Fishing with Papo! — 80 Fish at Lake Belton

This past Monday morning, July 25th, I fished with Mr. Leonard Myers, his son-in-law, Chris Talley, and Chris’s son, Dawson Talley. We fished Belton Lake targeting hybrid stripers with both artificial lures and live bait.

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From left: Chris Talley, 5-year-old Dawson Talley, and Leonard “Papo” Myers with a pair of hybrid taken on slabs from out of 32 feet of water between 10:00 and 10:30am.

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Chris Talley with a nice 2.25 pound smallmouth that fell for a sub-surface retrieve in the midst of a topwater feediing frenzy.

Leonard (whom the grandkids call “Papo”) is a small businessman who established and has built Hutto Pest Control over the past 5 years.  Chris is from Arkansas and works as a biologist ensuring drinking water treatment plants stay in compliance with current regulations.  Dawson, age 5, will be starting Kindergarten this year and already knows he wants to work at a Bass Pro Shops when he gets older.

Although a mild wrinkle in our weather is due in mid-week, this day’s weather was very much like the weather has been for at least the past two weeks, albeit with lighter winds. I met Leonard and crew around 6:20a, had lines in the water by 6:32a, and our first fish landed by 6:35a.

Today played out nearly exactly as my last half-dozen trips on Belton Lake have: we experienced an early, nearshore downrigger bite, followed by a top water bite, followed by a live bait bite when things slowed down, and concluded with a bite on slabs once a bit of wind began to ripple the surface.

Today, I transitioned to fishing with slabs right around 9:15 AM, and was concerned about our chances of success because by this time the wind had nearly gone calm after building to about 8 mph (the peak speed for this morning).

My concerns were unfounded, though, as the heavily schooled fish that have fueled this slab bite were still in the same vicinity and doing the same thing as they were under more breezy conditions previously.

Dawson really did great for a five-year-old, staying engaged the entire 4+ hours. Most kids his age last only about 2 1/2 or three hours and then lose attention, and then begin to get whiny about one thing or another.

As we wrapped up just after 10:30a today, “Papo” put our 80th and final fish in the boat.

 

TALLY = 80 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

25JUL16

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE3-5

Sky Conditions: 80% high grey cloud cover kept warmth in overnight and provided a bit of relief from the sun’s heat on this morning with light winds

Water Level: 13.23 feet high and falling ~  0.6 feet per day with a flow of ~5,300 cfs

GT = 195

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 020-1746 downrigging for low light fish just sub-surface

**Area 1762 to the shore – casting to fish schooling on the surface

**Area 1793 live bait & slabbing

 

 

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

Cookie Cutter Fishing Under High Pressure Skies — 65 Fish @ Belton Lake

This past Saturday, July 23rd, I fished with Luis and Tonya Garcia, their kids, William and Juliana Neel, and the kids’ cousin, Juliana Sauceda, who was visiting from San Antonio for the week.  We headed out on Lake Belton in pursuit of hybrid striped bass.

 

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Juliana Sauceda not only took her first boatride this morning, but also caught the first fish of her life!

 

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Juliana Neel excelled at casting with spinning gear this morning, tossing far and accurately.  She was handsomely rewarded with a number of white bass and hybrid stripers she caught from visible schools of fish feeding at the surface.

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William’s specialty was keeping a close eye on our live bait rods.  He took note of every tell-tale sign of life on the end of his line and caught several keeper hybrid as a result of his attentiveness.
With a high-pressure dome now firmly in place over Texas controlling our weather, each day’s weather is essentially “cookie-cutter”, with overnight lows between 78 and 80, and late afternoon highs right around 100, with fair and cloudless skies and winds from the south southwest.

Each summer when the weather gets this way, the fishing gets very consistent and predictable. Today’s trip played out nearly identically to yesterday’s trip, which played out nearly identically to Tuesday’s trip, and so on.

After meeting up at 6:15 AM, we had downrigger lines in the water and were into our first fish, a pair of doubles coming over the side for the two Julianas, by 6:30 AM. We continued downrigging for about 45 minutes until the sun had risen to about 15 or 20° above the horizon and shut down that the downrigger bite. Soon afterwards, further offshore, in about 40 to 50 feet of water, open water surface feeding broke out over an area covering about 4 acres as wind began to ripple the surface and scatter the increasing light. The fish were not found throughout this area, but rather were found in distinct schools within this area.

The kids quickly learned to cast with the spinning gear and soon were launching their lures well over the schooling fish and retrieving their baits directly through the “sweet spot”. This top water action lasted until around 8:30 AM.

Next, I did some searching with sonar in the same general vicinity, and found a somewhat isolated school of hybrid striper in 37 feet of water. These fish were poised several feet above the bottom and looked to be in a feeding mode. I used the SpotLock function on my Minn Kota Ulterra. We got one rod baited her child, rods in the rod holders, and eyes on the rod tips. With the help of a little chum, a little thumping, and a little patience, we got these fish worked up within 10 minutes. Once the bites started, it continued for about 35 minutes until the blue catfish moved into our spread. At this point, thanks to an early wake up, and a morning of hustling for all of the fish we had boated, Luis let me know that they’d like to wrap up and head to lunch a bit early, so we shot for a 9:45 wrap up time.

This gave me just enough time to attempt to expose the kids to vertical fishing with slabs, and this worked out well. I was able to quickly find a very cooperative school of mixed white bass and short hybrid striper, we let our slabs down among them, and up came the fish. Over the course of the next 15 minutes each of the kids was able to land three or four more fish thus allowing us to end our morning on a very good note, with exactly 65 fish landed for our efforts.

Along the way, cousin Juliana not only enjoyed her first boat ride, but also landed the first fish of her life, a 15 inch hybrid striped bass that struck her Pet Spoon as we downrigged at the very first spot we fished this morning. Congratulations, Juliana.

TALLY = 65 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

23JUL16

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  9:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW9

Sky Conditions: Cloudless fair skies.

Water Level: 14.4 feet high and falling ~0.5 to 0.6 feet per day with a flow of ~5,300 cfs

GT = 55

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1788-1781 downrigging for low light fish just sub-surface

**Area vic 1790/1791 casting to fish schooling on the surface

**Area 1792 live bait

**Area 1789 – slabs for mixed bag of whites and hybrid

 

 

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

 

The Butler Boys Break 150! — 152 Fish @ Lake Belton

This past Friday morning, July 22nd, I fished with Dr. David Butler of Temple, TX, and his two sons, Jack (16) and Jay (14), on Lake Belton.

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From left: Jay and Jack Butler with a pair of Belton Lake hybrid striped bass landed seconds apart on 3/4 oz. chrome slabs worked through a heavily congregated and aggressively feeding mix of white bass and hybrid striped bass just off a wind-impacted shoreline.

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Dr. David Butler with one of several larger hybrid we took using live shad at mid-morning.  We suspended our baits at around 31 feet over a 37 foot bottom.

David serves those who have served our nation through his dermatology practice at the Veterans’ Administration hospital in Temple.  He and the boys have been fishing with me since 2009.  Jack is giving joining the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets some strong consideration and Jay is taking things one day at a time as he enters his freshman year at Holy Trinity Catholic High School.

Long story short: we caught fish from start to finish this morning using 4 different tactics as the fishes’ behaviors changed through the course of the morning.  Under the influence of high pressure, our very stable weather has made the fishing very consistent and predictable.

We began our day downrigging in less than 30 feet of water with our baits suspended up at 12 feet beneath the surface and did well.  As the wind began to push and the water’s surface was disturbed, the fish began to feed on the surface by trapping shad there.  We cast into visible schools of fish and continued to do well.  When things slowed down a bit, I searched for bottom-oriented fish congregated together and we put live shad down among them and did well.  Then, as the wind really ramped up, I searched wind-impacted areas until we found feeding fish up off bottom in the lower half of the water column, and we then worked them over with slabs with great success.

This trip was a gift to David from Dr. Rod Mahmoudizad who studied dermatology under him during his internship in Temple, TX.

TALLY = 152 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

22JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  10:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW9

Sky Conditions: Cloudless fair skies.

Water Level: 15.1 feet high and falling ~0.5 to 0.6 feet per day with a flow of ~6,100 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 018-016 downrigging for low light fish just sub-surface and then casting to them as the rose to feed on the top

**Area vic 813 live bait

**Area 1789 – slabs for mixed bag of whites and hybrid

 

 

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

Von Quintus crew breaks the 100 fish mark!!

This past Tuesday morning, July 19th, I fished with Mr. Steve VonQuintus of Hutto, Texas, and his 4 grandsons, Jacob (16), Cade (9), Evan (9), and Hayden (8).

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Steve “Gramps” Von Quintus and his grandson, Hayden, with a shad-caught Belton Lake hybrid striped bass.

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Gramps and Evan teamed up on this hybrid that hit our live baits hanging down around 24 feet over a slightly deeper bottom.

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From left: Bass Pro Shops apparel models Jacob and Cade with a nice pair of Belton lake summertime hybrids.

Due to a very consistent, low-light bite on Belton, I wanted to be shoving off no later than 6:15a. Thankfully, Steve and his crew arrived just a few minutes before six, so we took our time in going through the “pre-game” stuff, such as my safety briefing, ascertaining everyone’s level of experience, checking familiarity with both casting gear and spinning gear, etc.

By 6:15 we were idling out of the no wake zone adjacent to Frank’s Marina. Today’s trip broke down neatly into four distinct parts. Part one consisted of downrigging for the first 70 minutes of the trip. We went in order from youngest to oldest, and everyone got to take three rounds on the reel as we worked twin downriggers, each equipped with umbrella rigs and Pet Spoons.

Our catch of 18 fish on the downriggers included both a double and a triple, consisted mainly of white bass with a few short hybrid thrown in.  During this fast-paced portion of the trip, Hayden and Evan landed the first fish of their lives, thus earning them TPWD First Fish Awards.

Part two of our trip consisted of fishing with live shad near where the downrigging action had occurred. We added another 17 fish to our tally here, including four keeper hybrid.

Part three of our trip was the most productive in terms of numbers. We used three-quarter ounce chrome slabs to work vertically for both white bass and short and keeper hybrid in approximately 32 feet of water. We caught 49 fish using this tactic before the fishing went soft.

Our grand finale came near the same area we had caught these fish on the slabs. Off of a minor breakline that dropped from 25 to 29 feet, I identified quite a number of hybrid striped bass laying quite close to bottom. I used the Spot Lock feature on my Ulterra trolling motor to hold over these fish and we put six baits right down over these fish, with our weights suspended at 22 feet. Over the next 25 minutes, we put an additional 18 fish in the boat, nine of which were keeper hybrid. As our 102nd fish came in the boat, sonar went clear, we could feel the sun’s heat soaking through our clothing, and Steven I thought it wise to quit while we were ahead, thus finishing on a strong note.

For our efforts today we boated 102 fish consisting entirely of white bass and hybrid striped bass.

 

TALLY = 102 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

19JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  11:10a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp:  84.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE6 building to SE12

Sky Conditions: ~10% cloud cover on a fair sky.

Water Level: 15.6 feet high and falling ~0.5 to 0.6 feet per day with a flow of ~6,100 cfs

GT = 15

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 018-019 downrigging for 18 fish

**Area 027 – 1788 live bait for 17 fish

**Area 1787 – slabs for mixed bag of 49 fish

**Aread 1785/1770 – live bait for 18 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

A “Sunny” Cloudy Day — 51 Fish, Stillhouse

This past Saturday morning, July 16th, I fished with “Grandpa” Fred Luther, his son, Erik Luther, and Erik’s two sons, 9-year-old Hayden, and 7-year-old Josh.  Erik and his family live in the Austin area, and Fred traveled down from north central Missouri for a visit.

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The Luther boys — from left Erik, Hayden, and Josh with a sampling of the catch of shallow water panfish that provided all of this morning’s action.

My hope was to offer some variety given the boys’ age and the likelihood of disinterest developing over keeping at the same thing for very long whiles.  I came prepared for topwater, but no surface action materialized.  I came prepared for vertical work with slabs, but no white bass were to be found  active and congregated near bottom.  I came prepared to downrig, but schools of suspended white bass were also hard to come by.  I came prepared to fish for sunfish up shallow, and the “sunnies” did indeed cooperate.

After putting in about 50 minutes’ worth of effort searching unsuccessfully for white bass, we headed up shallow where rock, weed, and wood could all be found in close proximity and dropped our ultralight rigs in amidst the cover hoping for a response.  The response was overwhelming.  For a solid 75 minutes the boys landed sunfish after sunfish of various species (bluegill, green, and longear) in less than 4 feet of water until I began to see their attention and good technique began to decrease.

At this point I made another move to again try to search out some white bass, and again we struck out in a number of areas which traditionally hold fish this time of year.  A few things are for sure: the lack of wind did us no favors today, and the abundance of young-of-the-year baitfish present in the lake right now puts a lot of natural competition out there for our unnatural baits.

After about an hour’s worth of gunning for whites in 6 different areas and still not even seeing enough on sonar to be hopeful about landing white bass, we returned to sunfishing in two additional area so as to close the trip out on a positive, productive note for the boys.  We once again headed up shallow and continued to score on sunfish, and even got a few juvenile largemouth bass in the mix using the slipfloat rigs.

When all was said and done, the boys had boated 51 fish for their efforts.  The day did not come together as I had anticipated, but coming prepared to use a variety of tactics certainly paid off this morning.

TALLY = 51 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

16JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time:  11:10a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Light & variable

Sky Conditions: Thin grey cloud cover the entire trip up to the last 40 minutes when rapid clearing occurred.

Water Level: ~5.56 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~1,850 cfs

GT = 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Areas 200, 667, 1786 for sunfish on 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

The Men from BUA and OTC Go Fishing! — 78 Fish, Lake Belton, 15 July

This past Friday morning, July 15th, I fished with Mr. Michael Apodaca of Salado, TX, and Israel “Izzy” Lopez, a young man serving for the summer in the youth ministry of Michael’s church.

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Michael Apodaca with one of the 78 fish he and Izzy Lopez boated on their morning trip to Lake Belton.  Most of our hybrid were under 18 inches; the 14 legal (over 18″) fish we caught were right at 18″ or just a bit over — no really big fish showed up in our catch today.

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Today was a day of firsts for Izzy Lopez.  He enjoyed his first boat ride, used spinning tackle for the first time, and caught his first hybrid striper.

Michael, a U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army veteran, now serves as the G4 (head logistics guy) for the U.S. Army Operational Test Command at Fort Hood where they test equipment for suitability before it heads to the “real world” to be used by our troops.  Izzy, originally from Kaufman, TX, is a 20 year old college student attending Baptist University of America in San Antonio where he is double-majoring, studying music and theology.  He is serving as a youth intern at First Baptist Church of Salado this summer.

We met at 6 AM and by 6:20 AM not only had lines in the water, but had Izzy connected with the first fish of the day —  a double, consisting of a white bass and a hybrid striper caught on two of the three Pet Spoons on the three-armed umbrella rig he was using.

For the first 45 minutes on the water we found aggressively feeding white bass and (mostly) short hybrid stripers pushing shad to the surface in the heavy chop caused by the 12 to 14 mph wind already blowing. After observing the number of fish feeding, and the aggressiveness with which they fed, I decided to pursue these fish by closing in with the trolling motor and having Michael and Izzy cast to them. The pair managed to boat 11 fish while casting for as long as this feed lasted.

After the fish left the surface, we re-rigged the downriggers and placed our baits from 10 to 12 feet beneath the surface and continued to catch fish, taking our tally up to 18 before this fairly aggressive feed ended. When it was apparent that this feeding spree was over, we turned to live bait for the next hour and 45 minutes.

From roughly 7:30 to 9:15, we consistently boated both short and keeper hybrid along with two blue catfish on the live shad we were using as bait. Once we got a feed started beneath the boat, chumming kept the fish there, as did the commotion caused by fish being hooked and fought to the boat. As we fish this live bait, we varied the depth at which we presented our baits from 20 feet to 30 feet over a 35 foot bottom so as to present the baits slightly above the small schools of hybrid we saw regularly working in the area. By 9:15 most of the action on the rods was caused by blue catfish that had moved in on our chum, and since they were smallish, we decided to move on.  Our tally now stood at 34 fish, of which 13 were “keepers”, all just at or barely over the 18” threshold.

We headed out to another windblown area and began searching with sonar for signs of bait and fish. We were fortunate to drive right up on top of a large school of aggressively feeding white bass. I could tell by the sonar signatures that these were not hybrid, and so instead of presenting a large live baits, we used a smoking tactic with three-quarter ounce chrome slabs to quickly put another 26 fish in the boat. When this school lost interest in our presentations and moved on, I stayed in the same general vicinity and searched for hybrid signatures on sonar. When I found what I was after, we used the Spot Lock feature on my Minn Kota to hang right over top of them and placed baits in their midst. After 12 to 15 minutes we had only landed two short hybrid, and so I continued to search this area

In short order, I found yet another school of aggressively feeding white bass. We once again used a smoking tactic with slabs to finish up our morning on top of this school, catching fish after fish, and taking our tally up to a grand total of 78 fish landed for the morning.

TALLY = 78 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

15JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time:  10:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S12-13

Sky Conditions: Thin grey cloud cover the entire trip.

Water Level: ~19.50 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~6,000 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1784/133/1602 — downrigged and threw topwater within this triangulated area for 18 fish in the first ~50 minutes on the water.

**Area 1784 – live shad for 16 fish including keeper hybrid, a short hybrid, and 2 blue cat.

**Area vic 1785 – live bait for 2 short hybrid, and smoking chrome slabs for white bass in the 1, 2, and 3 year class –  44 fish caught in this vicinity

 

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

 

Soldiers’ Kids Go Fishing! — 56 Fish, Stillhouse, 11 July

This past Monday morning, July 11th, I conducted the sixth “Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun” (S.K.I.F.F.) program trip of the 2016 season.  Joining me for this adventure was Mrs. Venesa Bruner (a U.S. Army veteran), her two daughters, 9-year-old Jeannette and 5-year old Joni, and one of the girls’ friends, Annabell Abrams.

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From left: Joni Bruner, Mrs. Venesa Bruner, Annabell Abrams, and Jeannette Bruner, with white bass taken on Pet Spoons fished behind a downrigger at 17′ deep over much deeper water.

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Jeannette Bruner with one of the more colorful, mature bluegill sunfish we landed up in shallow water this morning.

Joni and Jeannette’s dad, Sergeant First Class Bryant Bruner, and Annabell’s dad, Staff Sergeant Chad Abrams, are both deployed to South Korea with an ongoing rotation of troops from the 1st Cavalary Division to that country.

Last week Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir reopened after weeks of closure due to May flooding.  I much prefer Stillhouse for summertime kids’ trips as both the white bass fishing and sunfish fishing is very consistent and predictable, allowing me to offer variety in what we engage in over the ~4 hours on the water.

This morning we started off downrigging with a pair of 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons set behind downriggers lowered to 17 feet, which is where sonar revealed white bass and shad to be holding.  We landed one “double” (2 fish on one umbrella rig), and 6 singles before little Joni began to get fidgety and I knew a change of scenery was needed.

Our next success came up shallow fishing for sunfish in the flooded brush inundated by the 7+ feet of flood water that has yet to be released by the Corps of Engineers.  Our tactic of choice was fishing redworms beneath light slipfloats on small hooks to tempt all manner of smaller fish in the shallows.  Over the closing 90 minutes of our time on the water, the girls landed bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, juvenile largemouth bass, and blacktail shiners — 48 in all.

When the novelty wore off and the heat and wind both increased to uncomfortable levels, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the dock with a total of 56 fish landed for our efforts this morning.

A huge thanks to the membership of the Austin Fly Fishers who both donate funds and engage in fundraising to allow this SKIFF program to be offered, totally free of charge, to our military members’ families.

If you are a military family and your soldier is away from his/her children due to military duty (TDY, schooling, training, NTC, JRTC, deployment, etc.) your children are eligible for a free fishing trip just like this one.  Simply call me at 254.368.7411 to coordinate a time and date.

TALLY = 56 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

11JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:25a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW8 at trip’s start, steadily ramping up to SSW17 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: Hazy, cloudless skies all morning

Water Level: ~7.56 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~1900 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 207 to 1782- downrigged for 8 white bass with Pet Spoons @ 17′

**Area 1256 – Sunfish on 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

A Return to Stillhouse — 53 Fish, 09 July

This past Saturday morning I fished with Angela Edelbrock’s two sons, 14-year-old Joseph and 10-year-old Dylan, all of Temple, TX.

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From left: Joseph and Dylan Edelbrock, each with a pair of solid white bass taken by downrigging Pet Spoons on Stillhouse Hollow after it reopened to boat traffic following weeks of closure due to May flooding.

Angela, who came along as a non-fishing chaperone, is a surgical tech at Baylor Scott & White Hospital in Temple, where she works on occasion with Dr. David Clark, another client of mine, who referred her to me (much appreciated, David!).

After having all boat ramps shut down due to flooding for several weeks now, the Union Grove launch on Stillhouse Hollow (with a 4-lane ramp) reopened on July 6th.

My plan was to introduce some variety into today’s trip by fishing for open-water white bass under the lower light conditions in the first half of our trip, then head up shallow and target sunfish under brighter conditions in the latter half of our trip.   As it turned out, this approach worked well.

As the sun was rising, we got two lines in the water, both equipped with Pet Spoons and both attached to the downriggers.  There was a definite “band of life” set up horizontally between 25 and 31 feet, and most of the suspended shad I found on sonar were in that band.  We fished one area with only one white bass to show for it, then moved to what would be a very productive area.  Funny thing was, despite all of the bait found in that “band of life”, the aggressive white bass I found were up higher in the water column.

We set our downrigger balls at between 15 and 22 feet, and did all the catching at 15-18 feet beneath the surface.  We landed one triple, one double, and 13 singles for a total of 18 white bass by the time we left them biting to change over to panfishing.  I like to note the ratio of triples, doubles, and singles, as it is indicative of the fishes’ activity level and typical school size, both of which vary over the summer months.

The sunfishing was pretty straightforward.  Once the boys got the hang of allowing the wind to help them place their presentations in the nooks and crannies of the flooded brush the sunfish were hiding in, they were hard to stop.  The boys amassed a catch of 35 sunfish of all sizes, and including longear, bluegill, and green sunfish, all taken on ultralight slipfloat rigs.

 

TALLY = 53 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

09JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:25a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE8 at trip’s start; shifting to SSW 11 over the course of the morning

Sky Conditions:  Low grey cloud cover at dawn burnt off to hazy skies with 30% cloud cover by 8am

Water Level: ~9.50 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~1900 cfs

GT = 105

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 454/1782/1783 – downrigged for 18 white bass in this triangular area; Pet Spoons @ 15-17′

**Area 1098 – Sunfish on 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

Never Too Old to Learn — 34 Fish, Belton, 07 July

This past Thursday morning, July 7th, I fished Lake Belton with Mike Pappas and his friend, J.C. Wall.

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Mike Pappas with some “icing on the cake” — an aging female largemouth past her prime, which weighed in at 5.25 pounds taken on a live shad.

MikePappas

Mike with our best hybrid of the trip, going right at 4.25 pounds taken on a large, lively threadfin shad which was about 4.5″ in length.

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J.C. wall with one of the first hybrid we boated on bait this morning, after finding our fish using sonar and downriggers.

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Any doubt these guys both own their own businesses?

Both fellows are long time, local small business owners;  Mike co-owns Best-Way Carpets, and J.C. owns his own construction company. Mike contacted me about three weeks ago and explained how he had become increasingly interested in pursuing hybrid striped bass. Knowing that hybrid stripers and white bass are the species I focus on year-round, he contacted me not so much to go fishing, but to learn my approach to fishing for the species, as well as the method for catching, and keeping, shad which is such an effective bait for hybrid striped bass.

As they have since about five days prior to the new moon, white bass and hybrid striper went on a very strong near-surface feed from roughly 6:15 AM to 6:40 AM. During this time the fish were very aggressive and moving rapidly as they pursued the shad they were foraging on. This allowed us to pick up several fish on downriggers, and more importantly for Mike, provided an opportunity to see how I use the downriggers in conjunction with sonar, as well as some of the accessories that I have folded into my downrigging technique. Both fellows were quite surprised at the small bait size I was using on the downriggers, but I explained that this did the best job of imitating the young of the year shad which was the focus of this near-surface and frenzied feeding activity.

By 6:45, the aggressive action had pushed downward and became more scattered, and less aggressive. I explained that this is typically my cue to switch over to fishing with live bait. Using the Ulterra trolling motor, we chose an area with a slight break line at 30 to 36 feet, and put four large, healthy, threadfin shad baits down at about the 26 foot mark. We stayed on these fish for about an hour and 45 minutes, taking our tally up to 25 before the wind became so strong, and the swells so deep, that our live bait presentations were negatively impacted as the baits moved unnaturally upwards and downwards with the swells.

Being forced off of an area by strong winds is a tough proposition, because whites and hybrids are typically turned on by the wind and moving water. In my mind, I started to go through a catalog of areas where wind would still be impacting, but not to the degree where boat control would be compromised. We struck out at the first area I checked, but as we approached the second potential fishing area I had in mind, the screen lit up with white bass and hybrid striper holding at between 25 and 28 feet deep on a breakline. We once again locked onto this area using the GPS-driven Spot Lock feature of my Ulterra. We put four baits down and it was not long before the bait clickers started sounding off indicating hybrid striper moving away with our live shad. We added another 9 fish to our count here in the closing hour of the trip. By 11 AM, the bites were coming few and far between, and solid bites were rare. I explained to Mike how, as the morning by winds down, the fish grab baits more tentatively then when they are feeding aggressively.

With 34 fish landed, and all of the questions on Mike’s yellow pad of paper answered, we decided to call it a good morning and headed back in.

Over the course of the trip, and as I did things in real time, I pointed out to Mike and explained to him what I was doing and why. From how I handled the bait, to how I conditioned the water, to how to snell a hook, to interpreting various targets on sonar, every step along the way as I saw something or did something that I thought might be useful to Mike on his next hybrid–focused outing on his own boat, I was sure to point it out.

 

TALLY = 34 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

07JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S12, building to S17 by  8:30a

Sky Conditions:  30% white cloud cover on a Fair sky most all of the morning.

Water Level: 23.2 feet high and falling ~0.3 feet per day

GT = 145 🙂

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1781 Downrig for low light bite, then fished bait in same area

**Area 1780 Shad for a mixed bag on a breakline at 25-28′

 

 

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

Kids Fish, Too! — 12 Fish for Skylar and Molly

This past Tuesday morning, July 5, I conducted a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip for Mr. Ed Parsons granddaughters, Skylar and Molly.

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Mr. Ed Parsons with granddaughter Molly and our first fish of the morning caught on a downrigged Pet Spoon.  This was the first fish Molly ever landed in her life, thus earning her a TPWD First Fish Award!!!

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Ed and Dorothy Parsons’ grandaughter, Skylar, took a liking to downrigging, and landed two white bass in the closing minutes of our trip using these devices.
Skylar is from McKinney, Texas, and Molly is from New Braunfels, Texas. Grandma Dorothy Parsons also joined us, primarily to keep Ed from getting too rowdy, and make sure the girls had enough sunblock and snacks.

My preference for “Kids Fish, Too!” trips in the summer is to fish Stillhouse, but due to the impacts of recent flooding, the entire lake is still closed to boat access, leaving Belton as our only local alternative.

The fishing was pretty slow this morning for white bass and hybrid striper. There was a moderate, first light feed from about 6:30 to 6:45am, but after that the action died hard and fast. During this brief feed, we were able to land Molly’s first fish  – a hybrid striped bass, followed by a white bass for Skylar. Both of these came on the downrigger using three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons.

After this, I searched five additional areas, and found no feeding activity at any of them. At this point, I shifted gears and took the girls up shallow to target sunfish a bit earlier in the trip then I normally would have, and we stuck with it for as long as the girls stayed interested.

To target these sunfish, we went to the very backs of two quiet, flooded coves and fish amidst the natural and man-made cover there.  Hiding in the shadows we found both green sunfish and longear sunfish willing to cooperate.  The girls quickly picked up on the importance of setting the hook and paying attention to their float.  Skylar even got pretty good at presenting her small bait with the bream pole she was using which had a fixed length of 9’ of line attached to the tip (and no reel).

Skylar was intrigued with using live bait (the shad I had in my livewell), and so for our last 45 minutes on the water, I sought out some opportunities to catch fish on live bait. I found a moderate-sized school of white bass in about 30 feet of water and we put baits down over these fish. We got three pull downs, but none resulted in a fish being landed. I suggested we spend our last 10 or 15 minutes on the water using downriggers in an attempt to close out the trip on a good note. This worked out great, as we were able to put two more white bass in the boat in the closing moments of our morning on the water.

 

TALLY = 12 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

05JUL16

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE15

Sky Conditions:  80% white cloud cover on a hazy sky most all of the morning.

Water Level: 23.9 feet high and falling ~0.3 feet per day

GT = 15

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 016 Downrig for low light bite

**Area 1754 & 184 for sunfish

** Area 1769 downrigging for scattered 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