Fishing Report

This past Tuesday morning, July 19th, I fished with Mr. Steve VonQuintus of Hutto, Texas, and his 4 grandsons, Jacob (16), Cade (9), Evan (9), and Hayden (8).

Steve “Gramps” Von Quintus and his grandson, Hayden, with a shad-caught Belton Lake hybrid striped bass.

Gramps and Evan teamed up on this hybrid that hit our live baits hanging down around 24 feet over a slightly deeper bottom.

From left: Bass Pro Shops apparel models Jacob and Cade with a nice pair of Belton lake summertime hybrids.

Due to a very consistent, low-light bite on Belton, I wanted to be shoving off no later than 6:15a. Thankfully, Steve and his crew arrived just a few minutes before six, so we took our time in going through the “pre-game” stuff, such as my safety briefing, ascertaining everyone’s level of experience, checking familiarity with both casting gear and spinning gear, etc.

By 6:15 we were idling out of the no wake zone adjacent to Frank’s Marina. Today’s trip broke down neatly into four distinct parts. Part one consisted of downrigging for the first 70 minutes of the trip. We went in order from youngest to oldest, and everyone got to take three rounds on the reel as we worked twin downriggers, each equipped with umbrella rigs and Pet Spoons.

Our catch of 18 fish on the downriggers included both a double and a triple, consisted mainly of white bass with a few short hybrid thrown in.  During this fast-paced portion of the trip, Hayden and Evan landed the first fish of their lives, thus earning them TPWD First Fish Awards.

Part two of our trip consisted of fishing with live shad near where the downrigging action had occurred. We added another 17 fish to our tally here, including four keeper hybrid.

Part three of our trip was the most productive in terms of numbers. We used three-quarter ounce chrome slabs to work vertically for both white bass and short and keeper hybrid in approximately 32 feet of water. We caught 49 fish using this tactic before the fishing went soft.

Our grand finale came near the same area we had caught these fish on the slabs. Off of a minor breakline that dropped from 25 to 29 feet, I identified quite a number of hybrid striped bass laying quite close to bottom. I used the Spot Lock feature on my Ulterra trolling motor to hold over these fish and we put six baits right down over these fish, with our weights suspended at 22 feet. Over the next 25 minutes, we put an additional 18 fish in the boat, nine of which were keeper hybrid. As our 102nd fish came in the boat, sonar went clear, we could feel the sun’s heat soaking through our clothing, and Steven I thought it wise to quit while we were ahead, thus finishing on a strong note.

For our efforts today we boated 102 fish consisting entirely of white bass and hybrid striped bass.

 

TALLY = 102 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  11:10a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp:  84.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE6 building to SE12

Sky Conditions: ~10% cloud cover on a fair sky.

Water Level: 15.6 feet high and falling ~0.5 to 0.6 feet per day with a flow of ~6,100 cfs

GT = 15

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 018-019 downrigging for 18 fish

**Area 027 – 1788 live bait for 17 fish

**Area 1787 – slabs for mixed bag of 49 fish

**Aread 1785/1770 – live bait for 18 fish

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, July 16th, I fished with “Grandpa” Fred Luther, his son, Erik Luther, and Erik’s two sons, 9-year-old Hayden, and 7-year-old Josh.  Erik and his family live in the Austin area, and Fred traveled down from north central Missouri for a visit.

The Luther boys — from left Erik, Hayden, and Josh with a sampling of the catch of shallow water panfish that provided all of this morning’s action.

My hope was to offer some variety given the boys’ age and the likelihood of disinterest developing over keeping at the same thing for very long whiles.  I came prepared for topwater, but no surface action materialized.  I came prepared for vertical work with slabs, but no white bass were to be found  active and congregated near bottom.  I came prepared to downrig, but schools of suspended white bass were also hard to come by.  I came prepared to fish for sunfish up shallow, and the “sunnies” did indeed cooperate.

After putting in about 50 minutes’ worth of effort searching unsuccessfully for white bass, we headed up shallow where rock, weed, and wood could all be found in close proximity and dropped our ultralight rigs in amidst the cover hoping for a response.  The response was overwhelming.  For a solid 75 minutes the boys landed sunfish after sunfish of various species (bluegill, green, and longear) in less than 4 feet of water until I began to see their attention and good technique began to decrease.

At this point I made another move to again try to search out some white bass, and again we struck out in a number of areas which traditionally hold fish this time of year.  A few things are for sure: the lack of wind did us no favors today, and the abundance of young-of-the-year baitfish present in the lake right now puts a lot of natural competition out there for our unnatural baits.

After about an hour’s worth of gunning for whites in 6 different areas and still not even seeing enough on sonar to be hopeful about landing white bass, we returned to sunfishing in two additional area so as to close the trip out on a positive, productive note for the boys.  We once again headed up shallow and continued to score on sunfish, and even got a few juvenile largemouth bass in the mix using the slipfloat rigs.

When all was said and done, the boys had boated 51 fish for their efforts.  The day did not come together as I had anticipated, but coming prepared to use a variety of tactics certainly paid off this morning.

TALLY = 51 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time:  11:10a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Light & variable

Sky Conditions: Thin grey cloud cover the entire trip up to the last 40 minutes when rapid clearing occurred.

Water Level: ~5.56 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~1,850 cfs

GT = 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Areas 200, 667, 1786 for 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

This past Friday morning, July 15th, I fished with Mr. Michael Apodaca of Salado, TX, and Israel “Izzy” Lopez, a young man serving for the summer in the youth ministry of Michael’s church.

Michael Apodaca with one of the 78 fish he and Izzy Lopez boated on their morning trip to Lake Belton.  Most of our hybrid were under 18 inches; the 14 legal (over 18″) fish we caught were right at 18″ or just a bit over — no really big fish showed up in our catch today.

Today was a day of firsts for Izzy Lopez.  He enjoyed his first boat ride, used spinning tackle for the first time, and caught his first hybrid striper.

Michael, a U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army veteran, now serves as the G4 (head logistics guy) for the U.S. Army Operational Test Command at Fort Hood where they test equipment for suitability before it heads to the “real world” to be used by our troops.  Izzy, originally from Kaufman, TX, is a 20 year old college student attending Baptist University of America in San Antonio where he is double-majoring, studying music and theology.  He is serving as a youth intern at First Baptist Church of Salado this summer.

We met at 6 AM and by 6:20 AM not only had lines in the water, but had Izzy connected with the first fish of the day —  a double, consisting of a white bass and a hybrid striper caught on two of the three Pet Spoons on the three-armed umbrella rig he was using.

For the first 45 minutes on the water we found aggressively feeding white bass and (mostly) short hybrid stripers pushing shad to the surface in the heavy chop caused by the 12 to 14 mph wind already blowing. After observing the number of fish feeding, and the aggressiveness with which they fed, I decided to pursue these fish by closing in with the trolling motor and having Michael and Izzy cast to them. The pair managed to boat 11 fish while casting for as long as this feed lasted.

After the fish left the surface, we re-rigged the downriggers and placed our baits from 10 to 12 feet beneath the surface and continued to catch fish, taking our tally up to 18 before this fairly aggressive feed ended. When it was apparent that this feeding spree was over, we turned to live bait for the next hour and 45 minutes.

From roughly 7:30 to 9:15, we consistently boated both short and keeper hybrid along with two blue catfish on the live shad we were using as bait. Once we got a feed started beneath the boat, chumming kept the fish there, as did the commotion caused by fish being hooked and fought to the boat. As we fish this live bait, we varied the depth at which we presented our baits from 20 feet to 30 feet over a 35 foot bottom so as to present the baits slightly above the small schools of hybrid we saw regularly working in the area. By 9:15 most of the action on the rods was caused by blue catfish that had moved in on our chum, and since they were smallish, we decided to move on.  Our tally now stood at 34 fish, of which 13 were “keepers”, all just at or barely over the 18” threshold.

We headed out to another windblown area and began searching with sonar for signs of bait and fish. We were fortunate to drive right up on top of a large school of aggressively feeding white bass. I could tell by the sonar signatures that these were not hybrid, and so instead of presenting a large live baits, we used a smoking tactic with three-quarter ounce chrome slabs to quickly put another 26 fish in the boat. When this school lost interest in our presentations and moved on, I stayed in the same general vicinity and searched for hybrid signatures on sonar. When I found what I was after, we used the Spot Lock feature on my Minn Kota to hang right over top of them and placed baits in their midst. After 12 to 15 minutes we had only landed two short hybrid, and so I continued to search this area

In short order, I found yet another school of aggressively feeding white bass. We once again used a smoking tactic with slabs to finish up our morning on top of this school, catching fish after fish, and taking our tally up to a grand total of 78 fish landed for the morning.

TALLY = 78 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time:  10:40a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S12-13

Sky Conditions: Thin grey cloud cover the entire trip.

Water Level: ~19.50 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~6,000 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1784/133/1602 — downrigged and threw topwater within this triangulated area for 18 fish in the first ~50 minutes on the water.

**Area 1784 – live shad for 16 fish including keeper hybrid, a short hybrid, and 2 blue cat.

**Area vic 1785 – live bait for 2 short hybrid, and smoking chrome slabs for white bass in the 1, 2, and 3 year class –  44 fish caught in this vicinity

 

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 11th, I conducted the sixth “Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun” (S.K.I.F.F.) program trip of the 2016 season.  Joining me for this adventure was Mrs. Venesa Bruner (a U.S. Army veteran), her two daughters, 9-year-old Jeannette and 5-year old Joni, and one of the girls’ friends, Annabell Abrams.

From left: Joni Bruner, Mrs. Venesa Bruner, Annabell Abrams, and Jeannette Bruner, with white bass taken on Pet Spoons fished behind a downrigger at 17′ deep over much deeper water.

Jeannette Bruner with one of the more colorful, mature bluegill sunfish we landed up in shallow water this morning.

Joni and Jeannette’s dad, Sergeant First Class Bryant Bruner, and Annabell’s dad, Staff Sergeant Chad Abrams, are both deployed to South Korea with an ongoing rotation of troops from the 1st Cavalary Division to that country.

Last week Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir reopened after weeks of closure due to May flooding.  I much prefer Stillhouse for summertime kids’ trips as both the white bass fishing and sunfish fishing is very consistent and predictable, allowing me to offer variety in what we engage in over the ~4 hours on the water.

This morning we started off downrigging with a pair of 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons set behind downriggers lowered to 17 feet, which is where sonar revealed white bass and shad to be holding.  We landed one “double” (2 fish on one umbrella rig), and 6 singles before little Joni began to get fidgety and I knew a change of scenery was needed.

Our next success came up shallow fishing for sunfish in the flooded brush inundated by the 7+ feet of flood water that has yet to be released by the Corps of Engineers.  Our tactic of choice was fishing redworms beneath light slipfloats on small hooks to tempt all manner of smaller fish in the shallows.  Over the closing 90 minutes of our time on the water, the girls landed bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, juvenile largemouth bass, and blacktail shiners — 48 in all.

When the novelty wore off and the heat and wind both increased to uncomfortable levels, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the dock with a total of 56 fish landed for our efforts this morning.

A huge thanks to the membership of the Austin Fly Fishers who both donate funds and engage in fundraising to allow this SKIFF program to be offered, totally free of charge, to our military members’ families.

If you are a military family and your soldier is away from his/her children due to military duty (TDY, schooling, training, NTC, JRTC, deployment, etc.) your children are eligible for a free fishing trip just like this one.  Simply call me at 254.368.7411 to coordinate a time and date.

TALLY = 56 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:25a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW8 at trip’s start, steadily ramping up to SSW17 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: Hazy, cloudless skies all morning

Water Level: ~7.56 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~1900 cfs

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 207 to 1782- downrigged for 8 white bass with Pet Spoons @ 17′

**Area 1256 – 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

This past Saturday morning I fished with Angela Edelbrock’s two sons, 14-year-old Joseph and 10-year-old Dylan, all of Temple, TX.

From left: Joseph and Dylan Edelbrock, each with a pair of solid white bass taken by downrigging Pet Spoons on Stillhouse Hollow after it reopened to boat traffic following weeks of closure due to May flooding.

Angela, who came along as a non-fishing chaperone, is a surgical tech at Baylor Scott & White Hospital in Temple, where she works on occasion with Dr. David Clark, another client of mine, who referred her to me (much appreciated, David!).

After having all boat ramps shut down due to flooding for several weeks now, the Union Grove launch on Stillhouse Hollow (with a 4-lane ramp) reopened on July 6th.

My plan was to introduce some variety into today’s trip by fishing for open-water white bass under the lower light conditions in the first half of our trip, then head up shallow and target sunfish under brighter conditions in the latter half of our trip.   As it turned out, this approach worked well.

As the sun was rising, we got two lines in the water, both equipped with Pet Spoons and both attached to the downriggers.  There was a definite “band of life” set up horizontally between 25 and 31 feet, and most of the suspended shad I found on sonar were in that band.  We fished one area with only one white bass to show for it, then moved to what would be a very productive area.  Funny thing was, despite all of the bait found in that “band of life”, the aggressive white bass I found were up higher in the water column.

We set our downrigger balls at between 15 and 22 feet, and did all the catching at 15-18 feet beneath the surface.  We landed one triple, one double, and 13 singles for a total of 18 white bass by the time we left them biting to change over to panfishing.  I like to note the ratio of triples, doubles, and singles, as it is indicative of the fishes’ activity level and typical school size, both of which vary over the summer months.

The sunfishing was pretty straightforward.  Once the boys got the hang of allowing the wind to help them place their presentations in the nooks and crannies of the flooded brush the sunfish were hiding in, they were hard to stop.  The boys amassed a catch of 35 sunfish of all sizes, and including longear, bluegill, and green sunfish, all taken on ultralight slipfloat rigs.

 

TALLY = 53 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:25a

End Time:  10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE8 at trip’s start; shifting to SSW 11 over the course of the morning

Sky Conditions:  Low grey cloud cover at dawn burnt off to hazy skies with 30% cloud cover by 8am

Water Level: ~9.50 feet high and falling ~0.4 feet per day with a flow of ~1900 cfs

GT = 105

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 454/1782/1783 – downrigged for 18 white bass in this triangular area; Pet Spoons @ 15-17′

**Area 1098 – 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

This past Thursday morning, July 7th, I fished Lake Belton with Mike Pappas and his friend, J.C. Wall.

Mike Pappas with some “icing on the cake” — an aging female largemouth past her prime, which weighed in at 5.25 pounds taken on a live shad.

Mike with our best hybrid of the trip, going right at 4.25 pounds taken on a large, lively threadfin shad which was about 4.5″ in length.

J.C. wall with one of the first hybrid we boated on bait this morning, after finding our fish using sonar and downriggers.

Any doubt these guys both own their own businesses?

Both fellows are long time, local small business owners;  Mike co-owns Best-Way Carpets, and J.C. owns his own construction company. Mike contacted me about three weeks ago and explained how he had become increasingly interested in pursuing hybrid striped bass. Knowing that hybrid stripers and white bass are the species I focus on year-round, he contacted me not so much to go fishing, but to learn my approach to fishing for the species, as well as the method for catching, and keeping, shad which is such an effective bait for hybrid striped bass.

As they have since about five days prior to the new moon, white bass and hybrid striper went on a very strong near-surface feed from roughly 6:15 AM to 6:40 AM. During this time the fish were very aggressive and moving rapidly as they pursued the shad they were foraging on. This allowed us to pick up several fish on downriggers, and more importantly for Mike, provided an opportunity to see how I use the downriggers in conjunction with sonar, as well as some of the accessories that I have folded into my downrigging technique. Both fellows were quite surprised at the small bait size I was using on the downriggers, but I explained that this did the best job of imitating the young of the year shad which was the focus of this near-surface and frenzied feeding activity.

By 6:45, the aggressive action had pushed downward and became more scattered, and less aggressive. I explained that this is typically my cue to switch over to fishing with live bait. Using the Ulterra trolling motor, we chose an area with a slight break line at 30 to 36 feet, and put four large, healthy, threadfin shad baits down at about the 26 foot mark. We stayed on these fish for about an hour and 45 minutes, taking our tally up to 25 before the wind became so strong, and the swells so deep, that our live bait presentations were negatively impacted as the baits moved unnaturally upwards and downwards with the swells.

Being forced off of an area by strong winds is a tough proposition, because whites and hybrids are typically turned on by the wind and moving water. In my mind, I started to go through a catalog of areas where wind would still be impacting, but not to the degree where boat control would be compromised. We struck out at the first area I checked, but as we approached the second potential fishing area I had in mind, the screen lit up with white bass and hybrid striper holding at between 25 and 28 feet deep on a breakline. We once again locked onto this area using the GPS-driven Spot Lock feature of my Ulterra. We put four baits down and it was not long before the bait clickers started sounding off indicating hybrid striper moving away with our live shad. We added another 9 fish to our count here in the closing hour of the trip. By 11 AM, the bites were coming few and far between, and solid bites were rare. I explained to Mike how, as the morning by winds down, the fish grab baits more tentatively then when they are feeding aggressively.

With 34 fish landed, and all of the questions on Mike’s yellow pad of paper answered, we decided to call it a good morning and headed back in.

Over the course of the trip, and as I did things in real time, I pointed out to Mike and explained to him what I was doing and why. From how I handled the bait, to how I conditioned the water, to how to snell a hook, to interpreting various targets on sonar, every step along the way as I saw something or did something that I thought might be useful to Mike on his next hybrid–focused outing on his own boat, I was sure to point it out.

 

TALLY = 34 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S12, building to S17 by  8:30a

Sky Conditions:  30% white cloud cover on a Fair sky most all of the morning.

Water Level: 23.2 feet high and falling ~0.3 feet per day

GT = 145 🙂

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1781 Downrig for low light bite, then fished bait in same area

**Area 1780 Shad for a mixed bag on a breakline at 25-28′

 

 

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 morning, July 5, I conducted a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip for Mr. Ed Parsons granddaughters, Skylar and Molly.

Mr. Ed Parsons with granddaughter Molly and our first fish of the morning caught on a downrigged Pet Spoon.  This was the first fish Molly ever landed in her life, thus earning her a TPWD First Fish Award!!!

Ed and Dorothy Parsons’ grandaughter, Skylar, took a liking to downrigging, and landed two white bass in the closing minutes of our trip using these devices.
Skylar is from McKinney, Texas, and Molly is from New Braunfels, Texas. Grandma Dorothy Parsons also joined us, primarily to keep Ed from getting too rowdy, and make sure the girls had enough sunblock and snacks.

My preference for “Kids Fish, Too!” trips in the summer is to fish Stillhouse, but due to the impacts of recent flooding, the entire lake is still closed to boat access, leaving Belton as our only local alternative.

The fishing was pretty slow this morning for white bass and hybrid striper. There was a moderate, first light feed from about 6:30 to 6:45am, but after that the action died hard and fast. During this brief feed, we were able to land Molly’s first fish  – a hybrid striped bass, followed by a white bass for Skylar. Both of these came on the downrigger using three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons.

After this, I searched five additional areas, and found no feeding activity at any of them. At this point, I shifted gears and took the girls up shallow to target sunfish a bit earlier in the trip then I normally would have, and we stuck with it for as long as the girls stayed interested.

To target these sunfish, we went to the very backs of two quiet, flooded coves and fish amidst the natural and man-made cover there.  Hiding in the shadows we found both green sunfish and longear sunfish willing to cooperate.  The girls quickly picked up on the importance of setting the hook and paying attention to their float.  Skylar even got pretty good at presenting her small bait with the bream pole she was using which had a fixed length of 9’ of line attached to the tip (and no reel).

Skylar was intrigued with using live bait (the shad I had in my livewell), and so for our last 45 minutes on the water, I sought out some opportunities to catch fish on live bait. I found a moderate-sized school of white bass in about 30 feet of water and we put baits down over these fish. We got three pull downs, but none resulted in a fish being landed. I suggested we spend our last 10 or 15 minutes on the water using downriggers in an attempt to close out the trip on a good note. This worked out great, as we were able to put two more white bass in the boat in the closing moments of our morning on the water.

 

TALLY = 12 fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE15

Sky Conditions:  80% white cloud cover on a hazy sky most all of the morning.

Water Level: 23.9 feet high and falling ~0.3 feet per day

GT = 15

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 016 Downrig for low light bite

**Area 1754 & 184 for sunfish

** Area 1769 downrigging for scattered 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 Fourth of July Monday morning I fished Belton Lake with Mike Salas, his wife Sandy, and their twin 8-yearl-old girls, Sophia and Grace, all of El Paso, Texas. Mike and his family traveled in from Waco to visit Sandy’s sister and her brother-in-law, Steven. Steven also joined us this morning.

Mike Salas with his twin 8-year-old girls, Sophia (blue life jacket) and Grace (red life jacket) with one of the 30 fish we landed today on downriggers and live bait.

Mrs. Sandy Salas held her own today, showing one of the larger hybrid stripers we landed this morning.

Uncle Steven chipped in with a nice hybrid of his own later in the trip.
This morning’s atmosphere was turbulent, with gusty winds, gray cloud cover, and lightning flickering at the tops of thunder heads up north of us in the Waco area. Turbulent conditions made for tough bait netting this morning, and I took it right down to the wire throwing the net up until just minutes before I was due to meet Mike and his family at the boat ramp.

Once we made introductions and I went over a few safety conciderations, I discovered neither of the girls had ever caught a fish before. I told the family that landing the girls first fish was job number one. Under gray and fairly dark skies, we headed for the fishing grounds.

Just as there was enough light out to see, I begin to spot fish feeding on the surface among the fairly heavy waves and white caps. This definitely called for a downrigging approach, so we put in both downriggers and in moments had Grace hooked up to a double, consisting of a small white bass and a keeper hybrid of 18.5 inches. Minutes later, Sophia hooked up with a 10 inch white bass, and just like that both girls had landed the first fish of their lives. After this initial feed, the bite fell off quickly as the fish headed to the bottom and dispersed. We continued picking up a few fish in this general area over the next hour and 45 minutes, until moving to a new area with a dozen fish boated up to this point.

As we headed to our second spot, I looked things over with sonar and found fish very near the bottom, and intermingled amidst the submerged brush now standing in 25+ feet of water. I decided to go with a live bait approach and suspend the baits just above the brush. This worked well when the fish were aggressive right after we found them, allowing us to put seven fish in the boat including several nice hybrid stripers, along with some white bass

Once the fish settled down, the bites got very tentative, causing more missed strikes than we had hook ups, and causing a lot of torn and killed baits. Seeing this development, I decided to move out just a bit further and try downrigging again while keeping the baits just above the submerged brush. This worked pretty well as it allowed us to cover a lot of ground, getting our baits in front of the few still active fish among the majority of an active fish. We wound up with another 11 fish boated this way, including two triples (three fish caught on one rod at the same time, using a  that came on the three-armed umbrella rigs we were using baited with Pet Spoons.

 

TALLY = 30 fish, all caught and released

 

Wx Snapshot:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE12-13

Sky Conditions:  100% low, grey, murky cloud cover until around 11:00am, then thinning and brightening, but still with 100% cloud cover.

Water Level: 24.03 feet high and falling ~0.3 feet per day

GT = 40

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1746-012 Downrig for low light bite

**Area 1771 – live bait for whites/hybrid/bluecat

** Area 1778-1771-1770 for whites/short 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 Saturday morning, July 2, I fished at Walter E. Long Reservoir with Whitney and Andrew Hartman of Sugar Land, Texas.  This couple met at college (Oregon State University) and now both work in the insurance business in the Houston area.

Twice this morning Whitney and Andrew scored a triple-header with one fish biting on Whitney’s 3-armed umbrella rig, and two fish biting on Andrew’s 3-armed umbrella rig.

Whitney landed our largest hybrid of the trip.  This hybrid just nipped the 20″ mark and went 3.25 pounds.

Whitney and Andrew are dog lovers, and have five dogs of various sorts and sizes. This couple tries not to travel without the dogs, and so at times, those venues excepting dogs drive the agenda for their long weekends and vacations. So it was for this Fourth of July weekend. The two of them found a rental home on VRBO that not only allowed dogs but was okay with all five of them. Once lodging was established, Whitney did some digging to find out what activities were in the area and came across my website and gave me a call.  This took me down to meet them at Walter E. Long Reservoir (formerly known as Decker Lake).

A funny thing happened as we were getting going.  After covering some safety considerations, I went over how to cast a spinning outfit (which Whitney had not done in about 12 years).  Whitney actually did really well, launching a nice cast on her third attempt, but, her two initial “not so pretty” attempts stuck with her.  As I like to do before each trip, I prayed with the Hartman’s.  As I finished, Whitney asked if I prayed with all my clients, or just the ones who don’t do very well casting!!

We began our fishing trip around 6:30 AM under murky gray skies with a 9 to 11 mph wind already blowing before sunrise. Since I do not fish Walter E. Long regularly, I had to spend a bit more time this morning figuring out where the fish were then if I had been on my “home” lakes of Belton and Stillhouse. We wound up boating only one fish in our first hour and 45 minutes on the water. However, once we found fish, we were able to capitalize on what we found and make up for some lost time.

When we found them, the fish we found were hybrid striped bass in fairly shallow water, suspended between nine and 15 feet over an 18 to 25 foot bottom. The first fish we encountered were suspended in aggressively feeding schools, and as the sun continued to rise higher in the sky and burn off the cloud cover, the fish pushed downward ending up on bottom.

The fish showed a very definite preference for small, horizontally moving baits. In fact, despite the fact that I had ample livebait of various sizes, the fish refused live bait on three separate attempts, and bit only on artificials. The artificial bait they preferred was a small silver Pet Spoon with a white feather dressing, fished on a three-armed umbrella rig.

Using this rig, we landed singles and doubles and put together a total catch of 15 legal hybrid striped bass up to 3.25 pounds until we wrapped up around 11:30 AM.

 

TALLY = 15 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp:  87-89F

Wind Speed & Direction:  ESE11-13

Sky Conditions:  100% low, grey, murky cloud cover until around 9:00am, then quickly clearing to just 30% white clouds on a fair sky.

Water Level: Lake was at full pool.

GT = 105

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1773 downrigging with balls at 12′  for 1 hybrid striper just after sunrise

** Area 1774 – 1775 – 1776 – wolfpack of like-sized hybrid were suspended and working this windblown area and responded well to downrigged Pet Spoons set between 10-14 feet

 

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 Wednesday morning, June 29, I conducted a “Kids Dish, Too!” trip with Aaron Hall and his 2 youngest children, Lucy and James. Neither Lucy, age 6, nor James, age 5, had ever landed a fish before.

James landed this nice 3.75 pound Belton Lake hybrid striped bass with just a little help from his dad, Aaron.

Lucy landed this hybrid just after sunrise while we were still downrigging, before switching over to live bait.

Aaron works in the anesthesiology department at Baylor – Scott & White hospital, but, after spending some time down here in Texas, is headed back home this summer to Washington State to continue his career near Spokane.  As the trio came down to the water’s edge to meet me, I could tell dad had personally dressed the kids for this trip, seeing how they were both in their pajamas!

Planning on multiple transitions through the course of a 3 to 4 hour trip is a must when working with kids of this age. Even if we were fortunate enough to catch a fish every minute or two, such great action would quickly lose its novelty for kids this young. Knowing this, I planned to downrig this morning, as well as use live bait, search for topwater action, and fish for sunfish up in shallow water. As it turned out, we were able to do all four of these things, and as young as they were, both James and Lucy were able to stay engaged and enjoy the entire four hour or experience.

We began our day with the downriggers in the water trolling Pet Spoons behind a tandem rig and a three-armed umbrella rig set between 18 and 22 feet. This depth has been preferred by gamefish and baitfish all through this extensive flooding on Belton. Once we eliminated some unproductive water and found fish on sonar, we were able to thoroughly work this fish-holding water and put both white bass and keeper hybrid in the boat. Once the sun got more intense, the fish pushed down to the bottom and we prepared to switch over to live bait.

Right about this time, in the same area in which we had been downrigging, some white top water action broke out driven by white bass forcing shad to the surface.  Aaron and I worked together to launch cork rigs beyond the fray, and the kids were able to retrieve the rigs through the fish then hook and land them. This accounted for another several white bass in the three-year class. Once this action died, we picked up where we had left off with live bait.  We fished live shad right near bottom for these increasingly disinterested fish, allowing us to land several more white bass and keeper hybrid.

Of all the techniques I employ, I find the kids stay interested least in live bait fishing, so we did not stick with this very long. The closing chapter of our day consisted of pursuing small, shallow water panfish using worms beneath slip floats. In the closing moments of our trip James and Lucy put a combined seven blacktail shiners and a small sunfish in the boat using this approach. As if on cue, James asked right at 10:15 AM, “Dad, can we go home now?”

For their efforts, James and Lucy boated 29 fish this morning, and each earned at Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. “First Fish Award”.

TALLY = 29 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time:  11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp:  85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Variable SSE to SSW 3-4.

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

Water Level: ~25+  feet above full pool with a release of 5,744 cfs ongoing.  Lake is still rising due to even heavier flows out of Lake Proctor upstream from Belton.

GT = 30

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 011 to 019 downrigging for white bass and hybrid stripers

** Area 1772 – good results on live shad; 1 hybrid for every 3 mature white bass

**Area 1583 – panfish on redworms up shallow

 

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