Fishing Report

This past Friday morning, June 10th, I was joined by 9-year-old Ethan Munoz for a Fort Hood SKIES program fishing trip on Lake Belton.  More information on this program for military kids appears at the end of this report.

Ethan Munoz of West Fort Hood gives the thumbs up with one of the many white bass we caught via downrigging and using live shad.

Belton Lake is badly flooded now, with nearly 22 feet of flood water and the elevation still rising as Lake Proctor continues to dump water into the Leon River which then flows into Belton.

There is now only on public location available to launch a boat and it is a bit dicey, but, we made do and got out fishing around 6:45am.

First, let me say that Ethan really knew how to endear himself to his fishing guide.  He told me that being a fisherman was always a dream of his (he was doing great so far!), and then asked me how long I’d been fishing.  I told him I’d been fishing since I was just 2 years old.  He said, “Wow, that’s a lot of years ago.  When were you born?”   I told him to take a guess.  He said, “Um, maybe in 1942.”  I am 47 and was born in 1969  (Ethan was no longer doing so well).

Thanks to a nearly calm surface, the location of both baitfish and the gamefish that feed upon them were able to be detected from a distance thanks to the optics I keep aboard.  We headed to the action and saw on sonar that there were far more fish beneath the surface about midway down in the water column than there were at the surface.  This called for a downrigging approach.

I got the #Cannon #Digi-Troll #downriggers all rigged and ready to go, equipped with a tandem rig with Pet Spoons on the starboard side and a 3-armed umbrella rig with Pet Spoons on the port side.  We didn’t have to go 50 yards before we had our first fish on within seconds of wetting a line.  Just like that Ethan had earned a TPWD First Fish Award!  We went on to catch an even dozen white bass in this fashion as singles and doubles came aboard steadily from the 18-20 foot level.

Next, we tried to up the ante and catch a few larger fish by targeting hybrid striped bass with live shad.  Fortunately, just as we discussed this option, a light S. wind picked up and began to disturb the surface of the lake and move the water.  This typically improves the fish, and, today, certainly turned the hybrid stripers on.  We sat in one location at a breakline from 25-30 feet and boated 5 hybrid stripers, 3 white bass, 1 blue cat, and 1 drum.  I kept an eye on Ethan, suspecting that, as for most 9-year-olds, watching the end of a baited rod would not hold his attention for too long.  Once I saw the novelty wearing off, I was prepared to introduce our final “skill” of the day — that of shallow water panfishing for sunfish with floats and bait.

This shallow water fishing produced a variety of sunfish and 2 blacktail shiners.  About the time the 27th fish was landed, mom, grandma, and sister showed up in the family mini-van, letting us know that 4 hours had gone by quickly.  As we headed back in to the launch area Ethan said, “I always wanted to be a fisherman, and now my dream came true.”

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 = 27Fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp:  80.1

Wind Speed & Direction:  Calm at trips start, tapering quickly up to S7 at mid-morning.

Sky Conditions:  40% high clouds on a hazy sky.

Water Level: 615.97 and rising with 594.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 5,732 cubic feet per second.  Despite the release, the lake rose .57 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1578 thru 493 downrigging parallel to shore with weights at 18-22 feet

**Area 1759 mixed bag fishing for whites, hybrid, blue cat, and drum on live shad fished just off bottom in 25-30′ on breakline

**Area 1583 shallow panfishing

 

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, June 2nd, I fished both a morning and an evening trip on Lake Belton.  The morning was spent was Will Almond of Kempner, TX, and David Ross of Salado, TX.  These fellows became friends while working as pharmacists for HEB.

David Ross with a nice 4.25 pound Belton Lake hybrid striper caught on live shad at mid-morning in about 40 feet of water.

Will Almond with one of many hybrid stripers we took off the windward side of a breakline in 40 feet of water.  Short hybrid and white bass were also mixed in with the bruisers.

These two Thursday trips would wind up being the last two trips I would fish on Belton for some time to come, as rising flood water forced closure of all of the lakes Corps of Engineers ramps the following day.

For the time being, I’ll be relocating my efforts down to Lake Walter E. Long (formerly known as Decker Lake), near the Austin-Bergstrom Airport and Travis County Convention Center.  This “hot water” power plant lake fishes well for white bass, hybrid striper, sunfish, and largemouth bass.

As Will, David and I got going on Thursday, we knew we would be interrupted by thunderstorms at some point, as the low pressure system that had already dropped so much rain would sit right over central Texas and swirl storm cells over us in a counter-clockwise, hurricane-like fashion.

The two were just happy to leave the work-a-day world behind for a few hours, regardless of the conditions, so, off we went.

During our first hour on the water, we encountered some light topwater feeding activity with white bass and a few small largemouth pushing young of the year shad to the surface.  Having see the same thing happen around this time on Tuesday’s trip, this morning I came equipped with popping cork rigs specifically intended for this sort of fishing.  Fortunately, both fellow could cast both far and accurately, and they capitalized on this scenario, putting 21 fish in the boat before our first encounter with weather.

Long story short, we simply rode out a thunder-and-lightning laced deluge of rain for about 70 minutes just pulled up onto a bank in a steep sided cove so as not to be the high point for lightning to find.  We kept an eye on the weather radar app on my smartphone, and, when the radar and absence of lightning indicated all was well, we got right back to fishing (in the rain).

We hit a hump topping out at 25 feet and boated a blue cat and 2 white bass on slabs with a few more white bass and short hybrid on live shad before that area played out.

About this time, a bit of a wind from the SSE developed, so I moved us so as to fish on several underwater features being impacted by this wind.

From this point on we used live shad of all sizes to put an additional 20 fish in the boat including white bass, legal-sized hybrid stripers, and short hybrid, as well.

As we headed back in, I looked for an opportunity to demonstrate how the pair of #Cannon downriggers I have work, as the fellows had express curiosity about them.  I found a tightly schooled bunch of white bass on sonar in about 22 feet of water as we headed back to the boat ramp, so, we U-turned, dropped the downrigging gear in, and plucked one white bass out of the pack with a 3-armed umbrella rig equipped with Pet Spoons.

I extended the trip to ensure we fished well beyond the 4-hours that the fellows had paid for, and ended up our day around 1:30p with 53 fish boated.

 

TALLY = 53 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time:  1:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 71F

Water Surface Temp:  75-76F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW9-10

Sky Conditions:  100% grey cloud cover with rain through 9:45a, then slowly clearing to 40% white clouds on a blue sky by trip’s end

Water Level: ~11 feet above full pool with no release of water currently ongoing due to flooding in the lower Brazos River near Houston and Bryan.

GT = 95

 

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1756 and the coves to the N and S of this point — topwater whites on popping rig

**Area 1632 – slab and shad for whites, hybrid, and a bluecat

**Area 1636/1622 hybrid on live shad

**Area 618/1666 hybrid on live shad

**1634 – downrigging demo for 1 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, May 31st, as Belton Lake continued to rapidly rise, I welcomed brothers John and Bruce Campbell aboard for a morning in pursuit of hybrid striped bass.

Bruce Campbell with a nice Belton Lake hybrid striper caught on live shad at mid-morning in about 40 feet of water.

From left: Bruce and John Campbell with the very first hybrid striped bass of the day, which, coincidentally, was the first hybrid striper that John had ever landed.  This fish hit a trolled 3-armed umbrella rig equipped with Pet Spoons.

Due to multiple boatramp closures, I had to launch at Arrowhead Park and drive by boat to Cedar Creek to pick these fellows up where they were camping.

Both brothers are originally from Arizona, but Bruce now lives in north Austin.  John drove over from Arizona pulling a camper and camped at the Corps of Engineers park at Cedar Creek on Belton where Bruce joined him for an overnight stay before the two headed to Bruce’s place for graduation exercises later in the week.  The flooding situation is so fluid (pun kind of intended), that I phoned the park rangers right at closing time (4:30pm) on Monday to determine the status of the various ramps I had as options to launch from for this trip.

We got going around 6:30am under dark, murky skies.  We headed to shallow water first where what little light was coming through the clouds would be penetrating.  We scored quickly when John’s downrigger rod went off with a double on two of the three Pet Spoons on his 3-armed umbrella rig, landing a short white bass and a keeper hybrid.

John typically fishes from a smaller boat equipped with a less-than-10 horsepower motor and trolling motor, trolling for high-altitude trout in several Arizona lakes.  One of his most productive tactics is trolling cow bells, which are a long, linear contraption of weights, spinner blades and colored beads which, for some reason, appeal to trout and salmon species – most likely because they imitate a school of baitfish.  Most of John’s fishing is done in 20 feet of water or less, so the concept of controlled depth trolling with my #Cannon downrigging equipment was intriguing to him.

Subsequent passes in this area yielded little, so we made our way into progressively clearer water.

As we cruised, I spotted a nice pod of white bass surface feeding on young of the year shad over 35-40 feet of water.  We eased into these fish so as not to spook them, and cast white slabs into them and retrieved these lures quickly to keep our baits up high in the water column.  About every other well-placed cast caught a fish while the action lasted (about 25 minutes).  During this time we boated an additional 17 fish.

From this point on, we never saw any additional surface action as the wind picked up and rippled the surface.  All of our fishing through the close of the trip was done with live shad on downlines at two different areas.

This tactic added another 18 fish to our count, including a number of keeper (18+ inch) hybrid stripers on the combination of threadfin and gizzard shad we offered.

As I dropped the fellows off at the very same location we’d begun our day at, we noted the water had risen another 5-6″ in the several hours we were on the water.

 

TALLY = 37 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  12:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp:  75.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW9-10

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

Water Level: ~9.75 feet above full pool with no release of water currently ongoing due to flooding in the lower Brazos River near Houston and Bryan.

GT = 95

 

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1668 downrigging at first light

**Area 507 topwater whites

**Area 1629 hybrid on live shad

**Area 1634/1681 hybrid on 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

This past Memorial Day Monday, May 30th, I welcomed Mr. Chad Zuckero and his boys, 10-year-old Josh and 6-year-old Blaine, aboard for some “guy time”.

Chad and his oldest son, Josh, with a nice Belton Lake hybrid striper caught on live shad.

Chad and his younger son, Blaine, with a nice Belton Lake hybrid striper caught on live shad.

 

Despite a number of attempts at a number of venues using a variety of tactics, the trio just hadn’t put it all together in a way that produced the kind of success that keeps kids interested.  Chad was hoping to not just catch fish, but to understand the approach to catching them so as to help his boys be successful.

We started with the basics — small hooks, small weights, small floats, and worms, and targeted sunfish in the newly flooded vegetation around the lake’s edge.

Our planned 6:30am start was delayed an hour and a quarter by persistent lightning overhead.  As we all sat in the family car, I got to cover my standard safety briefing and talk about how we’d approach the day once the storm cleared, so at least those things were out of the way allowing to get right down to fishing once it was safe to do so.

When we got on the water around 7:45, I headed to a pair of protected coves so wind would not negatively impact the boys’ control of their presentations.  I did one quick demo and the boys, both fast learners, got the hang of things and consistently landed sunfish on their own over the next hour and a half.  We wound up with 31 sunfish of various sorts: bluegill, greens, and longears.  I then suggested we give another tactic in another area a try for some even larger fish — the white bass.

As we headed to open water the winds really kicked up and boat control was a bit tough, thus, we only worked one downrigger at first.  The fishing was so consistent thanks to the fish being tightly buckled down on one area, that we picked up a fish on nearly every pass.  This led me to “fast forward” to our third tactic, that of fishing with live shad.

As we made the switch to shad over top of the fish we’d been downrigging for, our catch began to include more hybrid and fewer white bass — a nice problem to have!

Once this fairly shallow area played out as the skies brightened and the wind calmed, we moved on to deeper water more significantly impacted by the wind and continued catching a nice mix of keeper hybrid, short hybrid and white bass right up until the fish finally quit biting around 12:15pm.

TALLY = 52 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:45a (due to lightning delay)

End Time:  12:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp:  75.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Calm winds after the thunderstorm passed which delayed our start, and until the skies began to clear.  Winds SE17-20 as the western-most edge of the clouds passed over and started to allow clearing, followed by lighter winds at S6-8 for the balance of the trip.

Sky Conditions:  100% grey cloud cover for the first 2 hours, followed by rapidly clearing conditions.

Water Level: ~9 feet above full pool with no release of water currently ongoing.  As I departed Roger’s Park, the park had been shut down, thus locking me in — the Corps Ranger left the gate code on my windshield.

GT = 50

 

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1753/4 sunfish

**Area 1634 whites and hybrid on downriggers and then live shad

**Area 1619 and 618 – hybrid on 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

Last Saturday, May 28th, I conducted the 2016 season’s fourth SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trip.  Joining me for this adventure were Mrs. Jessica Ochoa, and her 11-year-old daughters, Nevaeh Ochoa and Alycia Williams, as well as the baby of the family, little Arianna Ochoa.

From left: Neveah Ochoa and Alycia Williams earned their TPWD First Fish Awards as they targeted sunfish in the newly flooded green brush on Lake Belton.

U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Ochoa is currently deployed to South Korea where he serves as a mortarman in an infantry unit.

Since neither Nevaeh nor Alycia had ever caught a fish before, we started with the basics this afternoon, using long, telescoping sunfish poles and slip float baited with pieces of worm to attract a variety of sunfish from out of the newly flooded greenery around the lake’s perimeter.  The girls were soon onto their first fish, thus easily earning their TPWD First Fish Awards.  After each of the girls “got the hang of it”, it was tough for me to keep up taking their fish off the hook and rebaiting.   By the time we decided to give the sunfish a rest, the girls had boated exactly 40 sunfish, including longears, bluegill, and green sunfish.

Next, we headed to open water to pursue larger quarry — the white bass.  For this segment of our trip, I opted to go with downriggers after sonar revealed large schools of fish in 18-22 feet.  We started off slowly with one 3-armed umbrella rigged fished on the starboard downrigger.  Once the girls each caught a few fish, we expanded to one 3-armed umbrella rig and one tandem rig, all outfitted with Pet Spoons fished now on 2 downriggers.  Soon the girls were once again hard to keep up with as we landed singles, doubles and even a triple (one fish on each of the 3 Pet Spoons on the umbrella rig).

As the 24th white bass came aboard, little Arianna had had all of the fun, sun, and waves her little body could stand and she began to get a bit cranky.  Wisely, Jessica decided to call it a day while all was still manageable and we headed back in.

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

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

 

 

TALLY = 64 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time:  8:30

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 91F

Water Surface Temp:  76F

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

Sky Conditions:  Steadily clearing from a fully overcast morning.

Water Level: ~8.25 feet above full pool and steadily rising due to flooding downstream on the Brazos and therefore no release from the dam.

Other: GT= 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1753 – Sunfish on slipfloats

**Area 816 to 172 – 24 white bass on downriggers along the 18-22 foot contour

 

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 afternoon, May 21st, I was joined by Mrs. Jennifer Katz, her daughter, Cayli Katz, and Cayli’s cousin, Matty Solorzano, for a Fort Hood SKIES program fishing trip on Lake Belton.  See the end of this summary for more info. on the SKIES program.

From left: Matty Solorzano, Cayli Katz, and Jennifer Katz with one of the several hybrid stripers Cayli and Matty landed in the 3.00 to 4.25 pound class.

The trip was focused on Cayli and her success with Matty and Jennifer along for the ride. Cali had never caught a fish before in her life, but, she was both eager and teachable, so I knew as soon as we met that we’d have a good time and that she would be successful.

Elton Lake is normally in a transition period by now, but, thanks to cooler than normal water temperatures, the patterns that have been in place for more than a month now have continued to hold up, and this evening was no exception.

In order to give Cayli as much exposure to various techniques and species as I could, I broke the trip up into 4 “segments”.  Segment one consisted of down rigging during our first hour on the water.  It did not produce.

Segment two consisted of fishing in deep, open water for hybrid striper.  We got on fish using sonar, and enjoyed an hour-long, very productive bite, putting 15 fish in the boat including 9 keepers of 18 inches or larger.  After battling 9 or 10 of these hard-pulling fish, Cayli’s hands were worn out.  She “donated” the rest of the fish that bit to cousin Matty.  Seeing this, I suggested we move on to Segment three.  So, we left these fish biting to pursue fish that were a bit more tame.

Segment three consisted of fishing for panfish with slip floats up shallow in the flooded terrestrial brush.  We caught 20 sunfish in about an hour’s time, including bluegills, green sunfish, and longear sunfish.  The kids both got up enough nerve toward the end of the sunfishing to hold their fish and remove the hooks.

Our grand finale took us to 35-40 feet of water from 7:45p to 8:20p.  Sonar revealed very aggressively feeding gamefish in the lower 2/3 of the water column.  This “low light” bite is typically very aggressive, but also short-lived.  I trained the kids up very quickly in the use of spinning gear, and they went right to work working their slabs aggressively in the same zone where the fish were.  Getting the right cadence down was a bit of a trick for these two rookies, but, when the got it down, they got results.  Both were able to land a number of white bass, short hybrid and keeper hybrid in the 25-30 minutes that this action lasted.  Then, when it was over, it was over.

For their efforts, the kids landed 41 fish, and Cayli earned a TPWD First Fish Award!

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 = 41 Fish, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time:  8:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F

Water Surface Temp:  75.2

Wind Speed & Direction:  ESE13 at trips start, tapering down to E7

Sky Conditions:  85% grey cloud cover with occasional breaks

Water Level: 601.83 and falling with 594.0 being full pool.  Water being released at 3,561 cubic feet per second.  Lake fell 0.04 feet in the past 24 hours

Other: GT= 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1277, solid hybrid bite on live shad from 5:15 to 6:30p

**Area 1583 shallow panfishing 6:30p to 7:45p

**Area 1728-153 mixed bag fishing for whites and hybrids of all sizes on a frenzy hitting smoked slabs in lower 2/3 of water column
 

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, Friday the 20th of May, I fished with Mike London of Troy, TX, targeting hybrid striped bass on Belton Lake using live shad.

Mike London with our first hybrid of the morning, a 20″ fish that came out of 48 feet of water.  We went on to boat 31 fish over the course of 4.5 hours on the water.

Mike owns his own small business and decided to mix some pleasure with business, taking an RV camping trip to Lake Belton while still running local service calls from his campsite  — no rest for the weary!

When Mike and I first spoke about the kind of trip he’d like to participate in, it was clear that he was more interested in learning than in catching, so, I suggest he come out by himself so I could more thoroughly describe what we were doing and why we were doing it without being pulled away by the needs of other clients.

This worked out well, allowing us to talk about why we were fishing where we were fishing, the impacts of wind, why we placed our baits where we did, the kinds of baits and rigging that are effective, the in’s and out’s of catching and keeping shad, and a whole lot about the use, adjustment, and interpretation of sonar.

Mike was intrigued by how we could observe our individual shad 45+ feet down under the boat, then watch individual gamefish approach, stalk, and attack our baits.  By the end of the trip Mike was “calling his shots” as he watched sonar, saw aggressive fish moving in on our baits, and then diverted his eyes from the sonar to the rods to see the results play out at the last second as the audible bait clickers screamed with yet another hybrid striper heading out and away.

We finished up with 31 fish boated today including both legal and short hybrid stripers, and a few white bass, as well.

 

TALLY = 31 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 63F

Water Surface Temp:  74.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were NNW3-5, slowly shifting to NW4-6.

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

Water Level: 7.39 feet above full pool with a rise of 0.82 feet in the last 24 hours with no release of water currently ongoing.

GT = 45

 

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1556 – live shad for first 1.25 hours

**Area 1299 – live shad for ~2 hours

**Area 294 – live shad for .75 hours

 

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, May 17th, I finished with Dr. Chad Housewright and 2 of his sons, Ethan and Asher, on Belton Lake targeting hybrid striped bass using a variety of techniques.

From left: Ethan, Chad, and Asher Housewright all with 3.50 to 4.00 pound Belton Lake hybrid striped bass.  These three fish came under the boat in a large wolfpack, taking down 3 of our 4 rods all at the same time.  I netted all of these fish over a span of just 25 seconds.

At around 7:50p, a coldfront pushed directly over Belton Lake, suddenly increasing the windspeed and cloud cover.  As this occurred, the fish went on an absolute feeding binge.  Here was the scene under the boat which included hybrid and white bass of all sizes, as well as a few blue catfish mixed in.

Chad is a dermatologist with the Baylor-Scott & White system in Temple.  In this capacity, he provided counsel to a dermatologist-in-training by the name of Rod Mahmoudizad back in 2015.  As a token of his appreciation for the training he received, Rod presented Chad with a fishing gift certificate before moving from the area to further pursue his career.   This past Tuesday, Chad had the opportunity to redeem the certificate with two of his sons along.

As I arrived at the launch site about 30 minutes before our scheduled start time, I really didn’t like what I saw — a nearly calm surface and next to no cloud cover.  After Chad and the boys arrived, we went over some safety considerations, prayed together, and then covered the essentials of using the fishing gear.  By the time I put the boat in gear and began to study sonar searching for fish, a light NNW ripple had begun, and the very thin grey layer of broken clouds was just slightly obscuring the sun.  I found some solid fish activity in 48 feet of water and decided to post up over top of these fish with the Minn Kota Ulterra and its GPS positioning function.

By the time we got baits in the water the entire lake’s surface was now slightly rippled and the thin cloud cover was a bit thicker — things were looking better all the time.  Our first 3 shad were down near bottom no longer than 30 seconds when the audible bait clickers on the reels began to sound off.  This was the start of a 2.5 hour bite that ebbed and flowed but did not stop until around 7:45p as thickening clouds cut the light at this depth and put an end to the bite.  During this period of time, we boated a total of 48 fish, all but 3 of which were hybrid striper, and all but 7 of which were legal 18+” long fish.

In our last 45 minutes on the water, several key environmental factors came into play.  First, as the sun began to set, the ambient light level fell, then as a mild cold front moved in, heavy cloud cover on its lead edge further darkened the skies and increased the wind speed significantly, from 6-7 mph up to 17-18 mph.  Finally, as that lead edge of clouds moved to the SE, thinner cloud cover followed, thus actually creating a brightening of the skies despite the fact that sunset was drawing nearer.

During our last 45 minutes on the water, the fish went into an absolute feeding rampage as the responded to the front and the failing light.  During this short time span, we had at least 2, if not 3 of the rods working with fish on them more often then not.  We had short hybrid, keeper hybrid, white bass, and blue cat all in the fray feeding hard on shad while we fooled them with 3/4 oz. lead slabs.  We took our tally from 48 fish up to 76 fish during this window of opportunity.

When the last fish came over the side right at dark and the rods were stowed, we discovered the fun was not quite over yet.  The 18+ mph wind now blowing N to S directly across the boat ramp made loading the boat back onto the trailer with a 2+ foot swell akin to a nighttime carrier landing in a gale!   The Housewright’s graciously helped all they could, and, by 8:30 or so all was well and the boys were headed home to knock out that night’s school homework.

TALLY = 76 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 5:15p

End Time:  8:25p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp:  75.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were NNW6-8 until 7:50p when the lead edge of a cool front moved over, increasing wind speed up to NNW16-18 and dropping the temperature moderately.

Sky Conditions:  30% thin grey cover over a clear sky up until 7:15, then increasing cloudiness as the mild front approached.

Water Level: 6.42 feet above full pool with a fall of 0.16 feet in the last 24 hours with a release of ~4600cfs ongoing.

GT = 50

 

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1743 – live shad for first 2.5 hours

**Area 1299 – slabs for pre-frontal fish in last .5 hours

 

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