Fishing Report

This past Saturday morning on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir, I welcomed Mrs. Suzette Sullivan and her two daughters, Asia (age 16) and Sara (age 8) for the girls’ first fishing trip and their first time on a boat.

 

This white bass was the first catch of Sara’s life.  It earned her a TPWD “First Fish Award”.

 

 

…and this white bass was the first fish of Asia’s life.  She, too, earned a “First Fish Award”.

Mrs. Sullivan works at Baylor Scott & White where another client, Dr. Bill Johnston, referred her to me.  She booked the trip just for the girls and came along as a non-fishing chaperone.  During our trip, she shared that her intention was for the girls’ grandfather to introduce them to fishing, but that he passed away before that could happen.

Asia was quite leery of the movement of the boat, but got more used to it as the day went by.  Both girls screamed with excitement anytime something new happened — our first fish biting, our first fish flopping on the floor of the boat, the first time we accelerated to over 20mph, the first time I opened the worm box, etc., etc.   For someone who does this day in and day out for a living, it was a bit of an eye-opener on how much I can take for granted sometimes.

The stable weather, bright skies, and favorable winds assured a good bite this morning.  We were able to enjoy some variety in the fishing by employing downriggers, using slabs and tailspinners in a vertical mode, and by sunfishing up shallow with bait.

Less than 15 minutes into the trip I was snapping photos of the girls’ first fish of their lives, for which each will receive a “First Fish Award” from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept.

Particularly exciting to Sara was catching white bass from out of deep water using a “smoking” tactic with a spinning reel.  Whenever she hooked a fish and got it near the surface, she started screaming loudly — so loudly, in fact, that I had to tactfully address “curbing our enthusiasm”.  Unfortunately, on busy summer weekends if we begin to draw attention to ourselves, other boats will crowd us and try to horn in on the action.  I don’t mind others catching fish, but when they run nearby with an outboard going and with sonar pinging and interfering with my onboard units, that’s a bit much.   Sara understood and celebrated more quietly for the remainder of the trip.

By the time 10 o’clock rolled around, the wind had slacked off, most of the cloud cover had dissipated, and it was getting very hot.  We wrapped up with a total of 41 fish landed by the girls.

TALLY: 41 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 10:10a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp: 85.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: S breeze 7-9 mph the entire trip

Sky Conditions: 20% white cloud cover

Water Level: 0.04 feet low and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 15

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1506-664 – downrigged for suspended fish at mid-depth under low-light

**Areas 1960 and 1510 – smoked on these numbers for white bass

**Area 1312 – smoked on it and downrigged around it for white bass

**Area 1572 – sunfishing

 

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

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

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

This past Friday morning I conducted the 16th SKIFF program trip of the 2017 season. Joining me today were two 5-year-old boys, Tyler Haas and Jayvion Charleston.  Mrs. Jessica Charleston came along as a chaperone.  We fished on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.

 

The 3.5 inch sunfish was the first fish of 5-year-old Jayvion Charleston’s life.  It earned him a TPWD “First Fish Award”.

Tyler Haas scored on some nice 2-year class white bass.

Jayvion with a typical central Texas white bass taken from deep, clear water on a downrigged bait.
Both boys’ fathers, SSG Christopher Charleston and SSG David Haas, are staff sergeants in the U.S. Army, both are Cavalry scouts, and both are currently deployed to South Korea.

Although Jayvion had been on a boat before, he had never before landed a fish, so, that was priority number one. Given the boys’ age and what I suspected of their attention spans, I chose to start off the day fishing for sunfish up in shallow, cover filled water for the sake of “instant gratification”.

After explaining to the boys how the bream poles that we were going to be fishing with worked and why we were cutting the bait (earthworms) into such small segments, I decided to go one-on-one with the boys at first as they worked their way through the learning curve of reacting to their float being pulled under by a sunfish.

Jayvion’s hook, line sinker, and slip float were in the water, literally, less than three seconds when the first fish of his life pulled the float down; Jayvion reacted well and latched into a 3.5 inch juvenile sunfish. His smile was bigger than the fish.

After taking a few photos so we could apply for his TPWD “First Fish Award”, we released that fish and went on to catch 11 more — six sunfish for each boy– before moving on to something different.

