This past Saturday morning, October 15, I fished with cousins David Tuel of Waco and Frank Hardey of the Houston area. We fished a multi-species trip on Belton primarily targeting white bass in deep water.

From left: David Tuel of Waco and his cousin, Frank Hardey of Houston, teamed up for a 79 fish morning on Belton Lake.  With the water beginning to cool, the fish are beginning to congregate in large numbers on the bottom in areas previously beneath the summer thermocline.

David makes his living as an anesthesiologist, and Frank works as a trainer for Southwest Airlines. Both men commented positively about the aesthetic properties of Belton Lake thanks to the absence of shoreline construction.

The day began with gray clouds and breeze, and thankfully that cloud cover and breeze continued all morning. We began fishing in 22 feet of water and ended our day in 35 feet of water, with all of the action happening within those two parameters. As we went from area to area today we found ample quantities of white bass heavily schooled on and very near the bottom. These fish were quite susceptible to various vertical retrieves.

Some fish required a very slow, methodical “easing” tactic, while other schools of fish were duped with a faster “smoking” tactic. Our go-to bait was the silver holographic colored 3/8 oz. Redneck Fish’n’ Jigs slab Model 180. Fished on light spinning gear, this slab was just the ticket with a combination of light braided line, and a fluorocarbon leader. We caught fish today from start to finish and put several species of fish in the boat including white bass, hybrid striper, largemouth bass, and freshwater drum. By far the most prevalent species was the white bass with several fish caught between 13 and 14 inches, and with three exceeding 14 inches.

At the next-to-last area we fished, we were treated to an aerial dogfight as we watched an osprey with a fish in its talons being hassled by a juvenile bald eagle nearly twice its size. Try as it might, the eagle could not get the osprey to let go of its meal. After about four or five minutes of constant pressuring, the young eagle gave up.  Unfortunately, it was around this time that our fish gave up, too, and so, at around 11:45a we called it a good morning and headed back to the dock.
TALLY = 79 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:25a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Water Surface Temp:  78.5F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S10-12

Sky Conditions: 60% white clouds on a blue sky

Water Level: ~0.13 feet high with only evaporative losses

GT = 50

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1816 and vicinity – balling for white bass, then smoking

**Area 211/1675 – balling for white bass, then smoking

**Area 1675 – smoking for white bass

**Area  192 – easing for white bass as the bite tapered to an end

 

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 past Tuesday, October 12, I fished with father and son team Chad and Coitt Messersmith of Georgetown, Texas. Coitt is 10 years old, has both an older and younger sister, and primarily had fished from the bank prior to this morning’s trip. He and dad gave the girls the slip and came out to Belton Lake for some guy time this morning.

Father and son fishing with Chad Messersmith and his 10-year-old son, Coitt on Belton this past Tuesday.

Five at a time!!  We caught 2 white bass on Coitt’s 2-armed rig and 3 white bass on Chad’s 3-armed rig as an aggressive school crashed into our spread down around 27 feet.

Due to the very calm conditions today, the presence of bait was evident where it was near the surface during the low light period just before and after sunrise.  As I observed the baitfish and rough fish disrupting the surface, I checked things over with sonar, and was able to put Chad and Coitt onto our first fish of the morning by finding white bass amidst this surface activity. We used downriggers with balls set between 14 and 17 feet to target fish over a slightly deeper bottom. On this first stop, most of the fish we encountered were small.

We moved on and fished a steep underwater slope along the 25 to 35 foot contour and watched sonar to see schools of white bass that were up off of bottom and hunting, as well as bottom hugging white bass that came up off the bottom out of curiosity and aggression as they swam up toward the downrigger ball. Whenever fish came up off the bottom after the ball, those fish were sure to hit our Pet Spoons as they passed by several seconds later.  On one pass, using both a 2-armed and 3-armed rig, we actually caught 5 fish at a time!

We moved on to a more gentle underwater slope and fished the 30 to 36 foot contour with downriggers and did well, noticing as we trolled that there were also large bottom hugging schools of fish in this area. After we had put a number of fish in the boat on the downrigger, we tried using slabs over top of these heavily schooled, bottom oriented fish to see if we could tempt them. They actually responded quite well, despite the less than ideal, bright, calm conditions. We were able to use a smoking tactic to put a number of fish in the boat quite quickly using this tactic.

By now our fish count stood at 47 and the clock showed 10:30 AM. We headed up shallow at this point to fish for sunfish and to show Chad and Coitt how they might adapt this technique to their future bank fishing efforts. Over the next hour, Coitt put 28 fish in the boat from out of this shallow, cover filled water, including bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, yellow belly sunfish, green sunfish, and largemouth bass.

We concluded this morning’s trip with 75 fish landed.

TALLY = 75 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:25a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 57F

Water Surface Temp:  78.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Light and variable.

Sky Conditions:  Bright, calm, clear post-frontal conditions

Water Level: ~0.13 feet high with only evaporative losses

GT = 50

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 168/169 – downrigging for white bass

**Area 1125-511 – downrigging for white bass

**Area 1074-509 – downrigging for white bass to find them, then smoking to capitalize on the find

**Area  166 – sunfish

 

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 past Columbus Day Monday I was joined by Mr. John Matthews, his adult son Derek Matthews (of Belton, Texas), Derek’s daughter, Isabel, and John’s granddaughter from Buda, Texas, Bella Jaimes. We set out on Belton Lake on a multi-species trip, primarily focused on white bass and sunfish.  These fish provide lots of action and keep younger kids engaged.

From left:  Back row: Derek and John Matthews; foreground: Isabel Matthews and Bella Jaimes.

The girls were alert and energetic as they boarded the boat. I went over a quick safety briefing and introduction to both spinning and casting gear, and then we were off.  Within a few minutes of launching, we had identified heavy schools of white bass blanketing the bottom in 22 to 25 feet of water under still dim conditions.  As the skies brightened, the fish grew more active, and stayed active for about 50 minutes, and then began to move offshore and grow less enthusiastic as the skies brightened.

Over this time, the girls routinely landed singles and doubles of white bass on downrigger rods rigged with Pet Spoons fished just above the level we saw fish appearing at on sonar.

When things got slow, we relocated to deeper structure and continued downrigging.  Occasionally, we’d find a tightly grouped bunch of white bass holding tight to the bottom and would work slabs through them for a few quick fish, but, these fish didn’t stay put very long, and we then kept right on downrigging.  We fished this way right up until 10 AM. By this time, we had landed 38 white bass.

The remainder of our trip we invested in catching a variety of sunfish species up in shallow, cover-laden water. The girls took turns on one long bream rod using worm as bait, and wound up with exactly 50 fish boated for their efforts. Dad and grandpa didn’t fish, but rather came along as moral support, to spend some time with the girls, and to help me help the girls be successful, which was much appreciated.

TALLY = 50 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 52F

Water Surface Temp:  78.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SW5 until sunrise, then calming to light and variable.

Sky Conditions:  Bright, calm, clear post-frontal conditions

Water Level: ~0.16 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 50

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area encompassed by Areas 1804-1655-1803-1790 – downrigging for white bass

**Area 1814 & 1815 – smoking for white bass

**Area 376-1678 – downrigging for white bass

**Area  502 – sunfish

 

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 past Friday afternoon I ran the season’s 17th SKIFF  (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) program trip, this time doing an after-school trip on Stillhouse (a bit closer to my house in order to reduce my guests’ drive time and maximize our fishing time as the days grow shorter).  I was joined today by Ayden Bouchee and his mom, Amanda Bouchee, of Ft. Hood.

Just before the last light of day was obscured by a grey cloud deck, we got into a school of white bass willing to hit our downriggers equipped with Pet Spoons.  Ayden’s largest was this 14.00″ white bass.  His mom immediately texted the photo to his grandpa.

Ayden Bouchee, under difficult cold front conditions, put together a catch of sunfish that had the highest average weight of any single catch of sunfish I’ve seen caught on Stillhouse in 24 years.  Most all fish were at least 5″, with some exceeding 7″.

Ayden’s father, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Bouchee, is an infantryman now deployed to South Korea.  He has been in the Army for 9 years after volunteering right out of high school.

When Ayden and Amanda arrived, I shared with them the fisherman’s rhyme,

“Winds from the west, fish bite best.

Winds from the east, fish bite least.

Winds from the south blow the hook in the fish’s mouth; but…

Winds from the north, the fisherman goes not forth!

I let him know we had a tough job on our hands fishing while a cold front was coming through, but that we’d work hard and would still put some fish in the boat.

After looking far and wide for some white bass to fish for, I went with “Plan B” after sonar revealed little in 40 minutes’ time.  Plan B was to fish for sunfish in shallow cover, and it worked just fine.

Ayden stayed engaged for nearly 2 hours bringing in sunfish after sunfish from one fairly small, protected cove.  All of our sunfish this trip were bluegill, and I commented to Amanda that this was the single best average weight of sunfish I’d had any child catch on any trip over the 24 years I’ve fished Stillhouse.   Nearly every fish was at least 5″, with some just exceeding 7″.

As we drew within an hour of sunset, and with the wind subsiding just a bit, I thought we’d give the white bass one more try.  Ayden was ready for a transition, anyway, so, once again we set out to hunt with sonar.

At the breakline of a submerged point, at about 27 feet down over a 31-33 foot bottom, I saw several small packs of white bass in short succession on the sonar screen, along with ample bait.  We put just one of the two downriggers down at first, equipped with Pet Spoons, and got a single, then another, then a double.

Now that we knew fish were present and biting, we put down yet another ‘rigger and, in the end, wound up adding a total of seven white bass to our catch of 37 sunfish, to finish up the evening with a grand total of 44 fish landed.

 

TALLY = 44 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time:  7:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Water Surface Temp:  79.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  N15-17mph

Sky Conditions:  Grey clouds persisted as a cold front, which dropped ~.75″ of rain earlier in the day as it passed, continued to move through.

Water Level: ~0.16 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1098 – Sunfish

**Area  039/041 – downrigging for white bass

 

 

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

It’s kind of crazy how this whole trip came together!  I’d originally booked a trip for October 6th with an elderly, long-time client of mine who struggles with medical issues.  Back in the spring, I’d enjoyed fishing with a railroad retiree, Kim Herald, and his brother.  At the close of that trip, Kim expressed an interest in catching hybrid stripers and asked me to let him know if an opportunity to split the cost of a trip ever arose.  My elderly client was open to this, so, I planned a trip for the two of them…

Kim boated our largest fish of the trip — this 5 pound class hybrid striper which took a large, live bait.

David took this chunky hybrid in under 16 feet of water at mid-morning thanks to the heavy clouds keeping the light level low.

And Fran got the hang of using circle hooks right off the bat and landed our first fish of the trip while it was still well before sunrise (hence the grainy photo — sorry!).

Unfortunately, the fellow with medical issues had to bow out due to those medical issues, leaving just Kim to fish with me, and a bit of a financial shortfall given the time I’d have to invest in netting live shad for the trip (easily 90-120+ minutes before clients arrive).  So, I put up a post on Facebook that I could offer a discount to try to attract a second guest and defray some of these costs.

Long story short, that post was viewed (and shared) extensively by those who tune in to my reports such that over 2,300 people very quickly became aware of my situation.  At 8:06pm, a couple from Belton, referred by an existing client, called to claim that seat.  That put Mr. David Souza and Mrs. Fran Souza in good company with Kim Herald for a full morning of fishing on Lake Belton.

Fran is still working as a counselor at the Center for Positive Change in Belton, and David, originally from Missouri, is now retired.

October is a notoriously tough month for Belton, and the later in the month we go, the tougher the fishing tends to become, thanks to the annual turnover of the water that has been stratified by temperature all summer.

I came prepared to fish for white bass, hybrid striper, and blue catfish in order to ensure we caught fish.

As it turned out, all of our tactics were put to the test, with live shad fishing for hybrid producing our best fish, and vertical jigging with slabs producing the most fish.  The catfishing was slow, but all three clients still caught several of these whiskered critters.

Yet another cold front comes in to central Texas on Friday, 07 Oct., and may be the one to trigger the turnover and get this tough fishing out of the way for us.  As it stood, I noted that the thermocline had already moved several feet downward and I found shad and catfish in deeper water than they have been inhabiting all summer.

By trip’s end, we had boated and released 76 fish.  I really appreciate all of you who forwarded that Facebook post to friends for doing so; that directly impacted my business for the better!

 

TALLY = 76 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  12:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  80.0F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE 12-13mph

Sky Conditions:  A low, grey layer of clouds persisted all morning, keeping conditions dim.

Water Level: ~0.27 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 75

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1800/1802 – keeper hybrid, short hybrid, and white bass on live shad and Black Saltys

**Area  vic 134 – keeper hybrid, short hybrid, and white bass on live shad and slabs

**Area vic 1579 – found heavily schooled white bass with downriggers and then worked these fish over with slabs

**Area  vic 156 – blue cat on cut shad under slipfloats

 

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

Man, what a beautiful day to be on the water. Both this past Saturday’s morning trip and evening trip were cool and dry, with a little bit of breeze and some gray cloud cover. It was just a joy to be in the outdoors under these conditions. This evening I was joined by Mr. Forrest Breyfogle III, his wife, Becki Breyfogle, and their grandchildren, 11-year-old Abby Breyfogle and nine-year-old forest Breyfogle V.

Abby caught the largest white bass of the trip…

Grandma Becki caught the most fish…

And the whole family got to enjoy a beautiful early fall day out on Lake Belton.

We fished a multi-species trip on Belton Lake beginning at 3:45 PM and fished until dark, around 7:50 PM.

Because the kids were fairly new to fishing and Mr. and Mrs. Breyfogle hadn’t fished in quite some time, we began with some dockside casting lessons using spinning gear so that if any shallow water white bass activity took place under low light conditions in the last hour of the trip, we would be prepared to take full advantage of that.

After the casting lessons were done, we put the spinning gear away and I familiarized everyone with how to hold and use the bait casting gear that we would use for downrigging. With that skill then under their belts, we set out to put white bass in the boat using the downriggers. We fished 2 rods, each equipped with multiple Pet Spoons on either a tandem rig or a three-armed umbrella rig.

Our first 45 minutes on the water yielded 14 fish, several of which came in the form of doubles, wherein we landed two fish on one rod at the same time as multiple schoolmates fell for the Pet Spoons on the tandem rig or on the umbrella rig.

Next, we targeted blue catfish in open water over a 30 foot bottom. Although the chop on the water made by detection a little tougher then it could have been under calm conditions, the action was non-stop. Everyone landed multiple blue catfish, and Becki managed to take two hybrid, each measuring around 16 inches, on her dead bait.

During the 6 o’clock hour, we “spot hopped” and used a vertical tactic with small slabs to tempt a number of white bass holding in tightly grouped schools on the bottom when I was able to locate them with sonar. When this success proved spotty, I went back to downrigging and fished with downriggers until around 7 PM. From 7 PM until dark, we enjoyed casting to white bass in shallow water. These fish did not break the surface in large, noisy schools, but rather slipped up into the shallows unnoticed except for their signatures on sonar.

By the time night fell, we had amassed a catch of 74 fish.  By request of Becki, I’m including the species of fish we landed: hybrid striped bass, white bass, and blue catfish; as well as the techniques we used: downrigging (for hybrid stripers and white bass); slipfloating with cutbait (for catfish), and casting with soft plastics and slabs (for white bass).

TALLY = 74 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  7:50p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp:  82.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE 9mph

Sky Conditions: A thin, scattered white deck of clouds offering 30% coverage but still bright conditions

Water Level: ~0.22 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 50

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  181/1604 – downrigging for white bass

**Area  vic 812 – catfish on cutbait

**Area 1800/1803/085 – downrigging for white bass and hybrid striped bass

**Area  1781/011 – casting to shallow white bass and hybrid striper

 

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 past Saturday morning I fished with Mr. Joe Phillips of Killeen, his six-year-old son, C.J. Phillips, and Joe’s six year old nephew, Rodney Phillips, of Copperas Cove.

Can you smile any bigger than that?!?  Little Rodney Phillips of Copperas Cove landed this hybrid after it struck a downrigged Pet Spoon.

Not to be outdone, minutes after Rodney landed his big hybrid, C.J. chipped in with one of his own.

And what’s better than landing three fish at a time with your best fishin’ buddy?
This was a multi-species trip on Belton Lake and our aim was to keep the boys engaged for as long as that was possible by keeping them reeling in whatever manner of fish cooperated to help meet that objective.

At first light we begin downrigging in between 20 and 25 feet of water and nearly instantly had a double hookup on, allowing both boys to break the ice with white bass. As we were re-rigging the downriggers to take our second pass, fish began to burst on the surface chasing after shad all around us, however, this was not like a traditional lowlight top water feed. Rather, the fish would come up very briefly and then submerge. This took place over a large expanse of water, but still made it difficult to to get close enough to these schools of fish for a long enough time to sight cast to them. So, after landing a few fish by sight casting using soft plastics, we returned to downrigging and this proved to be a much more efficient approach.

By around 9 AM, the lowlight bite, which was extended by a nice deck of gray clouds, began to wane. To continue to hold the boys’ attention, Joe and I took them up shallow and targeted sunfish for about 40 minutes.  The boys did well at this, and each landed a variety of sunfish including green sunfish, bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, and redear sunfish.

When the novelty of sunfishing wore off, we headed out once again in search of white bass, this time targeting them with downriggers fished over deeper breaklines. Based on how I saw a number of bottom oriented schools of white bass respond to our downrigging approach, I decided to give the use of slabs a try in a vertical orientation. In our last 30 minutes on the water, we piled on the fish count with several dozen smallish white bass which kept the boys engaged right to the very last at around 10:45, when talked turned Chicken McNuggets and Longhorn football.
TALLY = 74 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Water Surface Temp:  82.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW under 4mph

Sky Conditions: A thin grey deck of clouds offering 90% coverage but still bright conditions

Water Level: ~0.22 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1657 – low light sporadic topwater

**Area 1602-1790 downrigging for white bass & short hybrid

**Area 502 – sunfish

**Area 1589-687-1584 – white bass on downrigger to find them, then capitalized with vertical jigging from a hover

 

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

Last Saturday evening I fished a multi-species trip on Lake Belton with Eric and Allison Stokes.

Allison and Eric Stokes had a successful multi-species trip with me, landing blue catfish, white bass, and hybrid stripers by employing 3 different tactics.  The couple landed 85 fish in under 4 hours.

Allison is a U.S. Army veteran and Eric is still on active duty.  He just returned from deployment and is about to head away from home again for schooling at Fort Lee, VA, so he can advance to the rank of Staff Sergeant (E6).  Allison thought it would be nice to treat him and a friend to a fishing trip before he departed.

When she asked what friend he would like to bring, Eric said, “You!”.   (Big domestic bonus points there!).

The weather was turbulent this evening with a stiff SSE breeze at up to 15mph in advance of a small line of thunderstorms that quickly made their way past us.  We caught catfish in about 26 feet of water for the first 90 minutes of the trip, putting 40 of these whiskered critters in the boat before they shut off.  As we were about to make a move, I thought it prudent to check weather radar given what I saw brewing in the SE sky.  Long story short, we had a 30 minute rain delay from 6:00 to 6:30, afterwhich the skies cleared (as did the lake of almost all fishing and recreational traffic).  So, we had calming conditions and excellent fishing immediately following the storms, and right up until dark.

When we returned to the water, we did a bit of downrigging for suspended white bass over a gently sloping bottom over 25 to 35 feet of water, then, thanks to cloud cover in the western sky, the low light period preceding sunset kicked in early tonight, thus providing us with “a fish every cast” kind of opportunities up shallow for the last 40 minutes of the trip.

We finished up with 85 fish boated and Eric and Allison very glad they spent this time together on the water before their upcoming separation.

 

TALLY = 85 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time:  8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 89F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE13-15

Sky Conditions: 70% cloud cover on a fair sky; a rain interruption of about 30 minutes from 6:00-6:30p

Water Level: ~0.03 feet low.  Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 10

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1068 – 40 blue catfish

**Area 676-1580 downrigging for white bass

**Area 1812-1813 – white bass on topwater

**Area 009-1763 – white bass on topwater

 

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 past Friday evening, September 23, I conducted the 17th SKIFF program trip of this 2016 season by welcoming aboard Ryan Webber, and his mom, Ashley Webber.

 

Ryan Webber came aboard with a good bit of fishing experience already under his belt.  This paid big dividends as he quickly took to each of the 4 tactics we used on this evening’s trip.  Here, Ryan shows off a blue catfish he caught on a slipfloat in over 25 feet of water.

Ryan did a fantastic job of listening to my coaching, allowing to land this 19″ hybrid striper that went just over 3 pounds.

Ryan also did well fishing for sunfish up shallow and in casting to white bass near the surface just after dark.
Ryan is a nine-year-old boy who came on board with a good bit of fishing experience already under his belt. Ryan’s father, US Army Sergeant Webber, is a mechanic currently deployed to South Korea with only 20 days left to go in-country.

As is my preference for trips involving kids in elementary school, I broke this trip up into multiple, short segments.

These segments consisted of sunfishing in shallow water, cat fishing with cut bait using slip floats, downrigging for white bass and hybrid striper, and casting to shallow white bass after sunset.

Ryan did well in all of these disciplines. He landed 24 sunfish of various sorts and a small largemouth bass as we fished up shallow. He landed another 20 blue catfish after getting the hang of when to set the hook using a slip float.  And, even though a stiff breeze at sunset obscured our ability to see white bass and hybrid striper feeding on the surface, Ryan did well as we cast to unseen fish that we located with sonar after a productive round of downrigging.

When all was said and done, Ryan had landed 62 fish this evening. We had planned on Ryan’s younger sister who is but six years old to attend, but she got cold feet at the last minute. In hindsight, Mrs. Webber felt that was probably for the best as she knew her daughter’s patience level would not have lasted near as long as Ryan’s did.

A huge thanks to all of those who support the SKIFF program so that when he calls like Mrs. Webber’s come in requesting a trip while the military spouse is away, I never have to hesitate in saying “Yes!”

And, another thanks to Mrs. Denise Igo, who manages the Fort Hood Area Events webpage.  She helped get the word out about the SKIFF program that lead Mrs. Webber to know about my after-school fishing opportunities which exist right up until the time change in early November.

 

TALLY = 62 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time:  8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 88F

Water Surface Temp:  84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE12

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

Water Level: ~0.02 feet low.  Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 502 sunfish

**Area 1800/812 bluecat on cutbait

**Area 1802/814 downrigging for white bass and hybrid

**Area 011-015 casting to topwater white bass

 

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