Fishing Report

This past Tuesday morning, August 2nd, I fished on Lake Belton with the Christenson kids: Zach, Marissa, and Brock. This was a SKIFF program trip provided to the Christenson family free of charge, courtesy of the Austin Fly Fishers. The kids’ father, Ryan Christensen, is a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army and is currently deployed.

Zach Christenson of Fort Hood caught this nice Belton Lake hybrid striped bass while sight-casting to surface feeding fish in the first 2 hours after sunrise.

Marissa Christenson caught this nice Belton Lake hybrid striped bass while sight-casting with a chrome slab selected to match the shad these big predators were chasing.

Despite a wrist already hurting from reeling in so many fish, Brock “pushed through” and landed this nice Lake Belton hybrid striper — his largest of the trip.
To try our best to give the kids’ mother, Erica, some down time, my wife picked the kids up at their quarters on Fort Hood and delivered them to me lakeside after I traveled to Belton Lake separately and got launched and ready for the kids. By 6:35 AM we had shoved off and were on our way to the fishing grounds.

With the dark of the moon upon us now, top water action began quite early and lasted until 8 AM with enough intensity to allow us to cast to surface feeding fish up until this time. Then, top water action continued, albeit more sporadically. This allowed us to know where concentrations of fish were so that we could get to them and downrig for them. We downrigged for another 90 minutes, regularly picking up doubles and triples using Pet Spoons selected to match the forage size on three-armed umbrella rigs.

As we entered into the fourth hour of the morning, the white and hybrid action was sufficient to allow us to keep right on downrigging, however, little brother Brock was beginning to play out and needed both a snack and a change of pace.

We re-rigged and got set up to fish for blue catfish, in open water. In our final hour on the water, the kids landed exactly 20 blue catfish with our baits suspended just above bottom in 32 feet of water. We pulled in our lines at 10:35 to meet mom back at the boat ramp.

Trips like this are available to all military families wherein children are separated from their parent by their parent’s military duty, be it due to deployment, an NTC or JRTC rotation, field time, gunnery, military schooling, etc.  A quick phone call or text to me, Bob Maindelle, at 254.368.7411 to compare calendars is all it takes.

I asked Erica if she was able to relax a little, and, with a smile, she said she was able to enjoy painting a picture of a cross.

The kids landed a total of 91 fish this morning.

 

TALLY = 91 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:07.

Water Level: ~7.6 feet high and falling ~  0.65 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1791 – 947 extended topwater action over deep, open water

**Area 793 – 1792 mid-morning sporadic topwater action that guided us to downrigging locations

**Area SSW of 1070 – blue catfish on fresh, dead 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 past Monday morning, August 1st, I fished once again with Joe Oliver (who came out with me last Friday with a different batch of grandkids), this time accompanied by his son, Cory Oliver, and three of Joe’s grandchildren, Bo & Ben Pugh, and Cullen Oliver.

All the kids hooked up this morning!  Back row from left: Cory Oliver and Joe Oliver.  Front row from left: Cullen Oliver (6), Beau Pugh (2), and Ben Pugh (8).

Ben landed the largest fish of the trip this morning — a hybrid striper half as long as he is!

Because a contingent of the Oliver family was headed to The Woodlands later this day to visit grandma, our trip was planned for three hours instead of the normal four, which, with such young kids aboard worked out just right. We broke the trip down into three segments, downrigging, casting/smoking, and bait fishing for catfish.

The morning action started off a bit slow today, but right around 7:50, some light top water began which clued us in as to the location of a sizable congregation of feeding fish. We capitalized on this find by catching fish using downriggers, and by casting slabs to fish feeding on top water, as well as using slabs throughout the water column.  Thanks to the fact that fish were so aggressive, they were found from top to bottom for a short span of time. When this action settled down, we did a bit more slab work to add a few white bass and a few hybrid to our count, and then devoted the last 50 minutes or so to setting up with bait for blue catfish.

Everything we tried this morning panned out, and we scarcely went five or six minutes without at least a single fish being hooked and landed.

We wrapped up the fishing by 9:40 with a grand total of 44 fish landed for our efforts today.

TALLY = 44 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  9:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:06.

Water Level: ~8.3 feet high and falling ~  0.65 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 105

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1656/1657 downrigging, topwater, smoking

**Area 216/1663 smoking

**Area 812/1271 blue catfish on fresh, dead 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 past Saturday morning I fished with Mrs. Kim Hernandez and her sons, Braven (16), Tristan (9), and Noah (7) on Belton Lake.  This was a trip coordinated through the Fort Hood “SKIES” program.

Tristan was a great, young fisherman — he paid attention to his technique, stayed focused, and was looking forward to catching “one more” now matter how many we landed.

Braven was a really fast learner and a tremendous help to me and his younger brothers as he got the hang of setting up the downrigger lines, thus freeing me up to navigate and study sonar.

 

Noah wasn’t too sure about getting too close to the fish we caught, but he stuck with it for a full four hours right alongside his older brothers.

Downrigging for white bass and hybrid stripers early, and fishing with bait for blue cat late was the name of the game this morning.

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 “Army Strong” credit available to each child when their parent is deployed.

 

TALLY = 40 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time:  10:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:06.

Water Level: ~9.6 feet high and falling ~  0.65 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1762-1788 downrigging for low light fish with average success

**Area 793-1129 downrigging for deeper mid-morning fish under surface feeders for above average action

**Area just S. of 1655 blue catfish on fresh, dead 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 past Friday morning, July 29th, I fished with Mr. Joe Oliver as he and his adult son, Thomas Oliver, chaperoned three of Joe’s grandchildren: Harper (6), Presley (8), and Cullen (8), on a multi-species children’s fishing trip on Lake Belton.

With a lot of help from “Papa” Joe and Uncle Tom, all three kids landed white bass …

 

 

…and blue catfish…

 

 

…and sunfish…

 

 

…and doubles and triples…

 

 

…and even a few lunkers…
As a retired educator, Joe understood full well the limited attention spans of kids his grandchildren’s age, so, we planned accordingly to expose the kids to multiple, brief “chapters” during this morning’s trip.

Chapter 1 consisted of downrigging for white bass and hybrid stripers. This resulted in a total of 24 fish. Chapter 2 consisted of fishing with bait up in shallow, cover-filled water for sunfish.

And the final chapter consisted of fishing in open water for densely schooled blue catfish using dead baits.

We were successful in each of these three endeavors and, by 9:45a had landed a total of 31 fish and had reached the end of all three kids’ attention spans. While it was still possible to end the trip on a positive note, we did just that.

 

TALLY = 31 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  19:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S9-12

Sky Conditions: 10% white clouds on a fair sky.   Unobscurred sunrise at 7:09.

Water Level: ~10.2 feet high and falling ~  0.65 feet per day with a flow of ~5,200 cfs

GT = 15

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1766-1641 downrigging for low light fish

**Area 1793/1663/1644 downrigging for deeper mid-morning fish

**Area 1794 sunfish

**Area 1655 blue catfish

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

THE FOLLOWING WAS ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE KILLEEN DAILY HERALD, SUNDAY, 31 JULY 2016:

 

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://kdhnews.com/sports/fishing/bob-maindelle-skiff-other-military-programs-help-family-grieve/article_510dfbc0-56e2-11e6-a771-8b7d3113e971.html

 

This past Tuesday morning I fished Lake Belton with Nadia Ali, her daughters, Malaika, Zamzam, and Zuzu, and Nadia’s brother, Muhammed Imran.

Zamzam with the first fish of her life — caught on shallow-running a downrigger with Pet Spoons.

Zuzu with the first fish of her life.

And Malaika with the first fish of her life.

Siblings Muhammed Imran and Nadia Ali on Muhammed’s introduction tour of Texas courtesy of his sister.

Nadia works as a physician at Baylor Scott & White, her daughters are all in school, and Muhammed is a mechanical engineer visiting from Pakistan.

I was concerned about the fishing this morning after the high-pressure dome that had been firmly in place over Texas broke down, allowing for an east wind, cloud cover, and rain to enter the area last night. As I woke up this morning, it was noticeably cooler, cloudy, and the lightest of north wind was blowing

Nadia and her family showed up at 6:35a, and I decided to follow the same pattern I had been following for the past two weeks. I continued to find fish in the same areas they have been using recently, although there was a noticeable lack of top water action this morning. Thanks to the fairly thick gray cloud cover, the low light that has provided for excellent downrigging conditions extended for a full two hours today. We landed a total of 29 fish, including three doubles, in our first two hours on the water on downriggers.

Nadia and I agreed to pro-rate this trip for a shortened three hours versus the normal 4+ hours, because her oldest daughter had an appointment that could not be broken. Our final hour we spent fishing live baits within 5 to 7 feet of the bottom. I initially stopped us over a minor breakline after seeing hybrid show up on sonar. Our first four takedowns were hybrid striper, but afterwards, blue catfish moved in. Because Muhammed was the only one who had ever fished before, I went ahead and capitalized on the very willing blue catfish. We were able to land eight of these whiskered critters by the time 9:05a rolled around and we had to pull the plug in order to make a timely return back to the boat ramp. For our efforts, we landed 41 fish this morning.

All three of the young ladies landed the first fish of their lives this morning!

 

 

TALLY = 41 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:35a

End Time:  9:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 83F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Light and variable

Sky Conditions: 100% thin grey cloud cover until 8:15a when it all burned off an was quite hot and humid due to overnight rain and a lack of wind.

Water Level: 12.60 feet high and falling ~  0.6 feet per day with a flow of ~5,300 cfs

GT = 15

 

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)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

TALLY = 80 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE3-5

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

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

GT = 195

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

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

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

**Area 1793 live bait & slabbing

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TALLY = 65 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  9:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW9

Sky Conditions: Cloudless fair skies.

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

GT = 55

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

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

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

**Area 1792 live bait

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

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TALLY = 152 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  10:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW9

Sky Conditions: Cloudless fair skies.

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

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

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

**Area vic 813 live bait

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

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle