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SKIFF Trip #14 — 49 Fish on Lake Belton

September 2nd, 2016September 2nd, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

This past Monday evening I fished the 2016 season’s 14th SKIFF program trip, treating Love and Faith C. to a half-day trip on Lake Belton. The girls’ mom, Zatira, paid for the girls cousins, Emmanuel N. and Nialise M. to go along.

From left: Faith, Nialise, Emmanuel, and Love, each with a white bass we took via downrigging within 25 minutes of launching. The kids went on to land 49 fish before nightfall.

Love and Faith’s father is currently on deployed status to South Korea, and their cousins will be returning to Connecticut shortly to begin the new school year there.

Today’s weather was quite turbulent, with winds blowing up to 12 mph from just north of east. We encountered three or four brief spritzes of rain while we were on the water.

We began our trip resolved to help Emmanuel and Nialise land the first fish of their lives. The very first spot I checked with sonar held white bass in a feeding posture several feet up off the bottom. Seeing this, I put twin downriggers down, both equipped with Pet Spoons, and no sooner did we turn the boat about and go over the area holding those fish, then Emmanuel was hooked into a double. Nialise immediately followed this up with a single, as did Faith, and within 15 minutes, Love also had her first fish. Each time we ran over these fish, a few more spooked, and by the time Love landed hers, I knew it was time to move on.

To keep things interesting, we headed up shallow to fish for sunfish and in under 15 minutes had everyone take turns on the two bream poles we were using, bringing our tally up to 20 fish before we left the panfishing behind.

Due to the heavy cloud cover, the light level by 6:30pm was equivalent to that near sunset on most clear days. Seeing this, I transitioned us into pre-sunset downrigging, again using Pet Spoons. This allowed the kids to catch white bass after white bass over a 70 minute span, right up until some brief top water action provided the grand finale.

Because Love and Faith were a bit older and had some prior fishing experience, I had them casting independently out of the stern, and placed Nialise and Emmanuel to my left and right and did their casting for them, allowing them to retrieve their baits through the boiling fish at the surface. Again, the kids landed white bass after white bass for about 25 minutes until the fish quit thanks to the failing light.

When all was said and done we had boated a grand total of 49 fish.

TALLY = 49 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time: 8:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 83F

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: ENE4-13

Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover.

Water Level: ~2.47 feet high. Lake is falling slowly at ~.11 feet per day

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 168 downrigging

**Area 1583 sunfishing

**Area 1070/1802 downrigging

**Area 1764 to bank – post-sunset topwater

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Ft. Hood SKIES Program Trip Nets 49 Fish for Zoe and Zach Aviles

August 29th, 2016August 29th, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

This past Saturday morning, August 27, I fished a multi-species trip on Belton Lake with Zach and Zoe Aviles. This trip was arranged through the Fort Hood SKIES program.

Zach with the first fish of his life, a nice Belton Lake white bass taken on a soft plastic bait and jighead.

Zoe with the first fish of her life, also taken on a soft plastic bait and jighead during a brief surface feeding blitz

After an evening of rough weather the night before, things stabilized overnight and we awoke to clear skies, calm winds, and hot and humid conditions.

I let the kids’ mom, Dina Aviles, an active duty service member in the U.S. Army, know right off the bat that I did not intend for this to be an endurance contest, so whenever she and the kids had caught enough fish and were ready to go, just to let me know, as I was quite concerned about the heat and humidity.

Although the fish did show up on the surface this morning during the lowlight period, it was not at very first light as it has been for the past several weeks.

Neither Zoe nor Zach had ever caught a fish in their lives before, so, at first light when no fish were showing, I went right to the downriggers – – essentially a summertime fishing insurance policy! No longer did we get the two- and three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons down in the midst of the fish showing on sonar, than we began pulling fish with regularity right up until the fish began to show on the surface.

The topwater fishing was confined to a fairly small area, and did not last long at all, but enabled us to put 22 fish in the boat very quickly, and give Zach and Zoe a chance to cast, retrieve, set the hook, fight fish, and land fish all by themselves after I began by doing everything for them and then slowly transitioned them into doing everything for themselves.

When the top water fishing ended, we spent about 25 more minutes steadily pulling white bass on the downriggers, and then, with winds still near calm, the sun’s intensity increasing, and the heat rising, we left this open water fishery behind and headed up shallow to gun for panfish.

The sunfish cooperated well this morning. While fishing a shoreline with mixed rock, wood, and green vegetative matter, we were able to boat bluegill sunfish, redear sunfish, and green sunfish very steadily.

When the novelty of the sunfishing wore off, we headed back to open water to wrap up our trip fishing for catfish. I think the name “catfish”, and the fact that I told the kids early on that these fish would make noises, intrigued both of them. We set up in a hover using the Ulterra’s Spot Lock feature in 29 feet of water. I put out chum to get the nearby catfish active and draw more distant catfish in. We then baited our lines, suspended our presentations off bottom, and began enjoying the fruits of our labors. Each of the kids was able to land three blue catfish before mom and grandma had enough of the windless heat and decided to call it a day right at 10:15.

We concluded our trip with exactly 49 fish boated, and 2 young Texas anglers newly minted!

SKIES Unlimited stands for School of Knowledge, Inspiration, Exploration and Skills. SKIES Unlimited classes are open to children of active duty military personnel, retirees, Department of the Army civilians, and to Department of Defense contractors. To enroll in SKIES Unlimited activities, children must be registered with CYSS at Building 121 on 761st Tank Destroyer Avenue (right across from the Chili’s restaurant).

There is no charge for registration; parents must bring an ID that shows their affiliation with the military, the child’s shot records, and the report from a recent physical exam. While the SKIES Unlimited programs are not free, many military families are eligible for sizeable credits toward SKIES Unlimited activities. There is a $300 credit available to each child when their parent is deployed.

TALLY = 49 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE2

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

Water Level: ~2.69 feet high. Lake is falling slowly at ~.11 feet per day

GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 019-1788 downrigging and topwater for whites up shallow under low light

**Area 1583 sunfishing

**Area 814/085 catfishing

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Learned a Lot — 64 Fish, Belton, 08 August

August 12th, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

This past Monday morning, August 8th, I fished with Mr. Randy Williamson, his wife, Holly, and their friend, Phillip Fagan, all from out in Coryell County, TX, near Topsey.

Despite decades of his own experience on Belton Lake (since it was constructed in the 1950’s), Randy told me he really learned a lot today, in particular about how to be prepared to change tactics for different species and varying conditions “on the fly”.

As a guide, I find some trips with some parties more enjoyable than others. This was the kind of trip I most enjoy — having folks aboard that did not require constant instruction because of their prior experience, and who enjoyed the trip regardless of what manner of fish we caught because they enjoyed being outdoors and each others company.

Randy and Holly’s experiences through the years reminded me of my own with my wife, Rebecca. It seemed each time they traveled to a vacation destination, they mixed in a bit of fishing, and had good stories and good memories from having done so.

We experienced a good variety of fishing this morning, beginning with some downrigging at first light for white bass and hybrid stripers which began to push bait toward the surface. This got more organized and aggressive and, for a short time, resulted in some topwater feeding which we were able to capitalize on by sight casting.

After this peak activity faded, we reverted to the downriggers to get a few more fish as they tapered off their feed, then, a slowdown from 8:00 to 9:00 am ensued.

We did a bit of bait fishing with fresh, dead shad for blue cat to bide our time, then I searched, generally unsuccessfully, in several areas for white bass and hybrid action. During this time the light breeze we’d enjoyed slowed to nearly calm and made our already tough job even more difficult.

Evenutally, I found a few more loosely schooled hybrid stripers in about 29 feet of water on a gradual slope and we hung live shad just up off bottom for these fish. We landed 4 hybrid over the next 4 minutes and lost as many just due to everyone’s lack of familiarity with the use of circle hooks. As has been the case for the past several weeks, no matter where I’ve put baits down for hybrid, smallish blue cat moved in quite quickly and became a nuisance as they stalked and killed our live shad routinely before the hybrid would make of their minds to feed.

We ended up the trip with a total of 64 fish boated, the majority of which came in the first 70 minutes during that initial, strong, low-light feeding time. It was both complimentary and encouraging to have Randy tell me at the end that, after having fished Belton Lake since it was constructed in the 1950’s, he learned a lot while fishing it this morning with me.

TALLY = 64 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp: 85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: S9-12

Sky Conditions: 20% white clouds on a fair sky. Unobscurred sunrise at 7:12.

Water Level: ~2.90 feet high and falling ~ 0.7 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 50

Wx Snapshot:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1654 – low light downrigging and topwater sightcasting for white bass & hybrid stripers

**Area 1271/1069 – post-sunrise topwater and downrigging after the topwater died

**Area 1655/1070- bluecat with fresh, dead shad

**Area 1019 – hybrid on live shad in final hour from 10-11am

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

The Cost of Dog Sitting — 55 Fish, Belton Lake

July 30th, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

This past Wednesday morning, July 27^th, I fished Belton Lake with Matt Poston and his 15-year-old son, Hayden, both from Aledo, Texas. Matt is originally from Temple and returned home for a week’s visit to dogsit for his parents. The fishing trip was evidently his “payment”.

From left: Hayden and Matt Poston with a pair of hybrids taken seconds apart on shad as a wolfpack of hybrid entered our livebait spread.

Hayden took this nice smallmouth as we sight-cast to fish feeding on the surface.

As weather conditions improved from the instability we experienced over the past two mornings, the bite improved as well. This morning we spent our first hour or so on an aggressive downrigger bite targeting fish holding 12 to 15 feet beneath the surface using three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons. When no top water action developed at the time it traditionally had under high-pressure conditions earlier this week and over the past two weeks, I suggested we go ahead and target some larger fish by fishing with live bait.

We found ample fish in 34 to 36 feet of water, but as has been the case over the past three trips, no sooner did we get baits down and a few hybrid landed, then blue catfish began to move in on our baits in droves and begin to kill our live baits before we could fool a hybrid with them. Suspecting this might happen this morning, I really held off on chumming, but even that did not keep the blue cats away for long. I found that by moving three or four boat lengths away, the hybrid would more quickly move over to our newly placed live baits whereas the catfish would stay where we had previously been fishing. Catch a few hybrid, though, and the blue cats would rejoin us in short order.

After both Matt and Hayden were able to boat several hybrid over the 18 inch mark, I suggested we invest our last hour or so using yet another technique new to them, that of presenting a slab vertically for suspended fish.

As I approached the stretch of water I had hoped to use slabs at, some top water activity caught my eye. As I studied the water more closely, I could see a fair amount of top water action taking place. We eased into this activity with the trolling motor, and began casting to the fish we saw. We picked up both largemouth bass and white bass, as well as Hayden’s first smallmouth ever. We fished in this way for about 30 minutes, and then as the top water action began to tail off, we pursued white bass and hybrid striper in deeper water where we caught them on slabs presented vertically.

Because of the time we spent focused on the top water bite, this slab fishing was almost too little, too late, as we begin using the slabs as the winds, which were already pretty light, began to subside. By around 10:35, the bite had all but ended and we decided to call it a good morning with exactly 55 fish boated.

TALLY = 55 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE7-9, then tailing off around 10:15a

Sky Conditions: 20% white clouds on a fair sky. Unobscurred sunrise at 7:04.

Water Level: ~11.9 feet high and falling ~ 0.6 feet per day with a flow of ~5,300 cfs

GT = 45

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1762-018 downrigging for low light fish just sub-surface with balls at 10-15′

**Area 793/1070 live bait for hybrid, followed by small blue cat

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

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Sully (& Owl) Catch 25 Despite Flooding at Belton; SKIFF Trip #2016-5

June 7th, 2016June 7th, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

Last Saturday, June 4th, I conducted the 2016 season’s fifth SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trip. I was joined by little Sullivan (Sully) Alexander of Killeen, and his pet stuffed owl, name “Owl”.

Sully’s first fish!!!

Sully’s dad is a U.S. Army helicopter pilot currently deployed to Turkey. His wife, Camille, has Sully and Sully’s little sister, Caroline, who is less than a year old, to look after. While today’s fishing trip was certainly intended to help Sully land the first fish of his life, the bigger goal was to give Camille some time without both children to look after for a few hours.

Providing homefront parents with some time of respite has become one of the most appreciated aspects of this SKIFF program.

Because of recent flooding at Belton Lake, we could not fish by boat today as the Corps of Engineers closed all public boat ramps until the weather settles and they can get the lake back down to safe levels. Nonetheless, I trailered my boat over to Sully’s house, he got to sit in it, push all the buttons, blow the horn, and then we headed out to fish from the shores of Belton Lake.

Mr. Rodney Tyroch, who owns property adjacent to Corps of Engineers property, kindly allowed us access to the shoreline. We found newly flooded, green grass and then studied the shoreline for small “pockets” that the wind was blowing into. Sunfish and other small fish were holding in such pockets.

Sully and I baited up with segments of red worm suspended beneath a balsa float on a small #16 hook, weighted with a split shot less than BB-sized. We used a long, telescoping pole to place this rig where the fish were and the fish responded well.

Sully not only caught the fir fish of his life, but 24 more after that, including bluegill sunfish, a redear sunfish, a blacktail shiner, and a young-of-the-year largemouth bass. After photos, all were released.

The Austin Fly Fishers donates funds and seeks funding from individuals and organizations to make this SKIFF program a reality for homefront spouses and their children.

They do not ask for thanks or recognition, they simply desire others to take advantage of the opportunities this program offers. If your spouse is away on military duty, your child(ren) qualify for a free SKIFF fishing adventure. Please just phone me at the number below to make arrangements for your trip!

TALLY = 25 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 8:30

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 91F

Water Surface Temp: 76F

Wind Speed & Direction: Light and variable first hour or so, then going SE6-7

Sky Conditions: Steadily clearing from a fully overcast morning.

Water Level: ~12 feet above full pool and steadily rising due to flooding downstream on the Brazos and therefore no release from the dam.

Other: GT= 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**TLP flooded grassy bank

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

A Bear Market — 16 Fish, Belton, 28 May

May 31st, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

This past Saturday, May 28, I fished with Mr. Greg Meyer, his wife Daryl, their daughter Makenzie, and Makenzie’s friend Kynesha Nisbett. Greg serves as the Assistant Athletics Director for Development for the Baylor Bear Foundation at Baylor University. He contacted me hoping we could connect his family with some hard-pulling hybrid stripers.

Makenzie scored our first “keeper” hybrid (18 or more inches in length) of the trip on a live shad in 28 feet of water.

Go Mom!! Daryl saved the best for last, taking this hybrid striper, which went just shy of 4 pounds, toward the end of our morning on the water.

Shortly after Makenzie broke the ice, Kynesha (decidedly NOT a morning person) landed this hybrid and, if I’m not mistaken, spoke her first word of the morning at about the same time!
Thanks to severe weather the previous Thursday, I missed fishing that morning due to lightning, and had not fished on Belton since the previous Saturday. Over that timeframe there had been much environmental change. We got a tremendous amount of rain, the Leon River went out of its banks, the Corps of Engineers stopped releasing water, and Belton Lake began to rise very quickly.

All of this environmental change seems to have thrown the fish into a funk. I spent over an hour beginning at 6:30 AM searching for fish in the main basin, and found nothing that led me to even put a line in the water.

I decided to head up into one of Belton’s tributaries, and we were able to find a few fish, but never really got a solid, continuous bite going. The fish have definitely moved up shallower, as has the bait, and what we caught came in dribs and drabs of 2 to 3 fish at a time with occasional singles mixed in. On several occasions we had large schools of fish, which I suspected were white bass, show directly beneath the boat on sonar. Despite working our slabs immediately in the midst of them, and seeing the slab mixed in the presence of these fish on sonar, we simply did not get hit.

When fish did respond to live bait, I watched sonar as the hooked fish were fought to the boat, and never once did any schoolmates follow a hooked fish up off bottom. I checked in with fellow guide, Charles Howard and with several Belton “regulars”, and they all reported soft results during this same time frame.

I extended our trip for 2 additional hours hoping a wind shift or light level change would help things out, but that was not to be. When all was said and done we had landed just 16 fish today with 14 of them coming on live bait, one on a downrigged umbrella rig, and one on an “eased” slab.

I appreciate Greg’s approach to things — seeing that we were having a slow day, he passed all of the fish that hit on his rod off to one of the ladies.

TALLY = 16 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 12:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 67F

Water Surface Temp: 75.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: Winds SSE7-8

Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover for the entire trip.

Water Level: ~8 feet above full pool with no release of water currently ongoing.

GT = 20

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1629-1672 live shad

**Area 1573 live shad

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Hybrid Fishing on Lake Belton with Ray Johnson — 41 Fish, 10 May

May 10th, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

This morning, Tuesday, May 10th, I fished with retired U.S. Navy Captain and flight surgeon Ray Johnson of Harker Heights. Our target species was hybrid striped bass on Belton Lake.

When the clouds cleared, the sun illuminated the depths and the hybrid turned on. We had been fishing 4 rods and had to immediately drop back to just one or two due to the intensity of the action over a 50 minute span.

Ray poses with the first fish of the morning taken, literally, less than a minute after dropping our first live bait down to within feet of the bottom.
Thanks to lingering cloud cover from our most recent mild storm system, the sudden brightening of the skies which normally occurs at sunrise was somewhat muted this morning, thus the shad spawning run was a bit delayed and took place around 6:30am.

When the shad came in, they came in strong but they also came in very briefly. The entire window was about 12 minutes long. This was really a case of being at the right place at the right time.

I got Ray on board and settled in, and by 7:10am we were locked on top of our first fishing area using the Spot Lock feature on my Minn Kota Ulterra. This first area we fished look really good on sonar, with multiple thick yellow arches showing on colored sonar – – a signature typically given off by sizable hybrid striper. These marks were also 1 to 3 feet off of bottom, telling me these fish were in a feeding posture.

Indeed, as soon as we got baits down to these fish, we started catching. Over our first 25 minutes we had a nice run of nine keeper hybrid, then it took 10 to 15 minutes longer to get the next two, and then it really tapered off quickly, forcing us to move. We spent about an hour stopping, putting baits down, and coming up with just one or two fish, but never really getting things going until around 9:10 AM.

At this time I found a nice concentration of fish in 48 to 49 feet of water a few yards back from a nearby breakline. As soon as we got baits down, we picked up three fish right off the bat, and then things settled down. We pulled fish steadily, but they were far from worked up into a frenzy of any sort. Then, as the morning murk gave way to thinning clouds, followed by the first direct sun’s rays hitting the water, things really started to click. We had a roughly 50 minute streak where it was all we could do to drop back from four baited lines, to keeping just one or two in the water. We quickly took our fish count up into the 30s.

These fish would later ramp down as quickly as they had ramped up as the nice south southeast wind that has been blowing right at 13 mph began to slack off to 10, then 9, and so on. As the wind decreased, so did the intensity of the bite. By 11:10 we had caught our 41st and final fish of the day. We pressed on for another 10 to 15 fishless minutes, and then called it a day. Roughly 1/2 of our catch consisted of legal sized hybrid striped bass of 18+ inches in length.

TALLY = 41 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time: 11:25a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp: 72.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: Winds were SSE13 taper down to SSE 8-9

Sky Conditions: Hazy skies with ~20% cloud cover.

Water Level: 7.36 feet above full pool with a fall of 0.30 feet in the last 24 hours with a release of ~4890cfs ongoing.

GT = 0

Wx Snapshot:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1749 – 80% keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area 1739 – 80% keeper hybrid on live shad

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Bret and the Boys — 50 Fish, Belton Lake Hybrid Fishing

May 2nd, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

This past Saturday afternoon, April 30th, I fished with U.S. Army veteran Brad Bennett of Salado, his 11-year-old son, Bret, and Bret’s 11-year-old buddy, Brazos Farr, also of Salado.

