Fishing Report

This afternoon I fished an afternoon trip on Belton Lake with first time guests Larry Mitcham, his adult son, Randy, and Randy’s 17 year old son, Trent.  Larry lives in the Austin area, and Randy and Trent drove down from Dayton, Ohio on Trent’s spring break to visit.

Trent with the first fish of his life — a shad-caught Belton Lake hybrid.

And, not to be outdone, Randy boated his fair share, too.

If you’ve read my articles any length of time, you’ll know that I try to fish mornings whenever possible.  The morning bite, all else being equal, always seems a bit stronger and longer than the morning bite on both Stillhouse and Belton.  In this situation, Trent and Randy were only in town for a short window of time and, with all of my mornings booked this week, we went with what we had to work with and fished in the afternoon.

The main focus of this trip was to help Trent catch the first fish of his life.  He’d been fishing once before and was not able to “seal the deal” on that excursion.  We fished with live shad on a number of areas that have been producing well in the mornings, and we tried a few other areas, as well.

We had our best action right at the beginning of our trip, and again right before dark.  In the “middle” we struggled to get bit, pulling just a single here and a double there.

We wound up with 18 fish, including Trent’s first fish, a hard-pulling Belton Lake hybrid striped bass.

TALLY = 18 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time: 8:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Water Surface Temp: 62F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE18 with higher gusts

Sky Conditions: Partly cloudy at 40% coverage on fair blue skies

Other: GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  835

**Area  1208

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I fished with the Oliver clan – Grandpa Joe, Jamie, Jack, and Joe, in pursuit of hybrid striper on Belton Lake.  Grandpa is retired and resides in Temple, Jamie is a psychotherapist from Cedar Park, Jack is an electrician and realtor living near Marble Falls, and Joe is the Athletic Director at Central Texas Christian School in Belton.

From left: Jamie and Pa Oliver.

Above: Jack Oliver

Above: Joe Oliver

At 4:30am I awoke to a worst-case scenario; after gathering enough shad for this morning’s trip back on Tuesday and babysitting them for 2 days, I found every last one of them dead thanks to a failed battery charger.  So, by 5:05am I was out the door speeding to the lake to blind cast in the dark for a minimum of 120 shad to make sure the trip went right.

It is no coincidence that in my church Small Group this past Monday we looked at the life of Joseph of the Old Testament and how God saw him through a crisis.  I got reassurance from this and refused to be rattled.  I just kept throwing the net and every throw brought in a few shad such that by 7:30 I had enough to see us through.

On my last trip with this foursome, one of the brothers was late.  When he arrived and walked down to meet us at the end of the boat ramp, one of the punctual brothers remarked, “It’s like a dollar waitin’ on a dime.”   I always remembered that saying and couldn’t help but wonder who the “dime” was today as I arrived a bit tardy.

As we met up, I told the fellows what happened and then spoke out loud to the Lord, asking Him to help me settle down and get my mind on doing a good job finding fish for them.

In right at 4 hours of fishing, we put 81 fish in the boat, with the majority of them coming off of just two areas.  Chumming was critical in getting a bite started.

TALLY = 81 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 8:00a

End Time: 12:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp: 62F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: S9-10

Sky Conditions: 100% overcast the entire trip

Other: GT = 50

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1540

**Area  1270

** Area 967

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I met up with returning client Tony Bagliore of Belton to conduct a “reconnaissance” of the shad and hybrid situation on Belton Lake.  We met up at 6:45am with Job #1 being to locate and gather threadfin and/or gizzard shad with castnets.  Job #2 would then be to locate and catch hybrid striped bass with those shad used as bait.

Belton Lake resident Tony Bagliore with a nice 3.75 pound shad-caught hybrid —  a result of this morning’s scouting trip.

TALLY = 26 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 1:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp: 62F @ lower lake, 67-68 @ upper lake

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW11-13

Sky Conditions: 40% white clouds on fair blue sky

Other: GT = 80

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1540

**Area  1270

** Area 967

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

Today on was joined on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir by brand new boat owners Mr. and Mrs. R.C. Stephenson of Sun City, TX.

This evening I fished with Lionel Johnston of the DFW area, down visiting his parents who live in Belton.  We pursued white bass on Stillhouse Hollow.

Lionel Johnston used our time on the water to ask detailed questions about Humminbird sonar operation as we worked together to locate and catch white bass.

As Lionel looked through my online reports in the “Fishing Reports and Photos” portion of my website, he saw I do on-the-water sonar training classes.  As a Humminbird user who mainly fishes for crappie in timber on Lake Lewisville, he was interested in a number of skills, so we worked those into the trip, as well.

Today, despite the foul weather (cool rain fueled by a low pressure system that mixed with an incoming cold front overnight), the fish fed moderately well.  This happens at some point every spring where the rising water temperature drives the fishes’ metabolism up sharply, forcing them to feed at times when, under normal conditions, they would not do so.

We found two “patches” of fish today.  First, we found suspended white bass down 10-12 feet beneath the surface over a sloped bottom going from 15 – 25 feet.  A few gulls hesitated over this area just momentarily and made me curious enough to check it out.  Sonar told the rest of the story when we arrived, and we were able to put 18 fish in the boat in short order by counting our bladebaits down to these fish.  This lasted only about 25 minutes or so.

The second and final group of fish we found was well-scattered on a flat.  Again we worked Cicada bladebaits over these fish, only this time we worked them right off bottom casting either parallel to the shoreline or slightly in towards shore with long casts to really cover a lot of water efficiently.

When all was said and done, we’d boated 47 white bass, 4 drum, 4 largemouth bass, and 1 crappie.

TALLY = 56 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time: 8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp: 61.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: NE8-9, shifting ENE8-9 during last half of trip

Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover with light rain in the final hour

Other: GT = 50

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1539 casting blades

**Area 407/700 casting blades

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

There is no other way to describe it … this morning on Stillhouse Hollow, Mr. Steve Niemeier, his 9-year-old grandson Caleb Fowler, and I encountered one of the longest and strongest feeding frenzies I’ve ever seen on freshwater.

Caleb holds up his Cicada blade bait with a white bass caught on each hook.  Many times we saw aggressive schoolmates follow hooked fish up to the boat nipping and swiping at the lure in the less fortunate schoolmate’s mouth.

Although the majority of our catch consisted of smallish fish, we put plenty of 12-13 inch white bass in the boat, as well.

I customarily take all fish off the hook for my clients. This is what my right forefinger looked like after this morning’s extended bout.

As we launched, everything “felt” right.  There was a slight SW breeze, the air was heavy and humid but without fog, it was warm and balmy, the lake smelled like shad, and, best of all, a mild cold front was on its way to central Texas.

From before sunrise at 7:30 to the arrival of the cold front’s leading edge at 8:50, we boated exactly 92 fish casting blades and Rattlin’ Rapalas to surface feeding white bass which were pinning shad from 1.25 to 2.75 inches in length against the surface.  There were so many fish covering such a large area, the few gulls working over these fish were spread well apart, such that it did not appear that they were on a concentration of fish at all.

At exactly 8:50am, the lead edge of the front arrived, and instantly the fish disappeared off the surface for about 15 minutes.  As the wind picked up from the NNW and slowed down a bit, the fishing slowly built back.

Long story short, these fish fed for a solid 3.75 hours allowing us to amass the second largest catch I’ve ever brought aboard my boat in 23 years of fishing on Belton and Stillhouse.  This is second only to a catch of 364 fish taken during a full-day trip in January several years ago, also in advance of a cold front’s arrival.

Steve and Caleb have fished with me quite a number of times, and our previous personal best for them was another spring white bass fishing trip on Stillhouse in which they boated 116 fish.  So, once we got on these fish and saw that this was going to be a great day, they set their sights on 117 fish.  We knew the cold front was coming, but didn’t know how that would impact the fishing once it arrived, so, we all fished hard to get to that 117 mark beforehand.   As fate would have it, we cleared that 117 fish hurdle not long after the N wind kicked in, and then set our sights on beating the 251 fish mark, which, until today, was the greatest half-day trip total I’d ever guided clients to.

A great day with a great pair of clients!!

TALLY = 256 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:20a

End Time: 11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp: 61-62F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW2-3, shifting at 8:50am to the NNW through to N at 8-10

Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover

Other: GT = 60

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  54/550 casting blades and Rattlin’ Rapalas

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

This Spring Break afternoon I fished with the Janysek family of Cedar Park, TX.  Earlier this week Mr. Don Janysek e-mailed me thinking a fishing trip for his 3 kids would do them some good on this week away from school.  So, today I met up with Don’s mom, Rose Janysek of Leander, and Don’s 3 children, 14-year-old Taylor, 13-year-old Luke, and 11-year-old Emma to make some memories.

From left: Luke, Taylor, Emma, and Rose Janysek with a few of the white bass that fell for bladebaits up shallow today.

As we met in the parking lot at the boat ramp, I could see Taylor was my fisherman — he had on a long-sleeve Livingston Tackle logo fishing shirt, polarized sun glasses, a fishing cap, and he started pointing out and naming items on my boat he was familiar with.  Emma was the tourist, just along for a good time and very much enjoying being out in nature with family.  And Luke was my jovial book worm — he actually brought a novel about as thick as the Bible to read while out on the water.  Instantly I made it my personal mission to keep the trip engaging enough that Luke wouldn’t pull his book out.

As we got going, I did my standard safety briefing and then we headed out to the fishing grounds.  As is often the case on afternoon trips, the bite starts slow and increases towards sunset.  Morning, on the other hand, typically start strong and then soften as the morning progresses.

About an hour into the trip, after picking up a few fish on flatline trolled baits, we got into a nice bunch of white bass herding shad both against the bank and against the surface.  We did some casting lessons for Rose, Emma, and Luke while Taylor looked after himself up on the front deck.  After a few minutes everyone was regularly reeling in white bass that fell for our Cicada blade baits kept just off bottom.

This action died about 45 minutes before sunset, as a low cloud bank in the west obscured the setting sun a good bit.  We returned to more open water and used a combination of downrigged lures and flatline trolled crankbaits to pick off 3 more white bass that were suspended between 7-15 feet below the surface in the warming surface waters.

The kids and grandma did great today, were good learners, and were rewarded for following the guidance I provided.  Dad, who remained behind at the boatramp working on his laptop was briefed excitedly about the trip’s highlights as soon as the kids reached his truck.

Best news of the day: Luke’s book never came out of the bag!!

TALLY = 34 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time: 8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp: 60-61F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE5-7

Sky Conditions: 40-60% cloud cover on a fair blue sky

Other: GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  100/744 casting blades

**Area  1182 flatline trolling and downrigging

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

This Spring Break morning I fished with Central Texas Christian School athletic director Joe Oliver, his father (also named Joe Oliver), his son, Tom Oliver, and his grandson, seven-year-old Ben Pugh.  We set out in pursuit of white bass on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.

From left: Tom Oliver, Ben Pugh, Joe Oliver, and Grandpa Joe Oliver.  Can’t you just tell these guys get along real well?

I always look forward to getting a call from Joe asking about setting up a fishing date.  Joe is a godly man with a family he has every right to be proud of, a strong. long-lasting marriage, and he’s working in a position where he has the opportunity to influence kids for the Lord every day by encouraging them in their athletic pursuits.  He always brings family along fishing and they always genuinely enjoy one another’s company, even if they do get a bit competitive and kid one another (especially Izzy, whether or not he happens to be attending the trip!).

Today, we caught fish, but we had to work for all we caught.  We had some of the toughest conditions to hunt for white bass under — calm fog in the early morning, followed by calm, bright conditions after that fog cleared.

We fished shallow and deep, vertically and horizontally, and passively and aggressively and everything produced about the same, which just wasn’t a bunch of fish.

This was young Ben’s first trip out with me, and he did well.  He landed our first fish of the morning, learned to handle a spinning rod, and he even worked up the nerve to touch, hold, and release fish by the time our day had come to an end.

Our best action came while we still had some cloud cover, but after the fog had lifted.  We found some white bass pushing schooled shad around in shallow water and worked them over by casting blade baits into the fray when it was visible and by blind casting when action was not visible.  We landed the majority of our fish in this short window of time before it got bright and calm on us.

Once the skies cleared and the wind remained calm, our results went downhill; we got only 3 more fish from that point forward.

As they often do, as they departed, they left me with a Zero Coke as a bit of refreshment as I took on the chore of boat scrubdown and prep for the afternoon’s trip.

TALLY = 38 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:35a

End Time: 11:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp: 59-60F

Wind Speed & Direction: Calm to light and variable at under 2mph

Sky Conditions: Fog until ~9:30, followed by clearing and calm conditions

Other: GT = 60

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1496 vertical jigging

**Area  979 vertical jigging

**Area 1535/363 downrigging

**Area  554/531 bladebaits

**Area 1538 vertical jigging

**Area 1530 vertical jigging

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I fished with City of Temple Fire Chief Mitch Randles and his son, Kevin, a soon-to-graduate college student at Pittsburg State in Kansas, home this week on spring break.

From left: Chief Mitch Randles and his son, Kevin Randles, with a sampling of our catch of 61 white bass and 1 crappie.

Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, we had a heads-up that we’d likely be getting wet this morning as a Pacific low pressure system moved right over us last night and then cleared out by mid-morning. With an overnight low of 64F and a gentle rain and gentle breezes, these really posed no problem to fishing, so, we launched as planned at 7:30am and fished straight through to 12:30pm.

The low-light period was extended a good bit this morning thanks to thick cloud cover, but, as has happened on the past several trips on Stillhouse, the birds began to work before the (obscured) sunrise.We strictly vertical jigged today in water as shallow as 24 feet to as deep as 43 feet, slowly going deeper as conditions brightened and the winds stayed fairly calm.

The fish were a bit moody today, but bit for 4.5 of the 5 hours we stayed on them, weakening right at the end of the trip, and during a lull in the winds just as the clouds and rain cleared. By “moody” I mean this … we would spot some promising bird activity, get to it, spot fish near or on bottom on sonar, drop lines, catch fish right off the bat, and then they would quickly “cool off” and quit biting after we’d boated 5 or 6 fish. We encountered this 4-5 separate times over the time when the grey, rainy skies were transitioning to clear, calm conditions.

Once the clear skies were firmly in place and a bit of a westerly breeze kicked in, we found another patch of fish in ~43 feet of water and stuck with them for over an hour as they loosened up and cooperated very well.

As we got to talking, Mitch told me the account of how he and his family survived the tornado that struck Joplin, MO, several years ago. The whole family was in one vehicle returning from Kevin’s high school graduation exercises when the tornado warning went out. The family diverted to one of the city’s fire stations and weathered the storm there. When they went home, there was no home. They lost home, vehicles, personal effects – just about everything.

About the time Mitch was telling this story, I was getting hot in my raingear now that the sun was shining.  As I sat to listen to Mitch’s story and take off my rainpants, Kevin got a bite, hooked his fish and was reeling it in.  So, there I was with my rainpants down around my knees, too narrow to take off without pulling my boots off beforehand.  So, I kind of stood up and waddled quickly over to Kevin to land his fish and take the hook out as the guys both chuckled at me and suggested I try that again as it seemed to bring Kevin some luck.

By the time we wrapped up around 12:30, we’d boated exactly 61 white bass and 1 crappie.

TALLY = 62 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 12:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp: 59-60F

Wind Speed & Direction: SW2-6

Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover and rain until 9:30, then clearing to 40% cloud cover on blue skies

Other: GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1531/1321

**Area  1535

**Area 1537

**Area  1536/1538

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)

This morning I fished with Dr. Ben Vacula and his 3 children, 11-year-old Madeline, 9-year-old Olivia, and 7-year-old Gabriel.

11-year-old Madeline Vacula.

9-year-old Olivia Vacula.

7-year-old Gabriel Vacula.

Ben is an anesthesiologist working for the Scott & White system out of Temple where he trains residents in this discipline, but today he was a non-fishing chaperone for his kids and a very helpful first mate.  This was Ben, Madeline, and Olivia’s second trip out with me, and Gabriel’s first.  Our first trip, taken during Spring Break on the 10th of March last year resulted in a catch of 11 fish on a very cold day with some very unseasonably cold water.  Today was the “polar” opposite (pun kind of intended).  We woke up to 64F thanks to thick overnight cloud cover spinning off a strong Pacific low pressure mass moving up from Mexico.  This continued the nice warming trend we’ve been experiencing and put the fish in a biting mood.

I had planned on using 2-3 different techniques today to account for the younger kids’ shorter attention spans, and, as fate would have it, we actually got to employ 4 different techniques:  downrigging, vertical jigging, casting blade baits, and flatline trolling.

We began the day under birds and actually missed 5 of our first 6 hooked fish on the downriggers in the first 30 minutes on the water as we worked out the kinks of how to and how not to reel in fish correctly.  Once we got settled in, we missed very few fish afterwards.  The aggressive downrigger bite, in which we could physically watch fish pull 3-8 feet up off the bottom to inspect the passing downrigger ball, lasted for exactly 2 hours.

After the birds and fish began to settle down, we moved to another area, found some tightly grouped, bottom-hugging fish, and vertically jigged for them successfully for about an hour when the novelty of that fairly technical tactic began to wear off.

To change things up and keep it interesting, we sought out some shallower, warmer water and flatline trolled a set of 4 crankbaits.  We wound up catching 3 fish on the crankbaits, but, as we idled along, observed white bass chasing shad to the surface and “breaking” the water.  This is the first time I’ve observed this aggressive behavior this season.

Seeing this, Ben worked with Gabriel, and I worked with Madeline and Olivia to do some quick spinning reel casting lessons and we fished  these active fish until each child caught at least one using this technique.

When all was said and done, we’d worked together to boat 41 fish.

TALLY = 41 FISH, all caught and released

GUIDE’S WEBSITE: http://holdingthelineguideservice.com/

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 12:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Water Surface Temp: 55-56F

Wind Speed & Direction: SW2-6

Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover

Other: GT = 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1531/1496/1310 downrigging

**Area 363/948/1535 downrigging

**Area 1513 vertical jigging

**Area 405/684 flatline trolling and casting blades

Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)