This Saturday morning, 26 March, I met up with Skip C. and his family of Salado out on Stillhouse Hollow in pursuit of white bass.

Skip C. and his kids, from left: William (12), Katherine (7), Sarah (6), and John (8).

Skip had fished with me once before in 2011 with just his two sons coming along, after being referred by a friend from the Baylor Scott & White anesthesiology department.  Today, the entire crew came out, no doubt giving mom some much needed down time.  The kids attend Providence Preparatory School in Belton, which comes alongside home-schoolers to allow for a half-homeschool and half-traditional school approach to education for families who choose to home-school.

It was cool this morning thanks to a cold front that came into the region early Thursday morning, leaving skies clear and allowing for much radiational cooling.  As a result, our water surface temperature has fallen about 3 degrees off of the high reached last week during an unseasonably warm Spring Break week.

As we got going, I discovered that the very reliable shallow water bite that has been going for at least the first 70 minutes following sunrise for the past 13 days was reliable no more!  While the skies were bright and the winds near calm, we put a few fish in the boat via both downrigging and flatline trolling, but solid fishing did not kick in until around 9:15a when a bank of grey clouds moved in and the wind became steady at S8.

Once the winds began to blow consistently, I moved us out to deeper, clearer water, found fish with sonar, and we began jigging with slabs.  This bite stayed solid right up until 11:05 with all 4 kids regularly catching fish on the very simple vertical jigging technique I demonstrated for them.

At age 12, William was operating nearly independently.  8-year-old John needed an occasional check-up but was otherwise just fine.  I covered down on Katherine (age 7), after about 10 iterations, got all but the pretty exacting depth adjustment concept down very well.  Skip stayed right with 6-year-old Sarah for the duration and the two of them did very well together.

We made a few “short hops” moving forward, backwards, left, or right a boat length or 2 or 3, but never left this general area.  As long as the clouds and wind were present, the fish kept right on feeding.

By the time 11:20 rolled around, the sonar screen was clean, the skies were brightening, the winds were dying, and the bite was over.  We’d managed to boat 52 white bass and 2 largemouth bass for our efforts.

TALLY = 54 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time:  11:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 53F

Water Surface Temp:  63.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds light and variable until 9:30am when they went SSE9.

Sky Conditions:  Fair skies with 20% cloud cover for the first hour, then 100% grey cloud cover for the middle 2 hours, then slowly clearing to fair with 50% cloud cover.

Water Level: 624.43 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1139 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.14 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 50

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 109 downrigging with ThinFins for 3 fish

**Area vic 764 flatline trolling with crankbaits for 4 fish

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

This Good Friday was spent on the water with Mr. Tony Vriseno of Belton, and his two sons, 13-year-old Tony and 8-year-old Ben.  The boys had the day off from school for the Easter holiday.

Tony Vriseno of Belton did very well this morning throwing bladebaits and jigging slabs and was rewarded for his efforts.  These white bass were both just shy of 15″.

Ben Vriseno got a little help from his dad and did really well this morning, too.

Tony works for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad as a conductor and had some down time in his schedule, so, he gave me a ring a few weeks ago and we put this “Kids Fish, Too!” trip on the calendar.  Kids Fish, Too! trips are intended for only the kids to do the fishing whether or not parents/guardians come along for the ride.  These are a little less expensive than a standard trip, and tend to go 3-4 hours instead of 4+ hours as most adult trips do.

Radiational cooling took the sunrise temperature down to just 43F this morning, so, we were back to hats and gloves and jackets after wearing Crocs and shorts for a few of last week’s Spring Break trips.

The boys both were already familiar with how to use spinning gear, and so to start our day, I headed up shallow and had them cast bladebaits for white bass.  Although the fish were willing, they were nowhere near as shallow as they were last week before last Saturday’s cold front and yesterday’s coldfront pushed them back down in the water column and back away from shore.  There was no bait on or near the surface today and no helpful bird action to key on.

We found our first batch of fish in 15-17 feet of water, backed off a good cast’s length and worked them over with bladebaits.  We picked up 25 fish in our first 65 minutes on the water before this shallow bite died.

From that point on, it was all vertical jigging in 35 to 42 feet of water.  Tony got the hang of this tactic pretty quickly and fished in the stern pretty much independently.  Ben was aided by his dad at the beginning and then he, too, was catching fish on his own by the end of the trip.

We made 3 distinct stops in deep water and found fish at 2 of them, allowing us to boat another 53 fish spread over the last 3 hours on the water.

Tony (dad) and I laughed at how the boys were getting to the age where if dad says something, it goes in one ear and out the other, yet let a coach or, in today’s case, a fishing guide, say the exact same thing, and all of the sudden it’s like Gospel.

We had a good time this morning!  Of the 78 fish we landed, 3 were largemouth bass, and the remainder were white bass in the 1-3 year class range.

TALLY = 78 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 43F

Water Surface Temp:  64.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds light and variable until 10:30am when they went SSE9.

Sky Conditions:  Clear blue skies thanks to post-frontal high pressure

Water Level: 624.57 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1139 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.13 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 0

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Today, Thursday, 24 March, I fished with father and son Peter and Theo Little.  Theo, a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army stationed at Ft. Hood treated his dad to a fishing trip for his 55th birthday.  Neither fellow had ever caught a fish before, so, we started with the basics of holding and using spinning gear, and built up from there.

Peter Little landed this 5.125 pound Stillhouse largemouth from amongst a school of white bass we had been jigging for for over an hour.  Once this fish came on the scene, the mostly 1 and 2 year old white bass departed the area.  After Peter landed this fish, we never caught another white bass at this area.

Theo Little with a sampling of the mostly 2-year class fish we vertically jigged for from start to finish on this cold front-influenced evening trip on which both Theo and his dad caught the first fish of their lives.

Both men are followers of Christ, so that made the great fishing and this new experience for these fellows that much sweeter as we got to converse about how and when we came to begin our relationship with Him.

The weather we experienced this afternoon, closely mimicked the weather I encountered last Saturday.  A hard coldfront blew in overnight dropping a bit of rain and bringing heavy cloud cover and strong winds.  As I did Saturday, I waited for the winds to peak and begin to fall off before we headed out fishing.

My experience has shown that until the winds subside, the fishing will be good, assuming boat control is possible given the strong winds typically experienced in a cold front’s wake.  Today as we launched, we faced 17mph winds with higher gusts and boat control was difficult but not impossible.  By the time we moved to our second area, the winds, which steadily tapered over the entire trip, were down to 15 mph and quite manageable.

We looked at 8 areas with sonar and found solid fishing on 3 of them, with marginal quantities of fish at two others, and nothing on the remaining three.

For quite some time now, the afternoon bite has been a one-trick-pony, and that one trick is deep vertical jigging.  We jigged in 34-38 feet at the 3 areas that gave up fish for us this afternoon.

We wrapped up a bit earlier than usual.  It seems Theo has been cooking for his dad and, well … I’ll just stop right there.

The fellows put exactly 83 white bass and 1 largemouth in the boat this evening and missed a good number more due to inexperience, but both definitely improved greatly from start time to the time we finished up.

TALLY = 84 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  6:55p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 60F

Water Surface Temp:  64.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Hard NE winds at 17 tapering down to 10

Sky Conditions:  Clear blue skies thanks to incoming high pressure

Water Level: 624.62 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1139 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.13 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 25

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

(not available for this date)

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

This windy afternoon I fished with old college buddies Ben and Bryan Uy (pronounced YOU-wee), and their friend Xerxes Pascua.  Ben is now an Austin attorney, Bryan is an engineer, and Xerxes works at a state-level savings and loan regulatory agency.

From left: Xerxes, Bryan, and Ben with a sampling of this evening’s catch.  Fish typically continue to bite during a cold front right up until the winds let up.  Fortunately, the winds stayed up sufficient to fuel feeding behavior for our entire 4 hours on the water.

As the cold front that roared in around 6:45p yesterday began to blow itself out, the winds which blew steadily 20-22 and gusted higher on occasion, began to slowly scale back.  As we began our trip at 3:45p, the winds were at NE18 with temps in the high 50’s thanks to clear skies and direct sunshine.  The winds would continue to taper down to about 11 mph by trip’s end at 7:45p.

We had some factors working both for us and against us.  In the “Pros” column: warmer than normal water temperatures, wind-moved water, clearing water, hungry post-spawn fish, some natural “sign” in the form of gulls and ospreys working over the water here and there.  In the “Cons” column: northerly wind direction, bright skies, winds impacting boat control to some extent.

As we motored to the area I wanted to try first, I really wasn’t sure what sonar might or might not reveal.  I was therefore quite relieved to see a nice, tight cluster of fish on a breakline that produced earlier this morning.  As we got baits down to the fish to sample their activity level, they responded, but were pretty subdued about it all.  We managed a few fish here and on a few short-hops in this general vicinity, then moved on with 8 fish landed from out of ~34′.

Our next stop came in right at 40′ of clearer water.  Sonar revealed fish closely packed together on a breakline.  As soon as the slabs went down, the fish came up.  We fished over these fish for just over an hour and 20 minutes, boating an additional 61 fish for our efforts until they played out.

Our third stop was a bust, but, our final stop (at around 6:45p) would be our best stop of the trip.  We had more manageable winds and decreasing light levels working in our favor.  We nearly doubled our catch in right at an hour’s time, finishing the trip with 122 fish.

TALLY = 124 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  7:55p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Water Surface Temp:  65.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Hard NE winds at 17 tapering down to 12

Sky Conditions:  Clear blue skies thanks to incoming high pressure

Water Level: 625.10 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1143 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.13 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 50

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

I love how the Lord provides!  As I was on the water Thursday evening, a call comes in from the fellow who was scheduled to fish with me this afternoon.  Since he had made the reservation just that morning, it took my by surprise.  He was to drive in from Dallas, saw Friday afternoon’s weather forecast, got cold feet, and wound up canceling on really short notice.

From left: James Powell and Ricardo Cisneros each with a 14″ class white bass taken from a school of white bass numbering in the hundreds that turned on strong just in advance of an incoming cold front.

TALLY = 95 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  6:50p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp:  66.0F

Wind Speed & Direction:  See report above

Sky Conditions:  100% grey cloud cover the entire trip

Water Level: 625.10 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1143 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.13 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 20

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1563/1567/1720 – vertical jigging with slabs

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

This morning, I fished with returning clients Steve and Hunter Crawford targeting white bass on Stillhouse Hollow.  Steve and his family are from Beaumont, TX, and Hunter is now a majority of the way though his junior year at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, TX, where he is pursuing a degree in international business.

Hunter landed two fish on the same lure at the same time in our final hour on the water.  One fish was caught on the treble hook at the tail-end of the lure, and the other was caught on the stinger hook on the head-end of the lure.

Both pre-spawn (fish on far left) and post-spawn fish (thin fish held by Steve, in blue shirt) were mixed together and feeding heavily on shad in the pre-frontal conditions we encountered this morning.  From left: Hunter and Steve Crawford.

This morning we faced even heavier grey cloud cover than yesterday, and, accordingly, the bite got off to a lighter and later start, but, once it cranked up, around 8:15, the fish fed heavily until about 9:25a when a blanket of fog moved in, lowered the light level and killed the bite.  During this feed, casting bladebaits in 10-16 feet of water was met with a willing response on just about every-other cast.

As the fog rolled in, the winds went slack for about a 45 minute span.  I used this time to instruct Steve and Hunter on how to work a slab in what would be our next approach at catching fish: vertical jigging.

We moved to deeper, clearer water and I began to use sonar to search out patches of the bottom attractive to fish.  Once I found what I was looking for, I buoyed the fish, then lowered my #Ulterra and used the Spot Lock function to hold right on top of the fish.  We then employed the tactics I’d instructed the fellows on earlier, and we enjoyed another nearly 90 minutes of consistent action as we fished 3 distinct areas in this manner.

The cold front generating this pre-frontal fishing was forecast to enter into this area right around 6pm this evening.

TALLY = 94 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 63F

Water Surface Temp:  65.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  LIght winds under ESE3 for the first 2.5 hours, then ESE6-7 for the balance of our time on the water

Sky Conditions:  100% grey cloud cover with fog forming for about 45 minutes from 9:25 to10:05a

Water Level: 625.40 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1143 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.01 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 50

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1718 to 1722 — shallow white bass action on blades for active post-spawners chasing shad

**Area 306 – vertical jigging with slabs

**Area vic 1049 – vertical jigging with slabs

**Area 055-140 – vertical jigging with slabs

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

This evening I conducted a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip with Luis Garcia, his wife, Tonya, and their kids, Julianna and William Neel.  The plan was to have the kids to all the fishing while mom and dad looked on.

From left: Julianna and William Neel of Austin headed north to Stillhouse with their parents, Luis and Tonya Garcia, to cash in on some white bass fishing action.

As has been the case all week, thanks to the recent flooding, the evening bite has been 100% deep vertical jigging, with no bird action, bait action, or fish action yet spotted in the shallows, even at low light around sunset.

I let Luis and Tonya know right off the bat that it would be quite a feat to have an 11 and 12 year old stay engaged for a full four hours with such limited variety in the tactics that are working.  I do this so that it is not awkward for clients to let me know they’ve had enough before the usual 4-hour mark, perhaps fearing I’d take it the wrong way.

We did a thorough dockside introduction to vertical jigging and then headed out.  We were onto our first dozen fish within as many minutes from leaving the dock.  The first 2 hours of the were productive, however, the fish would not stay turned on very long.  At our first 3 areas fished, the fish would “fire up” as soon as we got our slabs down to them.  We’d then be able to catch 6-8 fish, but the fish would quickly turn off, settling back to the bottom, and become tough to get to bite.

We began fishing our 4th and final stop of the evening around 5:50p.  With the sun heading down and shadows getting long, the fish began to respond more aggressively and for a longer duration.  We fished this population in ~38′ for a full hour, taking the kids’ tally up to 69.  When it became clear to Luis that the kids had had enough and we agreed their technique was getting rough and inconsistent, we agreed to shoot for one more fish to make it an even 70.  Before long, Julianna hooked into a nice white bass and in came that 70th fish.  Well, not to be outdone, her younger brother wanted to have the last word, so, he insisted on pressing on until he caught one more.  A few minutes later, number 71 came over the port gunwale.

By this time, Will was done and searching for the snack bag, but steely-eyed Julianna just kept right on jigging.  She was NOT going to let Will have the last laugh.  So, with a fish population growing increasingly disinterested thanks to the length of time we’d been fishing over top of them, Julianna set about to catch “just one more”.  And she did!  Around 6:55p, our (honest this time!) last fish came on board and we cranked up and headed to the dock.

Our catch consisted of 71 white bass and 1 freshwater drum.

TALLY = 72 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  7:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp:  65.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  ESE7-8 the entire trip

Sky Conditions:  ~10% white clouds on a fair sky

Water Level: 625.40 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1143 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.01 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 25

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1173 – vertical jigging with slabs

**Area 1713/719 – vertical jigging with slabs

**Area 074 – vertical jigging with slabs

**Area 803 – vertical jigging with slabs

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

This morning, Thursday, 17 March, I fished with returning guests Butch Teixeira and his grandsons, Ethan and Owen Rosa.

From left: Butch Teixeira and his grandsons, Owen Rosa, age 11, and Ethan Rosa, age 16 teamed up for a half-day chasing white bass on Stillhouse Hollow.  The first half of the trip was spent casting bladebaits in shallow water, and the last half was spent vertical jigging in 31-34 feet of water.

Butch and his wife, Lena, traveled down to Texas from Fall River, MA, to visit their family now stationed at Fort Hood.  Butch runs his own 14′ aluminum boat with 15 hp motor fishing the freshwater ponds and brackish water rivers in his home state, but, Massachusetts is still firmly in winter’s grip right now, so, getting to fish in a t-shirt with me and his grandsons in mid-March was a real treat.

The shallow bite turned on again for the third day in a row.  Due to heavier cloud cover the bite started a bit later than during the past two days, and ended right around 9:15a.

After the shallow bite turned off, we headed for deeper water and, thanks to two ring-billed gulls, found a nice population of white bass in ~33′ of water that cooperated for about 90 minutes as we jigged for them.

By the time the bite died right around 11:15, we had 99 fish boated.  We spent another 15 minutes working for that last one to make it an even 100.  When Butch sealed the deal we decided to call it a good day on that good note, but not before Ethan contributed one last time.  Our catch consisted of 99 white bass and 2 largemouth.