From left: Brazos Farr, Bret Bennett, and Brad Bennett teamed up on the evening bite this past Saturday evening on Belton Lake.

Big hybrid weren’t the only game in town this evening. This 6.00 pound bluecat crushed Brad’s live shad and turned out to be the largest of the 50 fish we landed this evening..

I was a bit leery about our situation this afternoon as the deck appeared stacked against us. We had bright, clear skies, we had calm winds, and we had youngsters aboard which typically don’t do well at waiting on baited downlines to get a bite.

My preference is to take a more active approach with kids of that age on board by vertical jigging and/or casting with artificial lures, but Brad really wanted to give the kids exposure to what it takes to put big fish in the boat.

As we got going, I let my crew of 3 know that we’d likely have tough fishing until the final hour when the sun’s angle was low enough to take the penetrating rays of the sun off the water.

Sure enough, we boated exactly 18 fish in our first 2.75 hours on the water (that’s 6.54 fish per hour), and then boated 32 fish in our last 1.25 hours on the water (that’s 25.6 fish per hour). That last low-light period was 5 times more productive than the bright period that preceded it.

We fished two very similar areas — both were hard-bottomed and near a breakline. The first was in 52 feet of water, and the second in 48 feet of water.

Live shad did the trick at both areas.

TALLY = 50 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time: 8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F

Water Surface Temp: 76F (spiked high this afternoon due direct sun and low wind speed)

Wind Speed & Direction: Winds were light NW1-2

Sky Conditions: Bluebird skies with no cloud cover.

Water Level: Running 5664 cfs out of the dam, Belton still fell 0.12 feet in the last 24 hours and is now 9.54 feet above full pool.

Other: GT= 5

Wx Snapshot:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1548-1553-683 – bottom oriented hybrid at 52′. Caught 18 fish in 2.75 hours.

**Area vic 1299/954 – moderately heavily schooled short hybrid and white bass with a few legal hybrid mixed in. 32 fish in 1.25 hours thanks to lo-light bite kicking in around 6:45p.

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

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We Have an Awesome Mom! — 110 Fish, Belton Lake, 07 April

April 7th, 2016 by Bob Maindelle

This morning, my younger brother, Andy, and I treated my mom to a morning of fishing on Belton Lake.

My mom, Charlotte Maindelle, 71 years young and going strong!!

My mom is actually the one who got the whole fishing thing started for our family. Her father and grandfather were both commercial fishermen on the Mississippi River out of Wycliffe, Kentucky, prior to WWII, so she was introduced to the basic of gear, boats, line, terminal tackle, etc. at a young age. When she and my dad married and were on a young Army officer’s salary down in Ft. Gordon, GA, they took advantage of the fishing opportunities on nearby Clark Hill Reservoir on the Savannah River. Mom showed dad the ropes and he really took to fishing. His favorite thing was trolling ThinFin crankbaits (which were quite innovative for that time period) for largemouth bass and anything else that would hit them.

Today we fished live shad targeting hybrid stripers. We caught fish early and late in the morning, with a tough hour in the middle while it was bright and calm. Once some high, thin cloud cover moved in and the S. wind began to push, it was game on.

We caught a mix of short and legal white bass, short and legal hybrid stripers, and one largemouth bass. No drum or bluecats this trip.

My treat was the fishing, and Andy’s treat was lunch — we headed to Sol de Jalisco (thanks for that pointer, Mr. Tyroch!).

Great weather and great fishing with my great family!!

TALLY = 110 FISH, all caught and released

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15 a

End Time: 12:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Water Surface Temp: 64.8

Wind Speed & Direction: WSW4-5 at trip’s start, then going calm for about 75 minutes, then blowing S10 for the remainder of the trip

Sky Conditions: 20% cloud cover increasing to 60% high, thin white cloud cover.

Water Level: 594.93 and rising with 594.0 being full pool. Water being released at 252 cubic feet per second. Lake rose 0.04 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 152/1188 early success with bait for whites and hybrid on bait, then switching to slabs as smaller fish moved in

**Area vic 1541 late morning success with bait for whites and hybrid on bait, then switching to slabs as smaller fish moved in

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)