.

 

Madilyn landed this nice hybrid striped bass which fell for a well-placed cork rig cast to boiling fish by her dad, Brad.

 

Jacob landed our largest fish today, a 3.50 pound blue catfish that fell for a moving Pet Spoon.

I have to admit it … I goofed up a bit this morning.  Originally, only Mike and Jacob were going to come on a different date, and at a time when I was launching out of Rogers Park.  This morning, we agreed to meet at 6:30 sharp so as not to miss a lick of any topwater bite that might develop.  By 6:35, I’d not yet seen Mike and Brad, so I called them.  They said they were in the parking lot.  Well, I had quite a clear view of the parking lot and could see they were not in it.  I asked which boat ramp they were at, and Mike responded, “Rogers Park.”   I had done a “cut-and-paste” from the former set of directions into Mike’s email for this trip and sent him to the wrong park!!  I almost panicked thinking my blunder would cause us to miss the topwater bite.  But, (thank you, Lord!) we had heavy cloud cover (to the point of some sprinkles falling) which obscured the sunrise and pushed the start of the topwater bite back enough to save my hide.

It worked out perfectly!  We “met in the middle” at yet another boat ramp and made a mad dash for where I thought some topwater action might occur.  As we arrived, the surface was like glass with no fish yet feeding on top, but, I saw some fish showing suspended just below the surface at 9-12 feet over a 20-22 foot bottom.  We put downriggers down and scored on both rods after just a few minutes of fishing.  No sooner did the kids hook up, than I spotted the morning’s first and only topwater action.  A mix of white bass and hybrid stripers were forcing shad against the surface and devouring them.  I cleared the decks of all obstructions, instructed the dads to lob our cork rigs into the fray, then hand the hooked fish off to the kids to enjoy the fight.  This “family system” worked great, and, in the brief 20 minutes the fish stayed active, my four guests “tag-teamed” 17 fish with very few complications (tangles, knots, crossed lines, lines in trolling motor, and other such Murphy’s Law events that tend only to happen when the bite is really good).

After the surface bite died, we turned to downrigging to mop up, and, while the handful of other boats that had joined in on the topwater action left, we were able to boat 5 more fish until the combination of light and slack winds killed the bite.  We’d boated 22 fish by this time.

Next, it was off to the shallows for panfish.  Today we landed bluegill sunfish, orange spotted sunfish, green sunfish, and blacktail shiners — a combination of 20 to be exact, fishing with bream poles and a combination of worms and GULP!.  The novelty of this portion of the adventure lasted about as long as the supply of fish at this area did — about 35 minutes.

Then it was on to the final phase of the trip — hunting for “popcorn” schools of white bass to be targeted by slabbing and/or downrigging.  We did not have to search long to find aggressive schools of small white bass forcing small threadfin shad briefly to the surface, only to submerge in seconds and disappear.  We relied on sonar to ferret out the location of these schools once they sounded.  The schools were moving much more rapidly today than earlier in the week, and our efforts at slabbing from a fixed position did not go well.  So, we rigged up with twin downriggers and proceeded to “wear ’em out” for about an hour, taking our tally from 42 fish, up to exactly 102 fish.  That made for 60 fish boated in about 70 minutes allowing no time for the kids to get board or the dads to get a break from resetting the downriggers as I navigated and read sonar.

A great morning on Belton!!  Despite both fishing their entire lives, neither Mike nor Brad had ever broken the century mark on a trip before.  To do it with their kids was truly icing on the cake!

 

TALLY = 102 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  77F

Water Surface Temp:  88-89F

Wind Speed & Direction: Breeze was light and variable

Sky Conditions:  95% cloud cover with light sprinkles prior to sunrise; clouds slowly dissipating to 60% with brighter skies.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.01 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 594.26 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 85

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 010/012 early topwater followed by downrigging further out

**Area 492 panfishing

**Area 081/1578 slabbing/downrigging for “popcorn” white bass

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com