TALLY = 101 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 69F

Water Surface Temp:  65.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  ESE8-9 the entire trip

Sky Conditions:  Overcast grey skies the entire trip but not to the point of drizzle.

Water Level: 625.40 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 1143 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.01 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 25

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1718 casting bladebaits to white bass aggressively chasing shad in 12-16′; 42 fish

**Area vic 1721  – vertical jigging; 59 fish

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

This morning, Wednesday, 16 March, I fished the 5th “Spring Break Week” trip of the week.  I welcomed aboard John and Elaine Wyckoff and their 3 grandchildren, Dacia (age 15), Malia (age 11), and Gabriel (age 8) Rodriguez, all from Belton, Texas.   Grandma and grandpa came as non-angling chaperones, so only the kids were doing the fishing.

Malia Rodriguez of Belton with her new Stillhouse Hollow Lake Record white bass.  This fish measured 16.75, beating the existing Junior Angler catch-and-release record of 16.50 inches set in June of 2009.

From left: The Rodriguez kids: Dacia, Malia, and Gabriel, each with white bass caught on bladebaits in ~14′ of water this morning.

After experiencing a solid shallow water bite yesterday morning, I first searched this same area this morning and again found it held quantities of fish, and those fish were quality fish, with many 2 and 3 year class fish, and some 4 year class fish.

I covered the basics of casting and retrieving the bladebaits we would be using before taking the rope off the dock this morning so everyone had a solid grip on those fundamentals.  When we arrived at our location, my first mate, the #Minn Kota #Ulterra trolling motor went to work anchoring us in place while I attended to the needs of my three young clients.

I had Dacia and Malia cast off the front deck, and I worked directly with young Gabriel in the stern.  The kids quickly got the hang of working the bladebaits and as soon as the sky started to brighten, the area came alive with life.  The water’s surface was dimpled by shad trying to escape the marauding white bass beneath them, and then gulls and tern joined in the fray from above.  The kids were all catching fish very consistently, with fish ranging from 10.75 to 13.75 inches making up the majority of the catch.

At one point I looked up from working with Gabriel to make sure the girls up on the front deck were doing fine, and I saw Malia’s rod deeply bent down into the butt section.  As the fish neared the boat, I saw a large white mass down in the still-stained water.  When I grabbed the leader to help land the fish, I immediately knew we had record-book material.  I checked out my TPWD lake record page stored on my cell phone and confirmed the existing lake record for white bass in the Junior Angler category taped in at 16.50 inches.  Malia’s fish surpassed that by 1/4″.  We photographed the fish on the measuring board as confirmation, took photos and released the fish so it could pass on those big fish genes one more time.

About 7 minutes later, Dacia caught another fish just a quarter inch shorter, which would have tied the existing record.

I explained to my five guests how unusual such a catch is.  Of the nearly 10,000 fish my clients boated during calendar year 2015, not a single white bass exceeded 16.5 inches, yet on this one trip, two such fish had been landed.

The shallow bite lasted as long as the sun stayed behind the clouds (’til about 9am).  After this bite ended, we moved out from shore a bit using downriggers and flatline trolling, but only picked up one fish.

It was now bright and calm — the toughest of all conditions.  So, I used this time to do another block of instruction on vertical jigging, knowing the conditions would dictate that we’d have to fish deep.  After this “class” was concluded, we headed to deep water to search out fish with sonar.

We found 3 separate concentrations of fish, and the first and last of these cooperated.

Just about the time we found the first concentration, a nice ENE wind kicked in and gave the fishing a nice bump.  We ended our morning with exactly 101 fish boated.

TALLY = 101 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Water Surface Temp:  65.0F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Light and variable for the first 2 hours, then coming up quickly ENE11-12

Sky Conditions:  Thin grey clouds sufficient to mask the sun for the first 90 minutes, then clearing to fair.

Water Level: 625.41 and falling with 622.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 2157 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.18 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 20

Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   128 — mid-depth vertical jigging for schooled fish in ~36′.

**Area   947/947  — deep vertical jigging for schooled fish in ~63′.

**Area   1716 and toward shore  — shallow, low-light vertical jigging in 25′.

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle