freshwater drum

ONE MAN’S COOT IS ANOTHER MAN’S TREASURE — 66 FISH

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: On Tuesday morning, Feb. 13th, I fished with first-time guests Jerry Burch and Nathan Rollins.

Jerry had an unusual request.  He and eight friends are in a friendly competition to see who can be the first to capture 100 fish/game species by way of hunting and fishing.

Jerry had seen some of my posts indicating a routine bycatch of freshwater drum as I guide clients to catch white bass.  He reached out to me to see if we might be able to help add that species to his list, and to Nathan’s.

If that went well, I had a contingency plan to pursue channel catfish and smallmouth bass, as well.

Along the way we drew a humorous correlation between “serious” anglers fishing for drum, and “serious” waterfowl hunters hunting for coot.

Here is how the fishing went…

Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are Feb. 26-29 (AMs)

 

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Jerry Burch and Nathan Rollins with a nice pair of white bass they took as we made a day-long effort to capture a freshwater drum for both men.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION: All winter long as I guide for white bass, I see largemouth bass and freshwater drum caught as bycatch.  Today, this largemouth cooperated, but our highly sought after drum were in short supply.

 

Find the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab here: https://whitebasstools.com/

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 13 Feb. 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

Although I routinely catch drum without doing anything special beyond what is necessary to lure white bass, since we desired to catch drum this morning, I did changeup a few things.  First, instead of the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab, I used a slab with a bead-filled glass vial encapsulated within it so as to make extra noise which I have seen drum respond to positively in the past.  Additionally, instead of slow-smoking or easing, we stuck with snap-jigging so as to keep the lures on or near bottom 100% of the time.

It was tough watching so many opportunities to catch white bass go by, but Jerry and Nathan stuck with it.  By the time 1PM had rolled around, they’d landed 27 fish, including 26 white bass and 1 largemouth bass, but no drum.

We took an off-the-water lunch break and reconvened at 2:25 and fished until 5:20PM.  We added another 39 fish to the tally, every single one of which was a white bass.

So, after 8.5 hours of intelligent effort, we did not come up with a single drum.  Regardless, Jerry and Nathan enjoyed their outing, learned much, and were particularly enthused about using Garmin LiveScope.

 

Here is a tutorial on the snap-jigging method we used … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGtrnAQ_T94&t=55s

 

Here is a tutorial on the slow-smoking tactic we used… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIPopSLUYoQ

TALLY: 66 fish caught and released.

 

OBSERVATIONS:  Thanks to recent rains and a slow, net warming trend over the last three weeks, the surface temperature has returned to just over 50F and the lake has risen to 16.89 feet below full pool.

 

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:30A

End Time: 5:20P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 32F

Elevation: 16.89 feet low, 1 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 50.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SW winds varying from 4-9 all day

Sky Condition: Pale blue, cloudless sky.

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 47% illumination.

GT = 50

Wx SNAPSHOT:    

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Vic. SH0239G, 0095, SH0134C, SH0247G, vic 1950, SH0279G, and SH0094C

 

Bob Maindelle

Full-time, Professional Fishing Guide and Owner of Holding the Line Guide Service

Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide #BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing #bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport #fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday #Fitec #SubaruAustin

I’LL TAKE A DOZEN OF THOSE SLABS RIGHT THERE! — 107 FISH @ BELTON

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, Friday, Dec. 6th, I fished with JR and Patty Bray from near Marble Falls, TX.  JR does periodically required maintenance work on nuclear power plants.  This line of work has him working intensively for several weeks at a time, then having several weeks of downtime before moving on to the next job.  Fishing and RV camping account for a good bit of that downtime.

JR has his own 14-foot boat which he heavily modified and fabricated components for.  He runs Lowrance sonar with a Motorguide Xi-5 GPS style trolling motor.  Some time ago he came out with me for one of my sonar training sessions with that setup.  Today, he lots of questions for me about the Humminbird, Lowrance, and Garmin unit we used to find and catch fish.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION #1:  Belton’s freshwater drum, a relative of the redfish, black drum, and Atlantic croaker, have grown fat and plentiful thanks to the zebra mussel infestation.  This bad boy went 5.00 pounds on a certified scale.

 

PHOTO CAPTION #2:  White bass were the staple of our catch today with this year’s crop making up much of the catch, with a few 2018 fish like these sprinkled in.  We also landed hybrid stripers, drum, and largemouth bass.

WHEN WE FISHED:   Friday, 06 December 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED:   Thanks to an incoming coldfront, dry NW winds spurred on fish and bird activity this morning.  Shortly after sunrise, birds began working over baitfish pushed toward the surface by aggressive gamefish below, consisting mainly of hybrid striped bass and white bass.  We did not necessarily have to be right under the birds to get bit, rather, we let the birds be a guide to the general location of fish, and then let side-imaging seal the deal by revealing where high numbers of fish were congregated.  Once we Spot-Locked on fish, we stayed for a while working both the aggressive fish up in the water column, as well as the less aggressive fish down on bottom.  We enjoyed action with bird-assistance through 9:20 when the birds began (I suspect) have a tough time feeding due to the strong wave action as the wind velocity increased.  Smaller boats left the scene around this time!!

We moved on depending now solely on sonar to find our fish while keeping an eye peeled for follow-on bird action.  We did get a glimpse of a handful of birds attempting to feed in open water about the time the fish we’d found on sonar were tapering off, so, we moved on out slowly through the sizeable waves and found what we were after.

We used a slow smoking tactic on occasion to tempt the active fish in the water column with larger, 3/4 oz. slabs.  When the fishing got tougher, we slowed down and downsized our baits to 3/8 oz. slabs worked closer to bottom with an easing tactic.

We used white Hazy Eye Slabs with stinger attached.  JR was so impressed with the performance of the baits that he bought a half dozen of both sizes on the spot!

The fishing tapered out between 10:45 and 11:00 just as it did under similar conditions on Wednesday.  By this time we’d landed exactly 107 fish.

 

TALLY: 107 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:  Birds worked continuously from sunrise through 9:20AM, then quit, I suspect, because the wind was churning the water so much they had difficulty seeing/plucking food.  I base this on the facts that 1) birds continued to patrol, 2) that sonar stayed lit up with bait and gamefish, and 3) that we continued to catch fish well up until around 10:40

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:    7:00A

End Time:  11:15A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  51F

Elevation: 2.75 feet low, 0.00′ 24-hour change, 34 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:   58.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: NW13 at sunrise , increasing to NW17 with higher gusts

Sky Conditions:  High blue skies as a cold front moved in.

GT =0

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:    

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0197C

**Area 715 and south to 953

**Area triangulated by 1152/B0098C/B0031C

**Area B0182C/B0118C

 

Bob Maindelle

Full-time, Professional Fishing Guide and Owner of Holding the Line Guide Service

Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide

254.368.7411 (call or text)

 

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle