Fishing Report

It’s kind of crazy how this whole trip came together!  I’d originally booked a trip for October 6th with an elderly, long-time client of mine who struggles with medical issues.  Back in the spring, I’d enjoyed fishing with a railroad retiree, Kim Herald, and his brother.  At the close of that trip, Kim expressed an interest in catching hybrid stripers and asked me to let him know if an opportunity to split the cost of a trip ever arose.  My elderly client was open to this, so, I planned a trip for the two of them…

Kim boated our largest fish of the trip — this 5 pound class hybrid striper which took a large, live bait.

David took this chunky hybrid in under 16 feet of water at mid-morning thanks to the heavy clouds keeping the light level low.

And Fran got the hang of using circle hooks right off the bat and landed our first fish of the trip while it was still well before sunrise (hence the grainy photo — sorry!).

Unfortunately, the fellow with medical issues had to bow out due to those medical issues, leaving just Kim to fish with me, and a bit of a financial shortfall given the time I’d have to invest in netting live shad for the trip (easily 90-120+ minutes before clients arrive).  So, I put up a post on Facebook that I could offer a discount to try to attract a second guest and defray some of these costs.

Long story short, that post was viewed (and shared) extensively by those who tune in to my reports such that over 2,300 people very quickly became aware of my situation.  At 8:06pm, a couple from Belton, referred by an existing client, called to claim that seat.  That put Mr. David Souza and Mrs. Fran Souza in good company with Kim Herald for a full morning of fishing on Lake Belton.

Fran is still working as a counselor at the Center for Positive Change in Belton, and David, originally from Missouri, is now retired.

October is a notoriously tough month for Belton, and the later in the month we go, the tougher the fishing tends to become, thanks to the annual turnover of the water that has been stratified by temperature all summer.

I came prepared to fish for white bass, hybrid striper, and blue catfish in order to ensure we caught fish.

As it turned out, all of our tactics were put to the test, with live shad fishing for hybrid producing our best fish, and vertical jigging with slabs producing the most fish.  The catfishing was slow, but all three clients still caught several of these whiskered critters.

Yet another cold front comes in to central Texas on Friday, 07 Oct., and may be the one to trigger the turnover and get this tough fishing out of the way for us.  As it stood, I noted that the thermocline had already moved several feet downward and I found shad and catfish in deeper water than they have been inhabiting all summer.

By trip’s end, we had boated and released 76 fish.  I really appreciate all of you who forwarded that Facebook post to friends for doing so; that directly impacted my business for the better!

 

TALLY = 76 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  12:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  80.0F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE 12-13mph

Sky Conditions:  A low, grey layer of clouds persisted all morning, keeping conditions dim.

Water Level: ~0.27 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 75

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1800/1802 – keeper hybrid, short hybrid, and white bass on live shad and Black Saltys

**Area  vic 134 – keeper hybrid, short hybrid, and white bass on live shad and slabs

**Area vic 1579 – found heavily schooled white bass with downriggers and then worked these fish over with slabs

**Area  vic 156 – blue cat on cut shad under 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

Man, what a beautiful day to be on the water. Both this past Saturday’s morning trip and evening trip were cool and dry, with a little bit of breeze and some gray cloud cover. It was just a joy to be in the outdoors under these conditions. This evening I was joined by Mr. Forrest Breyfogle III, his wife, Becki Breyfogle, and their grandchildren, 11-year-old Abby Breyfogle and nine-year-old forest Breyfogle V.

Abby caught the largest white bass of the trip…

Grandma Becki caught the most fish…

And the whole family got to enjoy a beautiful early fall day out on Lake Belton.

We fished a multi-species trip on Belton Lake beginning at 3:45 PM and fished until dark, around 7:50 PM.

Because the kids were fairly new to fishing and Mr. and Mrs. Breyfogle hadn’t fished in quite some time, we began with some dockside casting lessons using spinning gear so that if any shallow water white bass activity took place under low light conditions in the last hour of the trip, we would be prepared to take full advantage of that.

After the casting lessons were done, we put the spinning gear away and I familiarized everyone with how to hold and use the bait casting gear that we would use for downrigging. With that skill then under their belts, we set out to put white bass in the boat using the downriggers. We fished 2 rods, each equipped with multiple Pet Spoons on either a tandem rig or a three-armed umbrella rig.

Our first 45 minutes on the water yielded 14 fish, several of which came in the form of doubles, wherein we landed two fish on one rod at the same time as multiple schoolmates fell for the Pet Spoons on the tandem rig or on the umbrella rig.

Next, we targeted blue catfish in open water over a 30 foot bottom. Although the chop on the water made by detection a little tougher then it could have been under calm conditions, the action was non-stop. Everyone landed multiple blue catfish, and Becki managed to take two hybrid, each measuring around 16 inches, on her dead bait.

During the 6 o’clock hour, we “spot hopped” and used a vertical tactic with small slabs to tempt a number of white bass holding in tightly grouped schools on the bottom when I was able to locate them with sonar. When this success proved spotty, I went back to downrigging and fished with downriggers until around 7 PM. From 7 PM until dark, we enjoyed casting to white bass in shallow water. These fish did not break the surface in large, noisy schools, but rather slipped up into the shallows unnoticed except for their signatures on sonar.

By the time night fell, we had amassed a catch of 74 fish.  By request of Becki, I’m including the species of fish we landed: hybrid striped bass, white bass, and blue catfish; as well as the techniques we used: downrigging (for hybrid stripers and white bass); slipfloating with cutbait (for catfish), and casting with soft plastics and slabs (for white bass).

TALLY = 74 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3:45p

End Time:  7:50p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp:  82.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE 9mph

Sky Conditions: A thin, scattered white deck of clouds offering 30% coverage but still bright conditions

Water Level: ~0.22 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 50

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  181/1604 – downrigging for white bass

**Area  vic 812 – catfish on cutbait

**Area 1800/1803/085 – downrigging for white bass and hybrid striped bass

**Area  1781/011 – casting to shallow white bass and hybrid striper

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

This past Saturday morning I fished with Mr. Joe Phillips of Killeen, his six-year-old son, C.J. Phillips, and Joe’s six year old nephew, Rodney Phillips, of Copperas Cove.

Can you smile any bigger than that?!?  Little Rodney Phillips of Copperas Cove landed this hybrid after it struck a downrigged Pet Spoon.

Not to be outdone, minutes after Rodney landed his big hybrid, C.J. chipped in with one of his own.

And what’s better than landing three fish at a time with your best fishin’ buddy?
This was a multi-species trip on Belton Lake and our aim was to keep the boys engaged for as long as that was possible by keeping them reeling in whatever manner of fish cooperated to help meet that objective.

At first light we begin downrigging in between 20 and 25 feet of water and nearly instantly had a double hookup on, allowing both boys to break the ice with white bass. As we were re-rigging the downriggers to take our second pass, fish began to burst on the surface chasing after shad all around us, however, this was not like a traditional lowlight top water feed. Rather, the fish would come up very briefly and then submerge. This took place over a large expanse of water, but still made it difficult to to get close enough to these schools of fish for a long enough time to sight cast to them. So, after landing a few fish by sight casting using soft plastics, we returned to downrigging and this proved to be a much more efficient approach.

By around 9 AM, the lowlight bite, which was extended by a nice deck of gray clouds, began to wane. To continue to hold the boys’ attention, Joe and I took them up shallow and targeted sunfish for about 40 minutes.  The boys did well at this, and each landed a variety of sunfish including green sunfish, bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, and redear sunfish.

When the novelty of sunfishing wore off, we headed out once again in search of white bass, this time targeting them with downriggers fished over deeper breaklines. Based on how I saw a number of bottom oriented schools of white bass respond to our downrigging approach, I decided to give the use of slabs a try in a vertical orientation. In our last 30 minutes on the water, we piled on the fish count with several dozen smallish white bass which kept the boys engaged right to the very last at around 10:45, when talked turned Chicken McNuggets and Longhorn football.
TALLY = 74 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Water Surface Temp:  82.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW under 4mph

Sky Conditions: A thin grey deck of clouds offering 90% coverage but still bright conditions

Water Level: ~0.22 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1657 – low light sporadic topwater

**Area 1602-1790 downrigging for white bass & short hybrid

**Area 502 – sunfish

**Area 1589-687-1584 – white bass on downrigger to find them, then capitalized with vertical jigging from a hover

 

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

Last Saturday evening I fished a multi-species trip on Lake Belton with Eric and Allison Stokes.

Allison and Eric Stokes had a successful multi-species trip with me, landing blue catfish, white bass, and hybrid stripers by employing 3 different tactics.  The couple landed 85 fish in under 4 hours.

Allison is a U.S. Army veteran and Eric is still on active duty.  He just returned from deployment and is about to head away from home again for schooling at Fort Lee, VA, so he can advance to the rank of Staff Sergeant (E6).  Allison thought it would be nice to treat him and a friend to a fishing trip before he departed.

When she asked what friend he would like to bring, Eric said, “You!”.   (Big domestic bonus points there!).

The weather was turbulent this evening with a stiff SSE breeze at up to 15mph in advance of a small line of thunderstorms that quickly made their way past us.  We caught catfish in about 26 feet of water for the first 90 minutes of the trip, putting 40 of these whiskered critters in the boat before they shut off.  As we were about to make a move, I thought it prudent to check weather radar given what I saw brewing in the SE sky.  Long story short, we had a 30 minute rain delay from 6:00 to 6:30, afterwhich the skies cleared (as did the lake of almost all fishing and recreational traffic).  So, we had calming conditions and excellent fishing immediately following the storms, and right up until dark.

When we returned to the water, we did a bit of downrigging for suspended white bass over a gently sloping bottom over 25 to 35 feet of water, then, thanks to cloud cover in the western sky, the low light period preceding sunset kicked in early tonight, thus providing us with “a fish every cast” kind of opportunities up shallow for the last 40 minutes of the trip.

We finished up with 85 fish boated and Eric and Allison very glad they spent this time together on the water before their upcoming separation.

 

TALLY = 85 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time:  8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 89F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE13-15

Sky Conditions: 70% cloud cover on a fair sky; a rain interruption of about 30 minutes from 6:00-6:30p

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

GT = 10

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1068 – 40 blue catfish

**Area 676-1580 downrigging for white bass

**Area 1812-1813 – white bass on topwater

**Area 009-1763 – white bass on 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

This past Friday evening, September 23, I conducted the 17th SKIFF program trip of this 2016 season by welcoming aboard Ryan Webber, and his mom, Ashley Webber.

 

Ryan Webber came aboard with a good bit of fishing experience already under his belt.  This paid big dividends as he quickly took to each of the 4 tactics we used on this evening’s trip.  Here, Ryan shows off a blue catfish he caught on a slipfloat in over 25 feet of water.

Ryan did a fantastic job of listening to my coaching, allowing to land this 19″ hybrid striper that went just over 3 pounds.

Ryan also did well fishing for sunfish up shallow and in casting to white bass near the surface just after dark.
Ryan is a nine-year-old boy who came on board with a good bit of fishing experience already under his belt. Ryan’s father, US Army Sergeant Webber, is a mechanic currently deployed to South Korea with only 20 days left to go in-country.

As is my preference for trips involving kids in elementary school, I broke this trip up into multiple, short segments.

These segments consisted of sunfishing in shallow water, cat fishing with cut bait using slip floats, downrigging for white bass and hybrid striper, and casting to shallow white bass after sunset.

Ryan did well in all of these disciplines. He landed 24 sunfish of various sorts and a small largemouth bass as we fished up shallow. He landed another 20 blue catfish after getting the hang of when to set the hook using a slip float.  And, even though a stiff breeze at sunset obscured our ability to see white bass and hybrid striper feeding on the surface, Ryan did well as we cast to unseen fish that we located with sonar after a productive round of downrigging.

When all was said and done, Ryan had landed 62 fish this evening. We had planned on Ryan’s younger sister who is but six years old to attend, but she got cold feet at the last minute. In hindsight, Mrs. Webber felt that was probably for the best as she knew her daughter’s patience level would not have lasted near as long as Ryan’s did.

A huge thanks to all of those who support the SKIFF program so that when he calls like Mrs. Webber’s come in requesting a trip while the military spouse is away, I never have to hesitate in saying “Yes!”

And, another thanks to Mrs. Denise Igo, who manages the Fort Hood Area Events webpage.  She helped get the word out about the SKIFF program that lead Mrs. Webber to know about my after-school fishing opportunities which exist right up until the time change in early November.

 

TALLY = 62 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time:  8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 88F

Water Surface Temp:  84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE12

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

Water Level: ~0.02 feet low.  Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 502 sunfish

**Area 1800/812 bluecat on cutbait

**Area 1802/814 downrigging for white bass and hybrid

**Area 011-015 casting to topwater 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

TALLY = 216 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

Sky Conditions: <20% cloud cover on all trips

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

GT = 90

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS TRIP 2:

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

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

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

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS TRIP 3:

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

**Area 486 – largemouth and smallmouth on shad

**Area 1808 – whites and hybrid on shad

**Area 1129 – whites and hybrid on shad

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TALLY = 31 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp:  85.0F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNW under 4mph

Sky Conditions: <10% cloud cover.

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

GT = 0

 

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

 

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

TALLY = 60 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  84.3F

Wind Speed & Direction:  WNW under 4mph

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

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

GT = 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

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

**Area 651 – brief topwater action

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

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle