2018 Fishing Reports | Fishing Report

Free SKIFF Fishing Trip for the Readout Family of Harker Heights — 44 fish

June 6th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, June 6th, I fished Mrs. Stacey Readout and her two daughters, 8-year-old Adalyn, and 4-year-old Maryn. Mrs. Readout’s husband, US Army Captain Aaron Readout is a Signal Corps officer currently deployed to Poland. She contacted me after hearing of the free SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips I provide to military children separated from their parents by their parents’ duty assignments, such as deployments, TDY assignments, military schooling, field time, gunnery, etc. Call me for details on a trip for your children if your situation is similar — 254.368.7411. This program is sponsored by the Austin Fly Fishers with a number of individual and organizational donors coming alongside them to keep this going strong since May of 2009.

Adalyn Readout, age 8, caught 2 and 3 white bass at a time just after sunrise as we downrigged for that species on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. Adalyn, her sister, and her mom were all treated to a free fishing trip through the SKIFF program.

Although a bit uncertain of actually holding a fish, 4-year-old Maryn did eventually warm up to the idea of reeling them in after some hesitation in the opening hour of our trip. A little good example-setting by her big sister, Adalyn, went a long way. Thanks for holding the fish, Stacey!!

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, largemouth bass, and sunfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday morning, 06 June.

HOW WE FISHED: We fished with downriggers (using 3-armed umbrella rigs with Pet Spoons attached) to find fish and then took advantage of what we found by using the Minn Kota Ulterra’s SpotLock to hover atop schooled white bass holding on and over a 31′ bottom by working 3/4 oz. chrome slabs with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks affixed to them. When the bite weakened, we continued catching white bass in this same area using live and cutbait. When that novelty wore off on the fish, we changed up once again to tailspinners to add two more fish to the tally before the fish lost interest completely. When the white bass dissipated, we changed up, moved shallow and targeted abundant sunfish now thick in the near-shore hydrilla growth. We took 26 white bass, 1 largemouth, and and 17 sunfish, including bluegill, redear, longear, and greens.

TALLY: 44 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp: 83.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SE from 10-13 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fully greyed skies at sunrise thanks to a heavy bank of clouds on the eastern horizon, clearing to 60% white clouds by trip’s end

Water Level: 4.80 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area SH0017C 26 white bass and 1 largemouth – found via downrigging, then worked over with slabs, livebait, and tailspinners

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

SHOOTIN’ YA STRAIGHT — THE FISHING IS SLOW — 24 FISH @ STILLHOUSE

June 5th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, June 5th, I fished with Mr. Wayne Shelton, a retired Houston firefighter, and his wife, Nancy, who runs a hardware store near the ship channel down on the Texas coast. The two are semi-retired and living near Buckholts, TX. Once an avid wade fisherman in the Galveston Bay complex, Wayne lost his boat in a storage unit fire and has refitted with his and hers kayaks. Today was a bit of a recon of Stillhouse for them to see where and how the kayaks may play in to fishing here.

Wayne Shelton supports our largest fish of this morning’s trip, a 4.75 pound largemouth bass weighed on a certified scale. Fishing was generally slow with a number of scenarios where large schools of transient white bass simply refused our offerings.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass and largemouth bass.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday morning, 05 June.

HOW WE FISHED: We fished with downriggers for nomadic schools of white bass and we fished live shad for white bass and largemouth bass.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: The fish are in that early summer mode that makes fishing tough this time every year. We covered a lot of water today and picked up single white bass just about everywhere we went. What was a bi frustrating was the number of large schools of white bass, numbering from perhaps 20 to 100 individual fish, which absolutely ignored our presentations both via downriggers and with live shad. The white bass we did catch came from smaller groups of 2-5 fish which were hanging just above the bottom, mostly on deep flats in 32-40 feet of water. The live shad definitely drew the attention of the largemouth and we took them slowly but steadily on live baits fished suspended off bottom at about 31-34′. Our largest black bass weighed 4.75 pounds.

TALLY: 24 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 12:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp: 83.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: S from 0-9 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 4.78 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 15310-1312 – most consistent white bass action on downriggers

**Area 1150 – slow but consistent white bass

**Area vic 980 – largemouth on shad

**Area vic 1564 – largemouth on shad

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

FRANK, THE NEW YORK COWBOY – 27 FISH @ BELTON

June 1st, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Thursday morning I fished with US Army veteran Frank Killoran and his wife, Eileen. Frank retired from the Army after a majority of his time in spent as a tanker. He went in the Army at age 26 after working from out of high school up to that age on a dairy farm milking cows twice daily. He said he loved the work, but “the retirement plan wasn’t very good.” He and Eileen are both from a small town to the southwest of Syracuse, NY, in the heart of the snow belt. Eileen recalled how one year the snow accumulated to over the top of the telephone pole wires and they had to hand deliver food to the cows because the cows couldn’t get to the food! The Killorans have their own small jon boat but consistency in fishing success has eluded them. Besides catching fish, my hope was to show them some techniques and approaches to fishing to help them do better on their own.

Frank and Eileen with our best fish of the trip — a hybrid striped bass taken on live shad in our first hour on the water. The fish seemed to have a preference for smaller bait today. Neither cutbait nor large baits caught fish this morning.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, hybrid striped bass, largemouth bass, freshwater drum, and blue catfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday morning, 31 May 2018

HOW WE FISHED: We fished live shad successfully in two distinct locations. The best bite ran 6:45 to 8:30am, then slacked off. We did give downrigging a try and picked up one white bass that way, but I did not find suspended fish as I did on Tuesday’s trip.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: There are two distinct 2-week periods each year that I really wish could be avoided. The first is around the first 2 weeks of June, and the second is around the last 2 weeks of October. These are so predictably tough that I normally plan my own vacations around them to let the lakes settle down and return to better fishing. This year I’d hoped my prairie dog shoot in Oklahoma would have overlapped with some of that tough fishing, but, it looks like the first 2 weeks of June are going to see a transition of fish to open water, the setup of the thermocline, and other annual, heat-driven changes that drive fish relocation and a change of fishing tactics.

TALLY: 27 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp: 80.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE from 0-3 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 1.96feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1543

**Area 1079

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

MISSED YOUR ANNIVERSARY? JUST GO FISHING! — 50 FISH WITH THE MYERS

May 31st, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Tuesday morning I fished with Jack and Becci Myers of Belton. Jack is an Air Defense Artillery officer in the U.S. Army. While he was deployed, he missed his most recent wedding anniversary. His wife, Becci, sent him a “menu” of things to choose from as a “makeup anniversary” when he returned to the States. This fishing trip was one of those menu items!

Jack and Becci Myers celebrated a belated anniversary with a little multi-species fishing on Lake Belton.

Becci landed our first multi-fish hookup on downriggers late in the morning after we’d fished live bait for hybrid and slipfloats for blue catfish.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, hybrid striped bass, and blue catfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday morning, 29 May 2018

HOW WE FISHED: Once again this morning we encountered hot, still, cloudless conditions which put the fish in a less-than-enthusiastic mood to feed. Nonetheless, we were able to catch a number of different species using a number of different tactics. We started the morning sight casting to white bass schooling on topwater feeding on young-of-the-year shad. We then fished live shad for white bass and hybrid stripers and caught both. We changed up once again and fished for blue catfish using slipfloats and fresh, dead shad. We wrapped up the trip with about 45 minutes of downrigging resulting in a solid catch of 1, 2, and 3 white bass at a time on 3-armed umbrella rigs.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 1) The shad spawn has run its course.

TALLY: 50 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp: 83.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE from 0-3 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 1.87 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1581 – topwater white bass

**Area B0084C – live shad for whites/hybrids, and slipfloats and cutbait for bluecat

**Area 1126-437 – downrigging for white bass (20 fish in 45 minutes)

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

DADDY-DAUGHTER DATE WITH SHANE AND GRACE — 42 FISH

May 29th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Memorial Day Monday I fished Lake Belton with Shane McNamara of Georgetown, TX, and his daughter, Grace, from Marble Falls, TX. Shane has been in the insurance business for 25 years and is a great asset to his church’s lay ministry. Grace is working hard in a customer service-oriented job about 6 days per week in the service department of a car dealership and hasn’t taken much downtime, so, she and her dad decided to plan their Memorial Day Monday morning on the water together. The last time I saw Grace was in 2011 when her dad treated her and some of their church staff to an April white bass fishing trip on Stillhouse.

Shane McNamara and his daughter, Grace, with Grace’s first hybrid of the morning taken just after sunrise.

Shane with our largest hybrid of the trip taken around 9:30a on a large piece of cutbait.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: With tough fishing weather (clear skies, light winds) and the hybrid striper bite tapering off from its annual spring peak, we put live baits down for the duration of our trip and came up with a mixed bag of hybrid stripers, white bass, largemouth bass, and blue catfish. We also did a bit of slipfloat fishing for bluecat and a bit of downrigging for schooled, suspended white bass.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday morning, 28 May 2018

HOW WE FISHED: This morning turned out to be a “cookie cutter” version of Saturday’s trip under similar hot, clear, windless conditions. My plan was to get on an area with both fish and bait present and make the most of the early bite, knowing (based on the forecast which turned out to be spot-on) that the late morning was likely to be very tough. We did exactly that and caught fish slowly but steadily for our first 3 hours, putting 39 fish in the boat, then adding only 3 more fish in the final hour. Live shad of all sizes and cutbait worked well, although smaller and medium sized shad got hit more frequently. We used a slipfloat rig for catching bluecat and we did a bit of downrigging when sonar revealed schooled, suspended white bass as I searched for bottom-oriented fish.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 1) Area SHAD14 did not produce today. 2) Area SHAD20 produced, but it took about 10-12 throws to get sufficient bait as there was a nearby boat shining lights and running the outboard continuously in shallow water which spooked a lot of shad and made it more laborious netting than it should have been. 3) 82.2 in shallow water on the surface before sunrise means the spawn will not last more than a few more days, if that.

TALLY: 42 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: 82.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE from 0-3 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 1.78 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 10

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0084C to B0094C

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

MEMORIAL DAY MEMORIES – 44 FISH WITH THE HUTTO CLAN

May 28th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning, May 26th, I fished Lake Belton with Don Hutto, his wife, Linda, their granddaughters, Bella and Marissa Hinojos, and their son’s girlfriend, Amanda Whippo.

From left: Amanda Whippo and Linda Hutto brought in this multi-species double within seconds of one another while fishing live shad under tough, calm, bright conditions this past Memorial Day Saturday.

Amanda Whippo with a plump Lake Belton largemouth bass caught on live shad.

Don Hutto with his granddaughters, Bella (foreground), age 4, and Marissa, age 9.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday morning, 26 May 2018

HOW WE FISHED: This morning my hope was to get on an area with both fish and bait present and make the most of the early bite, knowing (based on the forecast which turned out to be spot-on) that the late morning was likely to be very tough. We did exactly that and caught fish slowly but steadily for our first 3 hours, putting 42 fish in the boat, then adding only 2 more fish in the final hour. Live shad of all sizes and cutbait worked well, although smaller and medium sized shad got hit more frequently. We used a slipfloat rig for catching bluecat and getting them our of our spread whenever evidence of bluecat showed (dead shad with raw tails from their nibbling).

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 1) Once again Area SHAD14 produced ample bait in about 3 throws this morning on shad which are still spawning in the 80.7F surface water hitting the bank.

TALLY: 44 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time: 11:10a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp: 80.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE from 0-3 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 1.78 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 40

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0084C

**Area vic 1490

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Building (Residential and Commercial) Friendships — 57 Fish @ Lake Belton

May 25th, 2018May 25th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Friday, 25 May, I fished with long-time friends and past business partners DJ Fuller and Allen Sandor, both of Salado, Texas. DJ fished with me last week as a guest of Marty Wall, then brought his 9-year-old son, Sam, out this past Monday. I met Allen for the first time this morning. DJ is a homebuilder and Allen focuses on commercial property.

Allen Sandor with our largest hybrid striped bass taken on this morning’s trip. Although our target species was the hybrid, we caught lots of white bass today, too. Allen commented that he was certain we took more white bass half way through the morning’s trip than he had taken all spring running up the Lampasas River on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. Low flows and low lake elevations prevented a strong spawning run there this season.

DJ and Allen pair up for a “buds” photo on the first hybrid that fell for our presentations today.

Allen came up with the first smallmouth I’ve seen come aboard on live shad thus far this 2018 season.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: We targeted hybrid striped bass using live shad the entire 3.5 hours we were on the water this morning. Under bright skies and light winds, the hybrid bite was predictably slow, but we picked them up steadily throughout the morning, along with white bass, blue catfish, a pair of largemouth, and a single smallmouth bass.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Friday morning, 25 May 2018

HOW WE FISHED: This morning’s trip was only 3.5 hours in length due to DJ and Allen’s work schedules; the Friday before a holiday weekend is a busy day for fellows in their line of work getting people paid and coordination taken care of for a short week the following week. We fished live shad the entire trip on just two areas, the first in about 45 feet of water, and the second in 60 feet of water.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 1) Area SHAD14 produced ample bait in about 3 throws this morning on shad which are still spawning in the 80.2F surface water hitting the bank. 2) I was surprised to catch white bass and hybrid consistently at 60′ with baits set at 55′ as that is deep for this time of year — more evidence that the year is still running behind thanks to the cold winter and slow spring warmup.

TALLY: 57 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Water Surface Temp: 80.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE breeze at nil, increasing to 8 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 1.75 feet low and steady

GT = 95

Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0092C in ~45′

**Area B0093C in 60′

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

FISH WERE IN SCHOOLS; SAM WAS NOT — 52 FISH @ BELTON

May 21st, 2018May 21st, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, 21 May, I once again fished with DJ Fuller, this time accompanied by his son, Sam, age 9. As the school year winds down and the STAAR testing is all in the rearview mirror, the time was right for father and son to spend some time on the water. During this outing Sam caught the first hybrid striped bass of his life, the first white bass of his life, and the first blue catfish of his life.

From left: DJ Fuller of DB Fuller Homes and his 9-year-old son, Sam. The pair landed 52 fish on a shortened 3-hour excursion this morning on Lake Belton. We targeted hybrid striped bass, but also caught white bass and blue catfish, as well.

Sam does not appear to be traumatized by missing whatever the Salado Independent School District had in store for him today.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: We targeted hybrid striped bass for about 2.5 hours this morning, then changed over to slipfloat fishing for blue catfish. As always, we picked up white bass along the way, most of which were 2-year class fish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday morning, 21 May 2018

HOW WE FISHED: This morning’s trip was only 3 hours in length due to DJ’s work schedule. We fished live shad the entire trip, catching a majority of our hybrid by 8:40am, then a greater percentage of white bass through 9:10, then, to provide Sam with some variety, I broke out the slipfloat rods and we capitalized on the bluecat we had attracted to the area via out chumming. We used cutbait on these slipfloat equipped spinning rods to put a number of additional white bass, bluecat, and one bonus hybrid in the boat.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: 1) Area SHAD19 produced average sized threadfin this morning, and they showed up as late as I’ve seen spawning shad run lately — about 6:43 to 6:50. About 4 schools passed through the area in <2 feet of water over this span of time and that was it.

TALLY: 52 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 9:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 63F – air was rain-cooled from yesterday’s morning storms

Water Surface Temp: 75.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: Steady ENE breeze at 6mph

Sky Conditions: Grey skies

Water Level: 1.77 feet low and slowly rising thanks to Sunday morning’s storms which dropped 0.50 to 2.00 inches of rain area-wide.

GT = 195

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area B0092C – one stop atop this area for ~3 hours yielded 53 fish

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)