Fishing Report

This past Tuesday morning, May 17th, I fished with Matt Cellini, Ilya L., and his son Max L.  Originally born in Siberia, Ilya now serves in the U.S. Army as an emergency room doctor at Darnall Army Medical Center on Fort Hood. Matt serves in the same capacity in the US Air Force out of Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.  The two got to know each other through their medical studies at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C.

From left: Max and Ilya with a nice pair of Belton Lake hybrid striped bass taken seconds apart on live shad.

Matt played the role of “uncle” today, looking out for Max and passing on a majority of his hooked fish to the 7-year-old young man.  As time wound down, he figured he’d better work at least one back to the boat on his own!

As the water temperatures continue to slowly rise through the mid-70s, gradual changes are taking place on Belton. The shad spawn has now ended, and the newly spawned fry are beginning to find their way into open water. Small schools of small white bass can be seen feeding on these fry from time to time. Over the next few weeks this will grow more widespread.

The fishing was a bit subdued today. We had no trouble finding fish, but the fish were simply not in an overly aggressive feeding mode. We fished 8 areas, catching a majority of our fish from but three of them, and just one or two fish from the rest.

The skies were quite murky and dark all morning and the south easterly wind we started with turned northerly around 8:45. During a very brief span of time at midmorning, the gray skies thinned enough to let a bit more sunlight through, just to the level where you would have to squint if not wearing sunglasses. During this time a very brief increase in fish feeding intensity occurred, allowing us to use slabs and pick up a good number of fish very quickly, most of which were large white bass.

Matt’s schedule at the hospital required that we depart promptly at 11 AM today, and by that time we had managed to put together a decent string of 27 fish, roughly 40% of which were legal sized hybrid striped bass.

TALLY = 27 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp:  74.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were ESE6 for about our first 30 minutes, then, in advance of a mild, approaching cold front, turned NNW9-10 for the remainder of the trip.

Sky Conditions:  100% grey skies with light drizzle for the first hour.

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 = 75

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1277/683 – live shad early

**Area 1482/187 – slabs during a brief bright period

**Area 346/086- live shad late

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

On Friday morning, May 13^th, I fished Lake Belton with Dr. David Clark, his dad, Rick Clark, and David’s brother-in-law, Mike Brawn.  Our focus was on catching hybrid striped bass using live shad as bait.

From left: Rick and David Clark with one of the several 4-pound class fish we boated on live shad this morning.

Mike Brawn, a native of Maine, enjoyed his first experience tangling with hybrid striped bass this morning and landed several 4 pound class fish himself.

The Clark’s were hosting a family reunion of sorts, and this was “guy time”.

I was a bit concerned when, as the sun rose, it rose unobscured by any form of cloud cover and our northerly breezes were light.  Calm, bright conditions are among the toughest one can face when fishing for hybrids, stripers, and white bass, so I was hoping we’d avoid such conditions.  As it turned out, although it did stay bright, we had enough wind to ripple the surface and move the water and, except for two distinct lulls in the action when the winds briefly stalled, the fish fed for nearly the entire 4 hours.

We fished only one area for our first 3 hours and 10 minutes, catching 74 fish over this span of time, of which at least half were legal hybrid stripers.  Then, even though the live shad bite was still going, for variety’s sake, I offered to search for more heavily schooled (and typically smaller) fish to allow my crew to use spinning gear equipped with slabs so as to experience a different form of fishing as we closed out our trip.  We found fish fairly quickly and managed to boat a mix of 9 whites and short hybrid before agreeing that the morning bite had played out.

I particularly enjoyed the conversation this morning as we fished — Mike is a native of Maine, and my wife and I have fond memories of that state.  My college roommate of several semesters, Jeff Libby, first introduced me to Maine when his folks opened up their home to me on the various long weekends we had as cadets up at West Point.  I was so taken with the natural beauty and climate, that Rebecca and I planned our honeymoon there, in the Boothbay Harbor area.  Finally, in celebration of our 20th anniversary last summer, we returned to the Boothbay/Portland area for a full week’s stay.  So, with Mike on board, I felt like I got to catch up on my home away from home.

TALLY = 83 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp:  74.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were NE5-7

Sky Conditions:  Fair skies with less than 10% cloud cover.

Water Level: 6.95 feet above full pool with a fall of 0.20 feet in the last 24 hours with a release of ~4890cfs ongoing.

GT = 50

 Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 346 – 74 fish in 3.2 hours; 50%+ keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area 294 – 9 fish in 30 minutes; all short hybrid and whites on slabs

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

On Thursday, May 12^th, I fished with Mr. Steve Niemeier and two of his grandchildren, 11-year old Caleb Fowler, and 8-year-old Macy Fowler.  The grandkids all call Steve “Baboo” which is an African word for grandfather which Steve picked up on one of his many mission trips to that continent.

From left: 11-year-old Caleb Fowler, Steve “Baboo” Niemeier, and 8-year-old Macy Fowler with two Belton Lake hybrid the kids landed just seconds apart during a very aggressive feed spurred on by grey clouds and a westerly wind in advance of stormy weather.

As they walked from the minivan down to my boat, Caleb, decidedly NOT a morning person, was still shaking out the cobwebs, while Macy was bubbling with anticipation, and Steve was just glad to be away from the office with the two of them for a few hours.

Fishing was pretty straightforward today thanks to slowly but steadily increasing water temperatures pushing the fish to feed routinely for the first 4 hours of light and the last 3 hours of light.

We fished only 2 areas this morning catching mainly legal hybrid stripers at our first stop, and a mixed bag of white bass and hybrid stripers in the 1, 2, and 3 year classes at our second stop. All of our fish were caught on live shad.

The kids both came to appreciate  how necessary it is to keep a constant vigil over the rod when bait fishing.  Fish can attack a bait, move off with it, pull the rod tip down, and tear the bait off the hook,  thus allowing the tip to return to its original position, all in a matter of about 2 seconds.  If you are snacking, looking away, or otherwise distracted, an opportunity can be lost.  This point was driven home during the last hour of the trip as the kids’ attention span began to wane and Steve began to outcatch the kids three or four fish to their one.

As we approached the end of the morning bite, around 10:45, a storm cell to the west which I’d been keeping an eye on via my smartphone for over 3 hours, was getting a bit too close for comfort. We pulled lines in right at 10:45 and were back to the launch site by 10:55.  As my crew was leaving the parking lot, the first drops of rain began falling, and, after going through all of my post-trip chores, I got a good dousing complete with thunder and lightning on my drive home.

We finished our morning with 74 fish landed, including a personal best (largest fish of her life) for Macy.

TALLY = 74 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp:  74.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were W11-12

Sky Conditions:  100% grey cloud cover.

Water Level: 7.10 feet above full pool with a fall of 0.20 feet in the last 24 hours with a release of ~4890cfs ongoing.

GT = 20

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1294 – 80% keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area 1298 – mixed sizes of whites and 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 Saturday morning, May 7th, I fished with Jim Mason of Waco, TX, his friend, Jerry Morgan, also of Waco, and Jim’s son and daughter-in-law, Peyton and Helen Mason, of Denver, CO.

From left:

Photo 1: Helen Mason had the best technique when it came to properly hooking fish with the circle hooks we used; as a result she landed the highest percentage of fish that bit on her live baits.

Photo 2: Jerry Morgan hoists the second largest fish of the trip, a 6.25 pound hybrid that struck his live shad in 48′ of water.

Photo 3: Jim Mason shows the 7.00 pound, 25 3/8″ fish that anchored the stringer today as his son, Peyton looks on.  This is the largest hybrid I’ve seen caught on Belton since 2009 when Mrs. Lacy Sparkman boated a 25.5 inch fish which stands as the catch-and-release lake record to this day.

Photo 4: Peyton Mason with a very long, but more lean hybrid we boated in the closing 30 minutes of our trip.

Peyton initially contacted me back in February and wanted to get a gift certificate for his dad’s birthday, and today was the day to cash that in.  Peyton and Helen tried to kill several birds with one stone, timing their travel to coincide with Mothers’ Day.

We all got a strong first impression that today would be a good fishing day when, while drifting near the launch site and demonstrating the use of the line-counter reels we’d be gearing up with, I managed to hook and land a 1.5 pound freshwater drum on a bare hook.

It only got better from there.  We made only two stops today, in water from 48-51 feet deep, and put exactly 101 fish in the boat (not counting the drum!).  Not only did we catch a lot of fish, the impressive part to me was that easily 80% of these 101 fish were “keeper” sized (18+ inch long) hybrid striped bass.

Fittingly, Jim the birthday-boy wound up catching the largest fish of the trip.  He landed a 7.00 pound, 25 3/8 inch long hybrid striped bass which is the largest hybrid I’ve had landed by a client since 2009.  We also landed two fish weighing 6.00 pounds and another weighing 6.25 pounds.

Although it may seem obvious, one of the keys to our success was having baits in the water when the wolfpacks of patrolling hybrid came under us.  This was easily accomplished when we had four lines down and were waiting for the fish to bite, however, once the fish started biting and we worked them into a frenzy, keeping at least one bait down amongst them to keep them interested in staying beneath the boat was critical.  This is where the use of circle hooks really shines.  When used properly, circle hooks allow for a super quick, easy release that causes little more than a prick in a fish’s upper lip.  Being able to net a fish, unhook and release it, re-bait, and get a fresh bait right back down to the fish is made much easier with such hooks and translated into more fish in the boat over any given period of time versus the use of J-shaped hooks which often get caught in the fishes’ gullets and require more lengthy removal or replacement.

I estimate we have another 2 weeks of solid fishing in conjunction with the threadfin shad spawn before the water begins to stratify and the fishing declines as less productive summer-time fish behaviors and patterns kick in.

TALLY = 101 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:50a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp:  73-74F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were SSE9-13

Sky Conditions:  Fair skies with ~20% cloud cover.

Water Level: 8.38 feet above full pool with a fall of 0.25 feet in the last 24 hours with a release of ~4900cfs ongoing.

GT = 120

Wx Snapshot:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1749 – 80% keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area 1739 – 80% keeper 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 Thursday morning, May 5th, I fished with Aaron Hall of Belton, TX, and his two children, Aiden and Eliza.  This family then became the subject of my weekly “Guide Lines” fishing column in the Killeen Daily Herald.  Upon picking up a copy and showing the kids, Aaron texted me saying, “Awesome – the kids just had a look! They said thanks for making them famous.”  Here is the complete article, as well as a link to the electronic version of it…

Article link: Guide Lines Fishing Article from KDH

———————————————————————————-

TALLY = 35 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 61F

Water Surface Temp:  72.2F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were light at NNW5-7

Sky Conditions:  High, clear blue skies.

Water Level: 8.38 feet above full pool with a fall of 0.25 feet in the last 24 hours with a release of ~4900cfs ongoing.

GT = 0

Wx Snapshot:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 682 – mixed bag fishing on live shad

**Area 152 – mixed bag fishing 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 Tuesday morning, May 3rd, I fished with Dr. Jim Wood of McGregor, TX.

The demands of life and patients have been high of late for Dr. Wood and so, despite trying to piece together a fishing date since the late January weekend of the Central Texas Boat Show, this past Tuesday was the first date that was mutually agreeable.

A mild cold front passed through Texas over the weekend, leaving cool, dry, clear post-frontal weather in its wake.  The pre-dawn ambient temperature was just 52F.

Given the cool temps and northerly breeze, I was pleasantly surprised to find spawning threadfin shad readily available.  One throw of the 7′ castnet brought in over 370 shad.

I met up with Jim at a few minutes before 7am and we got right down to business. By 7:15am we were buckled down overtop of active hybrid striped bass in 52′ of water and Jim was reeling in keeper hybrids.

We fished only 3 areas this morning, and these areas gave up exactly 81 fish.  Our first area produced the best quality fish, but only a few of them.  Our second stop produced a blend of keeper and short hybrid and white bass of all sizes.  And our last stop, made for variety’s sake and to demonstrate to Jim the difference in appearance between white bass and hybrid stripers on sonar, yielded mainly white bass taken on slabs worked with an easing tactic.

All was going well until I raised my rod to lift a short hybrid out of the water that had struck my slab.  As the fish cleared the water, the hook came out of the fish.  The fish fell back into the water, but the lure was catapulted toward me at high velocity.  When it hit me, one of the points of the treble hook buried well beyond the barb into the middle joint of my left middle finger.  It was hurting, to be sure!  Jim and I kind of weighed our options; I would do the surgery, and Dr. Jim would assist.  We worked together to cut away the lure and the other two points of the treble hook with a pair of wire cutters, leaving just the eye of the hook and the point that was stuck in me.  Jim pressed the eye down toward my finger and I looped some fluorocarbon leader material around the bend of the hook.  On “ready, set, go” I yanked the hook backwards.  All went just as illustrated in the Boy Scout handbook and, after licking my wound for a minute or two, we went back to jigging.  Thanks, Doc!

TALLY = 81 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:55a

End Time:  11:20a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 52F

Water Surface Temp:  68.3 to 72.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were light at NNW5-8

Sky Conditions:  High, clear blue skies.

Water Level: 8.88 feet above full pool with a fall of 0.19 feet in the last 24 hours with a release of 4922cfs ongoing.

GT = 30

Wx Snapshot:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1277/683 – keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area 1012 – blend of keeper & short hybrid and white bass on live shad

**Area  1299 – nearly 100% white bass on slabs

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, April 30th, I fished with Andy Bell, his father-in-law, Will Zschiesche, and Dylan Murray, Andy’s nephew.

Andy Bell with a nice Belton hybrid striped bass taken on live shad.

Will Zschiesche with one of the many hybrid we boated this morning.  Circle hooks made for quick, easy releases, thus allowing us to get fresh baits back down to the fish quickly while they were still present and biting.

This was Dylan Murry’s first time fishing for hybrid striper after mainly casting for whatever would bite his lure while dock fishing at a family lake house on Possum Kingdom.

Will is a retired firefighter, Andy is a physical fitness trainer for the Premier Jewelry Company, and Dylan is a 17-year-old high school junior and avid golf player.  As Andy asked his nephew about his latest golfing accomplishments, Dylan said he just missed an “albatross” recently.  Not being a golfer of any sort, and having never heard the term “albatross” used in a golfing context, I just had to inquire further.  It seems an albatross is when one makes it from the tee to the hole in just 2 shots on a par 5.  Back to fishing…

Andy and I had been corresponding since before Thanksgiving of 2015 trying to get a date to fish, but on a number of occasions winter weather hindered us.

A mild cold front pushed into the area in the late afternoon yesterday, and caused turbulent weather during the overnight and early morning hours, complete with thunder, lightning, brief heavy downpours of rain, and occasional pellets of hail. Within 30 minutes of our planned start time of 7:15 AM, this weather began to move off to the east leaving a north-northwest wind and heavy grey cloud cover in its wake. Additionally, although the Corps of Engineers is running 5000 to 6000 ft.³ per second out of the dam, Belton still rose slightly over this past 24 hour period. Fortunately, none of the areas that have been producing fish lately were impacted by off colored water.

We fished four areas this morning, the first three specifically in pursuit of hybrid striper, and the last (for variety’s sake), targeting schooled white bass caught via a jigging spoon. The first area we hit gave up only one keeper hybrid and a short white. We saw plenty of fish near bottom, and even had fish approach our baits suspended a few feet up off bottom, but despite chumming and thumping, these fish would not respond.

The second and third areas we hit were in approximately 48 feet of water, and produced much better following a wind shift from north-northwest to west-northwest. We put an additional 48 fish in the boat at these two areas with a majority of the fish being legal hybrid striped bass of at least 18 inches. Our single largest fish today weighed in at 4.25 pounds.

At the last area we fished, we targeted heavily schooled white bass in over 60’ of water.  Although these fish responded to our presentations allowing us to put 3 fish in the boat in short order, the morning bite was just about over and after the initial interest these fish showed, they turned right off and refused to bite.  We wrapped up right at 11:15a.

TALLY = 53 fish, all caught and released

This past Friday morning, April 29th, I fished with Dakota and Brianna Umbarger, both originally from Oregon, and now stationed here at Ft. Hood for Dakota’s first enlistment.