This past Tuesday evening, I fished the first of 3 half-day trips on Belton Lake with Steve Dinnell and his friend, James Murdock. Both are retirees and fishing buddies who have traveled far and wide to fish in both saltwater and fresh.

Steve drew first blood on the hybrids on Wednesday evening as a blended school of white bass and hybrid striper began pushing shad to the top and then sounded.  We went to where they were, found them still nearby with sonar, and then worked slabs through them vertically to put a bunch of fish in the boat in short order.

On Thursday morning, before the sun rose, we had live shad in the water in pursuit of hybrid.  Although we found a few, we kept having bluecat move in on our baits.  Most were small — this one wasn’t!

Thursday evening we set out again with live shad gunning for hybrid.  On a rocky hump in about 27 feet of water we found this smallmouth eager to chase down our large live baits.

Not much for having his photo taken, James also caught some nice fish this trip.  This hybrid, taken on live shad, was the last fish in the boat of these fellows’ 2-day excursion.

Under hot, bright, still conditions, fishing was tough this afternoon from 4 to 6 PM as we primarily used downriggers to catch smaller, suspended white bass.

Around 6 PM as the sun’s intensity lessened, and some light cloud cover moved in, the fish began to slowly perk up in advance of an aggressive top water feed at low light after sunset.

When I began to see fish in the lower third of the water column begin to coalesce and position 2 to 6 feet up off bottom, I knew things were about to happen.  For about 1/2 hour, we made pass after pass with the downriggers and caught singles and doubles of white bass that fell hard for our Pet Spoons.

Around 6:40 PM, the first sustained top water action took place when a large school of white bass mixed with short hybrids broke the surface and stayed there for several minutes.  For about 20 minutes we “spot hopped” from school to school and smoked with slabs over these fish quite successfully.

Eventually, schooling action that began here and there, turned into sustained, nonstop schooling action up shallower, allowing us to hop up onto the front casting deck and work soft plastics through these fish allowing Steve and James to put a final 36 fish in the boat between 7:20 and 7:50 PM.

As we closed the evening out, our tally stood at 86 fish.

Trip #2 on Thursday morning began slowly as we fished with live shad gunning for hybrid.  We caught only a handful of fish through 9:45am (including a big blue cat, shown in the report photos) when the lightest of breezes and a bit of spotty cloud cover turned the fish on.  We wound up boating 116 fish that morning, primarily sight casting to surface feeding white bass, or using a countdown method to fish where they were last seen.

Trip #3 on Thursday evening was, by request, specifically focused on hybrid stripers using live bait.  Because we fished long in the morning (and still left the fish biting!!), the fellows wanted to shorten the evening trip.  So, we met at 5p instead of 4p, and only fished until 7:15p after both had accomplished their goal of landing hybrid stripers on the live shad.  Along the way, we also put 1 largemouth, 1 smallmouth, 1 drum, and 1 bluecat in the boat.

 

TALLY = 216 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  Trip 1 –  4:00p; Trip 2 – 6:30a; Trip 3 – 5:00p

End Time:  Trip 1 –  8:00p; Trip 2 – 11:40a; Trip 3 – 7:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: Trip 1 –  94F; Trip 2 – 75F; Trip 3 – 91F

Water Surface Temp:  Trip 1 –  86F; Trip 2 – 85.4F; Trip 3 – 86F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Trip 1 –  SE1-3; Trip 2 – SSE5-7; Trip 3 SSE 6-8

Sky Conditions: <20% cloud cover on all trips

Water Level: ~0.06 feet low.  Lake is slightly below full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 90

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS TRIP 2:

**Area 327-211 – topwater white bass and subsequent countdown method

**Area 1360-1811 – topwater white bass and subsequent countdown method

**Area 1629-1757 – topwater white bass and subsequent countdown method

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS TRIP 3:

**Area 156/1068 – hybrid and bluecat on shad

**Area 486 – largemouth and smallmouth on shad

**Area 1808 – whites and hybrid on shad

**Area 1129 – whites and hybrid on shad

 

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, Saturday, 17 September, I conducted the 16th “S.K.I.F.F.” program trip of the 2016 season, taking 7-year-old Kaden Burns out fishing on Stillhouse Hollow.

Kaden Burns landed this solid 3 1/8 pound largemouth (just shy of 17″) all by himself on Stillhouse.  The largemouth were working in “wolfpacks” attacking shad on the surface, thus giving away their locations.

When the heat got to be a bit too much, we headed up in the shady shallows and worked on our panfishing skills.

Kaden is a student at Memorial Christian Academy in Kileen, TX, and is from an “all-Army” family.  His mom, Major Sheila Burns, is part of the Army’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps, and his dad, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Kelly Burns, is assigned to Army aviation.  CW4 Burns is currently deployed and shuttles between Iraq and Kuwait in his assignment with a Grey Eagle unmanned aircraft unit.

Although Sheila warned me Kaden might be groggy when I arrived to pick him up, the prospect of fishing overcame the prospect of more sleep and Kaden was actually very talkative on our drive to the boat ramp under cover of darkness.

We got launched and had lines in the water by around 7am, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon.  As the sky brightened suddenly, thanks to a lack of cloud cover, we began to observe schooling largemouth bass aggressively chasing shad over the 15 to 20 foot breakline we were holding near.  Kaden had never cast a spinning rod before, but he learned super quickly and retained what he had learned.  He actually hooked the first fish of the day, only to lose it at boatside as he let it “dangle” after reeling it in a bit too far.  We discussed a better approach — leaving more line out and quickly swing the fish from the water into the boat — which he did well the remainder of the trip.

We picked up several largemouth in this area casting soft plastics on jigheads before the sun rose sufficiently high to push the fish down.

For variety’s sake, we then went up shallow and targeted sunfish using worms under balsawood floats.  Kaden expanded his list of species captured to include bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, and longear sunfish as we did so.

As the sun continued to climb and no breezed developed, it began to get toasty.  I asked Kaden if he was up for one more kind of fishing for yet another species — white bass — and he gave me the thumbs-up.

We put the downrigger’s ball down at 25 feet over a 28-30′ bottom and let the small Pet Spoons attached to the tandem rig work their magic.  In minutes, we were fast to a largemouth, then a largemouth/white bass double, then another largemouth.  Then, as we were working to take that largemouth off the hook, a small school of largemouth began to explode on shad next to the boat.  I told Kaden to grab a spinning rod and cast to them.  Without hesitation, he grabbed the rod, flipped the bail, made a spot-on cast, held his rod tip low, began the retrieve, and hooked and landed the last bass of the day.  What a finish!!

TALLY = 31 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp:  85.0F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNW under 4mph

Sky Conditions: <10% cloud cover.

Water Level: ~0.25 feet high.  Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 0

 

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

 

 

 

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 Thursday morning, September 15th, I fished with Ron Phillips of Killeen and his oldest son Ronald Phillips. The two work together in a family-owned auto repair business, All Tune and Lube on Business 190 in Killeen, but today left the two younger brothers in charge and came out not just to catch fish, but also to try to learn how fish are caught.

Killeen-based All Tune and Lube owner Ron Phillips set the wrenches aside this morning and gave the local fishery a good going over.  Here, he hoists a 4.25 pound blue cat.

We had fish in the boat before the sun was in the sky. Ron and Ronald landed this pair of hybrid seconds apart.

I am always thankful when clients can express exactly what their expectations are, so that I can let them know if the expectations are realistic, and if so, work to fulfill those expectations.

Ron was very clear that he wanted to learn how I go about catching fish. So, I came prepared today to demonstrate for Ron and his son four different late-summer tactics that I depend on to put fish in the boat from the start of August through to the end of October.

My day began well before I met these two fellows as I captured an ample quantity of live shad so I could demonstrate one of the most effective tactics for catching hybrid striped bass, that of tight-lining directly beneath the boat with live shad. We had lines in the water and fish on the deck nearly an hour before sunrise and caught legal sized hybrid striper right on through to 8 a.m.

By the time the aggressive, low-light hybrid action had run its course, plenty of blue catfish had found their way to our position. So, the next technique I demonstrated was that of using fresh dead shad as cut bait for blue catfish in deep, open water.

We began our cat fishing segment with 21 fish already in the boat, and added a mix of 11 blue and channel catfish to the tally before moving on to instructional segment number three.

For our third demonstration, I relied heavily on sonar to find tightly grouped white bass and hybrid striper along structural irregularities in deep open water.  I then used a combination of waypoints and trails to go back over and fish on top of fish we had successfully identified using sonar. We found a concentration of mixed whites and hybrids numbering in the hundreds, and were able to excite the white bass into biting using a vertical presentation with three-quarter ounce slabs, while also taking an occasional hybrid while using one or two down rods baited with live shad.

As the sun got higher and hotter, and the winds remained nearly calm, I decided to close the trip out by showing the fellows how to downrig. Between 10:30 and 11 AM we got geared up with tandem rigs equipped with Pet Spoons and caught numerous singles and doubles from the same concentration of fish we had been slabbing for previously.

Back when our fish count was still in the 20s, Ron commented that we had already caught more fish at that point in the trip then he and Ronald had in the past year.  As we wrapped things up, our tally stood at 66 fish, and both fellows were beyond excited to understand what it takes to put fish in the boat during the heat of a Texas summer.

 

TALLY = 60 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  84.3F

Wind Speed & Direction:  WNW under 4mph

Sky Conditions: 10% cloud cover in the western sky.

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

GT = 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1808 –  tightlining live shad for hybrid in <30′; then bluecat on cutbait in the same area

**Area 651 – brief topwater action

**Area 1807/1809 – tightly schooled white bass with a few hybrid mixed in on a breakline — smoking & live shad

 

 

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 evening, I fished  with Aaron, Daniel, and Alexandria Chambers, chaperoned by their mom, Melissa.

Shoemaker High School student Aaron Chambers landed the first fish of his life and many more after that on our SKIFF program trip to Lake Belton this past Saturday.

8-year-old Alexandria show off the first fish of her life with a little help from her mom, Melissa.

Alexandria’s twin brother, Daniel, stayed enthusiastic the entire trip and really came on strong in the last hour as we encountered solid surface-feeding white bass action.

Melissa and I had coordinated a previous date in August, but rain and illness in their family prevented that from happening.  Still, Melissa was able to keep the entire thing a surprise for the kids until the moment they drove through the Corps of Engineers gate to the park we met at on Lake Belton.

None of the three kids had ever fished before.  Aaron (age 14) was a good bit older than his 8-year-old twin siblings, so I enlisted his help in helping ensure their success while I made sure he caught his fair share of fish, too.  Aaron’s help was much appreciated as we encountered 17 mph winds following the passage of a cold front that sped through central Texas in the morning, shifting the winds to the north, darkening the skies, and dropping trace of rain.

We enjoyed three distinct “chapters” on this trip.  Chapter one consisted of downrigging for white bass that were somewhat lethargic under the bright, post-frontal skies.  We found a solid congregation of  white bass holding on a distinct breakline in 20-25 feet of water and worked them over with repeated passes using downriggers equipped with Pet Spoons.  Following a 4:15p start, we had over 2 dozen fish in the boat by 6pm, thanks to landing a number of doubles on the tandem rigs we were downrigging with.

We spent about 45 minutes fishing cut bait near bottom for blue catfish until each of the three kids was able to land several catfish on their own.  These catfish were small, as they have been all summer, but they were plentiful and very cooperative.  As we wrapped up the catfishing the tally stood at 32 fish boated by around 7pm.

The last chapter of the day was to be written up in shallower water.  Thanks to a few sparse, but well-positioned clouds, the decrease of light that normally accompanies sunset came a bit early tonight as the sun sank behind these clouds before sinking below the horizon.  This got the white bass going on their evening topwater feed a bit early.  We enjoyed over an hour of sight-casting to surface feeding white bass, and ended the trip with an additional 34 fish landed via this technique.

It is not at all uncommon to catch as many fish in the last hour of light as in the previous 3 hours preceding.

All three kids obviously caught the first fish of their lives on this trip and earned TPWD “First Fish Awards”.

If you are a military spouse and your spouse is away from home on military duty, your children can also participate in such a SKIFF trip, thanks to the fundraising efforts of the Austin Fly Fishers.  Simply give me a call, text, or email (see below).

TALLY = 66 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time:  8:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 88F

Water Surface Temp:  84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNW17, tapering down to NNW8

Sky Conditions: 10% cloud cover in the western sky.

Water Level: ~0.06 feet high.  Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1602/813/1746/811 shallow downrigging at first light

**Area 1805/1790/1800 deeper downrigging during 2nd hour of light

**Area 502 sunfishing

**Area 1805 bluecat on cutbait

 

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 Labor Day Monday, I fished a morning trip with Tyler and Caleb Williams, chaperoned by their mom, Liz Williams.

Twin brothers Caleb and Tyler Williams joined me this past Labor Day Monday for the first fishing trip of their lives.  The boys landed 63 fish, including hybrid striped bass, white bass, blue catfish, redear sunfish, bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, and green sunfish.  Here, Tyler holds his largest fish of the trip, a 4 1/8 pound hybrid striper.

Caleb landed this 3.75 pound hybrid striped bass as we downrigged with balls set at 31 feet over a 45 foot bottom.

Caleb and Tyler are nine-year-old twin brothers who had never fished before. This morning’s weather was a continuation of the unstable weather we have had of late. This morning began with heavy grey cloud cover and a south-southeast wind blowing around 12 mph. The wind made any top water action that may have existed very difficult to see unless you were right on top of it, so, I began our morning with each boy manning one of my two downriggers. Each downrigger was equipped with a tandem rig rigged with two Pet Spoons. From our first line in the water around 6:45 until around 8:40 AM, we enjoyed consistent success on the downriggers, first up shallow with the ball set from 14 to 17 feet, then, as it brightened and the fish moved further offshore, we caught them with the ball set at 24 to 31 feet.

When it became clear to Liz and I that the novelty of downrigging had worn off (even though the fish were still cooperating), we headed up shallow and tryed our luck with rods baited with worms suspended under balsawood floats targeting sunfish. Our fish count stood at 38 fish prior to beginning our sunfishing adventure. After 50 minutes of effort with the boys taking turns on just one rod, we added another 14 fish to our tally which now stood at 52.

For our grand finale this morning, we fished near bottom with cutbait targeting blue catfish. I found abundant blue cat schooled in 32 feet of water. We used shad to tempt these fish and wound up with a grand total of 11 coming over the gunwale before mom and I agreed to call it a good morning at 10:30 with 63 fish landed for our efforts.

Both boys succeeded in catching the first fish of their lives today and then went on to appreciate a number of other fishing skills, as well.

TALLY = 63 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp:  83.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE12

Sky Conditions: 70-100% cloud cover.

Water Level: ~0.88 feet high.  Lake is falling slowly at ~.11 feet per day

GT = 35

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1602/813/1746/811 shallow downrigging at first light

**Area 1805/1790/1800 deeper downrigging during 2nd hour of light

**Area 502 sunfishing

**Area 1805 bluecat on cutbait

 

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 Thursday evening I fished a multi-species trip with West Virginia National Guardsmen Scott Piper, Mac McAninch, Floyd Watts, and Phil Arnold. This same crew, minus Floyd, also came out with me this past Tuesday evening and had such a good time that they wanted to treat Floyd to a trip, too.

Fresh from the fight — West Virginia National Guardsman Floyd Watts hit Belton Lake, courtesy of a few fishermen in his unit, within hours of stepping off his plane back to U.S. soil from Iraq.

Floyd, literally, just got off a plane coming in from Iraq hours before stepping aboard my boat.  As we headed out in the 92F afternoon heat, he commented how “cool” it was versus the 120F+ heat he’d left behind, and said 90F was a typical temperature around midnight where he’d just come from.

This afternoon’s bite was a tough one, thanks to unstable weather and light winds. We employed a variety of tactics to put together a total bag of 45 fish.

We first connected with fish via downrigging over a small breakline dropping from 17 to 28 feet. We used Pet Spoons behind a pair of downriggers with the ball set between 14 and 17 feet to get bit. This area gave up 14 fish.

Next, we moved on to deeper water and found abundant, schooled fish, however they were locked down on bottom. We were able to convince a few to strike using a smoking tactic, but results were few and far between. When I switched over to the downrigger, the fish really never budged. Usually, in deep water, and when fish are tied to the bottom, active fish will come up out of the school and inspect the downrigger ball as it passes by overhead. We really never saw this happen until nearly 7:15 PM. We gave cat fishing a try in the meantime as we waited for the sun to get lower, hoping the whitebass would get more active as that happened. The catfish certainly cooperated, but as has been the case all summer, ran pretty small.

Once the sun got behind a thin layer of clouds in the western sky, a few fish responded immediately and began to strike on top water. We got to them as quickly as we can and threw soft plastics on jigheads, catching a few whites and a few largemouth.

As the next 45 minutes passed, the sun set below the western horizon, and during what is normally the best window for top water action, none took place this evening.

We finished out the night with a grand total of 45 fish and talked of the fellows returning for some of the awesome late November fishing after their aircraft returned from Iraq and these Guardsmen returned from their home state to pick them up.

Floyd took big fish honors with a 3.25 pound hybrid taken on a slab worked vertically.

 

TALLY = 45 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time:  8:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 92F

Water Surface Temp:  87F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE5

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

Water Level: ~2.80 feet high.  Lake is falling slowly at ~.11 feet per day

GT = 20

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 168/169 downrigging for whites on a breakline

**Area 1070/1802 smoking slabs for reluctant, deep, schooled whites and hybrid

**Area 1784/1781 pre-dusk downrigging in <25′

**Area 1762 brief topwater

**Area 020 fancasting for last-light bite

 

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 Thursday morning, August 25th, I fished with Jerry Shirley, his wife Elizabeth, and his younger brother Zack, who was in visiting from North Carolina before starting high school again next week.

From left: Zack, Elizabeth and Jerry Shirley with a sampling of white bass taken on this morning’s multi-species trip on Lake Belton.

Jerry is a recently separated U.S. Army veteran, and Elizabeth is still on active duty and headed for a deployment to South Korea in early 2017.  I appreciate the service of all of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that come on my boat and am glad to be able to offer a $30 discount to them on their fishing trips.

This morning we fished a multi-species trip on Lake Belton. This was the calmest, and the clearest day we’ve had since the cold front came in two Fridays ago, and since the low-pressure and rain moved out this past Tuesday.

As is typical on bright, cloudless days, most of the white bass and hybrid striper action was frontloaded in the first 70 minutes of the trip. During this time we found numerous, aggressive schools of white bass mixed with hybrid stripers herding shad to the surface and feeding upon them there thus making enough commotion to be visually detected from quite some distance away. Additionally, gray terns were feeding over top of many of these schools, making them even easier to locate.

I had Jerry positioned in the front of the boat sight-casting to the left and right as we approached these schools, and I had Zack and Elizabeth on either side of the boat in the stern each manning a downrigger set 20 feet back and 12 feet down equipped with Pet Spoons behind umbrella rigs.

The fish came easy right up until 8:10 when the sun rose sufficiently high and became bright to the point that it pushed the fish down off the surface.

At this time we pursued species number two, which consisted of throwing soft plastic grubs on quarter ounce jig heads to schooling largemouth bass up in shallow brush.  This lasted about 40 minutes and, as we were pulling away from these fish, we then spotted “popcorn” schools of white bass ambushing shad out in deep, open water.  We did a “run and gun” routine for a while, catching just one fish per person (maybe) as we arrived, cut the engine and made accurate casts.  The fish would the sound and we’d never see them again.

Around 9:15 we began pursuing species number three: blue catfish. We found abundant catfish hugging bottom in 28 to 32 feet of water chummed the area to get the fish active, and then fished cut shad to tempt them.

The catfishing is pretty relaxed, so, as you hold your rod and wait for a bite, it’s a good time to talk and tell stories.  When I learned that Jerry’s family was from North Carolina, I told them of my fishing trip to the Outer Banks a few years ago and how we enjoyed the Carolina pulled pork and thin BBQ sauce.  That’s when Jerry started confessing things — serious things, like high crimes and misdemeanor things … like smuggling a certain brand of Carolina BBQ sauce across multiple state lines so he doesn’t run out while he’s here in Texas.

By 11:05 we had boated exactly 103 fish.  With the already light wind getting even lighter, and the sun feeling hotter, we decided to call it a good morning and head in for lunch.

TALLY = 103 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:10a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE5-6

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

Water Level: ~3.07 feet high.  Lake is falling slowly

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1206-904: nomadic, fast moving schooling white bass under terns

**Area 1206 largemouth in and around brush

**Area 1801 chasing popcorn white bass

**Area 085-814 – blue cat and drum on cutbait

 

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