Our next chapter in the day was to fish deep water with downriggers in hopes of landing some larger white bass. Fortunately, the first area I chose to search out with sonar revealed enough suspended fish present to downrig for. We got two downriggers in the water and, over the next 50 minutes, were able to put six singles and a double in the boat thus taking our fish count up to 20.

Both boys seemed more interested in investing our remaining time in pursuing more sunfish and so, that is exactly what we did, right up until about 10:15, when little Tyler wore out on us. We split another 21 sunfish across two similar, shallow, cover-filled areas and finished the trip with a total of 41 fish boated.

“Homefront” spouses with a husband or wife away from home on military duty (not just deployments) are welcomed to call me at 254.368.7411 to arrange for free 4-hour outing for your children.  Homefront parents are always welcome to attend, but are equally welcome to take some downtime from their own children and leave them in my care for this time on the water.  This is all made possible through the sponsorship and work of the Austin Fly Fishers and the supportive allies they have developed along the way.

TALLY: 41 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 10:20a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp: 86.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW breeze 8-10 mph the entire trip

Sky Conditions: 20% white cloud cover

Water Level: 0.02 feet low and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 239 –  sunfish under low light

**Area 041-1962 – downrigging for white bass

**Areas 1418 and 1416 – sunfish on slipfloats

 

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

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

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

This past Friday morning, August 10th, I was joined by Mr. Ryan Dunlap and his friend, Joni Lethco. Ryan’s kids, Brooke and Logan, and Joni’s son, Flynt, also joined in the fun.  We fished a multi-species trip focused on white bass on Stillhouse Lake.

Brooke Dunlap got the ball rolling for us this morning, taking this nice 3 year class white bass from out of 36 feet of water.  Brooke may look chipper in the photo, but she only got 3 hours of sleep before the trip after competing in a rodeo up near Ft. Worth the night before.

 

Logan Dunlap and Joni Lethco with a pair of white bass that struck our downriggers right about the same time.

Flynt Lethco, a high school student from the small town of Mullin, TX, with a nice double he came up with as we downrigged in an area thick with baitfish this morning.

 

Fishing has been just so – so this week, and I let my crew know that we would have to work for each fish we caught today. I anticipated we would catch fish with the downriggers, and also hoped that we could add some variety by fishing vertically for more heavily congregated fish we found near bottom as we downrigged.

We fished four distinct areas this morning and found fish at the last three of them.

The fish behaved in much the same way at each — the fish would perk up and take interest in our downrigger presentations, allowing us to catch on the first three or four passes over them, then, after that, even though the fish were still in the same locations, they just lost interest quickly.

I noticed similar behavior during the three or four times that we stopped over top of congregated fish to vertical jig for them. As soon as we got baits down to the bottom and started working our slabs, the fish would bite aggressively, allowing each angler two or three fish. After that, even though the fish were still present, they would just “sit tight” and ignore our presentations. The activity just seemed to come in spurts.

As Joni and the kids did most of the fishing, and Ryan and I just helped with getting the downriggers set and other supportive tasks, they racked up a catch of exactly 60 fish one or two fish at a time, enduring the often windless heat as they did so.

By around 11 AM, with the fishing slowing down, the temperature rising, and the wind staying near calm, we decided to call it a good day with exactly 60 fish in the boat.

As we wrapped things up, I let Ryan know I’d be sending him photos and links to this summary by email.  He then informed me he didn’t do email.  I asked about Facebook — no Facebook.  I kidded him that he was just an analog dad in a digital world, and let him know I’d send everything to the kids instead!

TALLY: 60 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW breeze 4-6mph the entire trip

Sky Conditions: 30% white cloud cover

Water Level: At exactly full pool (622.0 ft ASL)  and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1962-1976-039 — downrigging and smoking

**Area 1977 & 1978 – smoking on these numbers and downrigged in between

**Area 1971-1440 – — downrigging and smoking

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

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

This morning, Wednesday, August 9th, I fished with 12-year-old AmiLee Tortorich and her 8-year-old brother, Brayden.  The kids’ mom signed them up for this “Fishing 101” activity through the Fort Hood SKIESUnlimited Program.

 

AmiLee and Brayden Tortorich landed 36 fish during their 4-hour Fort Hood SKIESUnlimited trip on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.  The siblings were introduced to downrigging, vertical jigging, and sight casting under unusually cool August conditions.

AmiLee landed our largest fish of the trip and didn’t hesitate to grip it like a pro for a quick photo before it was released.  This largemouth bass struck a silver Pet Spoon with a white feather tail.

Our weather was still a bit out of the ordinary for August, with a cool north wind blowing this morning taking the surface temperature down a bit overnight and dropping the air temperature to around 76F.

We primarily used downriggers this morning as the fish were scattered and a bit reluctant to strike.  Quite a few times we saw large schools of fish which, under typical August weather conditions, would strike when the downrigged baits got near them.  This morning, the majority of those encounters resulted in those fish refusing our offerings.

Around 8am we made a move and found some light, scattered surface action driven by largemouth bass chasing shad to the surface.  Mixed in with these largemouth, and lower in the water column, were white bass.

We remained in this active location for the remainder of our trip; this allowed the kids to continue downrigging successfully, but also allowed them to do some vertical jigging and some sight casting to the largemouth on top.  With about 45 minutes left in our trip, I offered that we could either continue pursuing the white bass as we had been doing, or head up shallow and catch more, but smaller, sunfish.

To my surprise, the kids opted to stick with it for more white bass action, as they really enjoyed setting and operating the downriggers.  This choice got them 6 more fish in the last 45 minutes of our trip, including the trip’s one and only “triple” where AmiLee caught 3 fish at a time on her 3-armed umbrella rig.

SKIESUnlimited stands for Schools of Knowledge, Inspiration, Exploration, and Skills.

SKIESUnlimited offers dozens of activities for military and Department of Defense kids of all ages, ranging from gymnastics to piano lessons, from academic tutoring to various forms of dance, and more.  Monetary credit for such courses is available for children whose military parents are deployed.

To participate in such courses, children must first be registered with Child and Youth Services.

Registration is free and is accomplished by contacting Parent Central Services at 254-287-8029.

Once registered, parents may go online to enroll their children for the myriad courses available.

TALLY: 36 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30am

End Time: 10:30am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 83.8F

Wind Speed & Direction: N breeze 4-6 mph the entire trip

Sky Conditions: ~10% cloud cover.

Water Level: 0.1 feet high and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 484-1221 downrigging under low light conditions with a grey cloud bank in the east obscuring sunrise

**Area 1510-1316 a mix of downrigging, sight casting, and smoking for a largemouth/white bass mix

 

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

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

This past Monday evening, in the wake of area-wide rainfall that occurred from late Sunday night through early Monday afternoon, I fished for a second time with US Army retiree Lee Walker.

 

In the wake of storms that persisted through early afternoon, fishing was very spotty thereafter.  Fish would turn on and then turn right back off again.

 

During his introduction to downrigging, Lee wound up catching a “triple”, with one fish striking each of the three Pet Spoons on the 3-armed umbrella rigs which account for the majority of the fish I catch on downriggers.

Lee had previously done both a sonar training trip with me and then, last fall, took advantage of a Veterans’ Day special I was running just for vets.  We were in contact by phone between 4-5 am this morning comparing notes on weather radar hoping to get a morning trip in, but, rain, thunder, and lightning persisted, so, we pushed back to this evening.

Lee is an avid Lake Belton angler and was hoping to get some insights into summer fishing on Belton more than just going out and putting fish in the boat.

The unstable weather made things tough this afternoon, so we had to work for each of the fish we caught.  We kicked off the trip by downrigging.  The downrigging produced singles, doubles, and even a bonus triple (catching 1 fish on each of the 3 hooks of the umbrella rig, thus allowing the angler to catch 3 fish at a time.  All the while we were downrigging, we also kept a sharp eye on sonar to see if there were any large clusters of fish on bottom that could be jigged for.

At the third area we patrolled, we got into such a cluster of fish, picked off 4 whites and 2 hybrid in under 3 minutes, and then never found another active group of fish like that the remainder of the trip.

By 7:00p, with the sun ducking in and out of thick grey cloud cover, some light surface action began to brew and lots of young of the year shad appeared on the calming surface.  We both had high hopes of a sunset topwater feed, but, none developed.

When all was said and done, we landed 33 white bass and 2 hybrid stripers with the majority of the fish coming on the downriggers, 4 coming on topwater, and 6 coming on slabs worked vertically.

With tomorrow’s weather looking very unstable, I postponed that day’s trip; Wednesday looks like we’ll be back in the groove.

TALLY: 35 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:10p

End Time: 8:35p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 85F

Water Surface Temp: 85.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: ESE4-5 for the first 3 hours, then going calm in the final hour

Sky Conditions: ~40% cloud cover the entire trip

Water Level: 0.23 feet low and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 10

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1946-1584-815 downrigging

**Area 1972-904 downrigging and smoking

**Area 1271-1186 downrigging

**Area 483-1402-501 sparse topwater

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

On Thursday, August 3rd, I conducted the season’s 14th “S.K.I.F.F.” Program trip, treating Grace Rowell and her two children, 12-year-old Delilah and 8-year-old Ryan Jr., to some multi-species angling on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.

From left: Mrs. Grace Rowell and her children, Ryan Jr. and Delilah with our first fish of the morning.

Grace’s husband, US Army Sergeant First Class (SFC) Ryan Rowell Sr. is currently serving in Kuwait where he works as a Field Artillery mechanic.  SFC Rowell has been in the service for 19 years.

Grace and the kids were real troopers, leaving their quarters on Ft. Hood in a downpour to get to our launch site.  Although they outran the rain and we launched under dry conditions, that rain caught back up with us and we fished in about an hour-long rainshower.  It seems the fish didn’t mind (hey, they were already wet, right?) as we caught fish from start to finish this morning.

After the white bass cooperated well, allowing us to put 18 in the boat using 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons, we invested the balance of the trip up shallow in pursuit of sunfish.

Ryan was keenly interested in my approach to sunfishing, as he goes as often as he can to one of the Ft. Hood ponds earmarked for kids.  He learned a number of good tactics, from bait selection and presentation, to the importance of downsizing tackle to account for the small mouths sunfish have.

We landed 34 fish this morning before heading back in.

“Homefront” spouses with a husband or wife away from home on military duty (not just deployments) are welcomed to call me at 254.368.7411 to arrange for free 4-hour outing for your children.  Homefront parents are always welcome to attend, but are equally welcome to take some downtime from their own children and leave them in my care for this time on the water.  This is all made possible through the sponsorship and work of the Austin Fly Fishers and the supportive allies they have developed along the way.

TALLY: 34 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30am

End Time: 9:00am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 84.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: NE breeze 5-6mph the entire trip

Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover with light rain from 7:15 to 8:15a.

Water Level: 0.13′ low slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 444 to 484 to 1114 to 909 — downrigging and smoking

**Area 1416 – 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

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

This past Wednesday evening, August 2nd, I fished with Mr. Richard Oates, his brother Gerald, Richard’s son, Andy, and Richard’s son-in-law, Jon. The trip was in celebration of Gerald’s birthday.

The birthday boy, Gerald Oates, was treated to a half-day outing on Lake Belton by his brother, Richard Oates of Harker Heights.

Andy Oates (you’ve probably seen him at the Harker Heights Chick-Fil-A) with a pair of nice Belton Lake hybrid we took out of 36 feet of water on artificials.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect this evening because of the wet cool front which moved into the area early this morning and soured the fishing for the first half of this morning’s trip.

As it turned out, skies slowly cleared to 60% clouds and the atmosphere dried as the afternoon turned to evening.

The bite this afternoon steadily increased right up until it shut down at 8:50 p.m.

The fishing started off slow – – we downrigged for abundant, suspended white bass and hybrid striper, but if one in every 75 or 80 fish made a motion toward the downrigger ball, we were lucky.

At the second area we fished, we found the same fish situation – – abundant and suspended – – but our “see them to catch them” ratio definitely improved as perhaps 10 to 20% of the fish seen on sonar would make a positive move toward the downrigger ball.

Eventually, we got into fish active enough to hover over top of and “smoke” for using slabs.

There was a bit of a lull between 7;15 and 8;15 when we downrigged for fish that were increasingly higher in the water column and closer to shore.

Finally, there was an all-out topwater blitz as we sighted fish in a number of areas and put nearly 100 fish in the boat in our final 45 to 50 minutes on the water by casting to fish revealing their location as they fed on the baitfish on the surface. We used slabs for this work, as well.

We closed out the evening with exactly 149 fish landed.

TALLY: 149 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 8:55p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F (actually cooler than the starting temp of this morning’s trip)

Water Surface Temp: 84.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: NW7-8 due to an early season, wet cold front’s passage

Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover at trip’s start with the lightest of drizzle, slowly clearing and drying to 60% cloud cover

Water Level: 0.21feet low and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1975 downrigging with low “see to catch” ratio

**Area 904-1972 downrigging and smoking

**Area 1271-814 – pre-dusk downrigging

**Area 016-1602 – aggressive topwater action

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

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

This past Wednesday morning, August 2nd, I fished a Fort Hood SKIESUnlimited program trip with 8-year-old Landon Phillips, and his dad, Major Dan Phillips, who just recently returned from his third deployment to Afghanistan.

 

Like most kids his age, 8-year-old Landon Phillips preferred the steady action of smaller fish to the longer waits required to put larger fish in the boat.  So, we spent a good bit of this morning’s trip up shallow gunning for sunfish.  Having his dad home a bit earlier than expected from deployment to Afghanistan was icing on the cake.

 

After the heavier rains stopped and the clouds thinned from dark grey to white and let some light through, the white bass and hybrid went on the prowl after baitfish, allowing us some action on downriggers and with vertical presentations made with slabs.  Landon holds our largest fish of the trip.

As I awoke at 4:15 AM, the sound of distant thunder got me looking on weather radar to see a slow moving storm cell just about to cross over Fort Hood from west to east. The thunder and lightning occurred only on the lead edge of this small storm system, but the rain hung around through around 9:30am.

Dan and Landon were okay with a little discomfort if that is what it took to catch a few fish, so with only a 15 minute delay, we shoved off from the courtesy dock at 6:45 AM on Lake Belton in pursuit of white bass and sunfish sufficient to keep eight-year-old Landon’s string stretched.

The unstable weather and gray, murky conditions definitely put a damper on the fishing during the early morning. We witnessed a widespread school of white bass break on the surface for just minutes along a breakline that slowly transitioned from 15 to 25 feet. As we got to the action, both downriggers went off each with a double, allowing us a quick four fish in the boat, and then the action shut down thereafter as more rain moved in and the clouds thickened.

Suspecting that the whites were not going to really get active again until we experienced some clearing, we began our pursuit of sunfish a bit earlier and stuck with it a bit longer than normal, but Landon really enjoyed the action it provided. Over about a 75 minute span, he put exactly 25 sunfish in the boat including bluegill and green sunfish anywhere from 3 to 7 inches in length.

Just as the sunfishing was slowing down at the one area we had elected to try, the skies began to clear from west to east, and the clouds, although still covering at 100%, went from very dark gray to white.

Almost immediately, we began to see signs of bird and fish activity that simply did not exist during the rainfall.

We made a move to the mouth of a windblown cove, ran sonar over it, saw abundant bait and white bass suspended at 27 to 29 feet beneath the surface, and ran when downriggers over these fish with balls set just 2 to 3 feet above them. We picked up fish on both ‘riggers on three consecutive passes before I put us in a hover using the Spot Lock technology on my Minn Kota trolling motor, after which we began to work the fish over using slabs presented vertically. We put a total of 17 additional fish in the boat including primarily white bass with one hybrid and one largemouth bass in the mix, as well.

For the last 15 minutes of the trip I offered Landon another shot at sunfish, because he really enjoyed the presentation to these fish as well as catching them, and he did indeed elect to spend the last portion of our trip up shallow. With much improved accuracy, Landon fished this second area we chose for sunfish very well, taking our grand total up to exactly 50 fish before we called it a good day.

When Dan asked Landon if he thought mom was going to believe they caught 50 fish, Landon was doubtful. Dan even suggested we take a photograph of my handheld fish counter just to make their story more credible.

At around 11 AM, we called it a great day and wrapped up our successful, albeit soggy, fishing trip on Lake Belton.

TALLY: 50 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Water Surface Temp: 84.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: NW8 due to an early season, wet cold front’s passage

Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover

Water Level: 0.21feet low and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 444 to 484 to 909 to 1238 – strong fishing for 2 full hours under low light and cloud cover; downrigging a 3-armed umbrella with Pet Spoons; 30 fish

**Areas 195 and 189  – sunfishing in the shallows; 14 fish

**Area 1436 – a strong presence of fish; only landed 4 and left them biting

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

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle