kids fishing trips

A DAY JUST FOR JOEY — 48 FISH @ BELTON

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: On Saturday morning, Dec. 12th, I fished with mother/son team Jessica and 6-year-old Joey Ybanez of Killeen.  Jessica is a first grade teacher at Cavazos Elementary School in Nolanville.  Each Christmas season she dedicates one full day to spend exclusively with each of her three kids, one at a time.  Today was Joey’s day.

Joey got to plan the meals and the activities for the day.  He and Jessica began with breakfast on the go consisting of many pounds of snackfoods provided by Joey’s grandpa.  Joey seemed to home in on the Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  The morning was to be spent on Lake Belton fishing with me, followed by lunch at What-A-Burger, the afternoon spent at an arcade, and closed out with dinner (another burger) at the Dead Fish Grill.

When Jessica contacted me about a month ago to schedule their trip, I actually tried to talk her out of this and into something in the warmer months when I have more variety to offer younger kids.  I was concerned that the fishing would be too technical and too one-dimensional to keep such a young boy’s interest.  Jessica decided to go forward with the trip, and all turned out well.

 

We booked this as a “Kids Fish, Too!” package, which it a bit shorter and less expensive than a full, 4+ hour adult trip.

PHOTO CAPTION #1:   Joey and Jessica Ybanez put 46 white bass and two largemouth bass in the boat under tough conditions this morning.  Little Joey hung in there the entire time!

 

PHOTO CAPTION #2:   You gotta read the story for the explanation on the pink socks and wagon-load of provisions!

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday (AM), 12 December 2020

HOW WE FISHED:

Overnight, a cold front moved in, changing our weather from a balmy, calm, 70F atmosphere at sunset on Friday to a cold, crisp, 41F morning with north winds and bluebird skies today.  The early bird definitely did NOT get the worm this morning.  I actually delayed our meeting time until 7:45, meaning we would not wet lines until at or after 8:00AM, and, even then, we did not find fish to catch for the first 30 minutes or so.

I always arrive well in advance of my clients, and, as I did so this morning witnessed birds working over bait naturally occurring at the surface right at first light, however, there were not gamefish pushing these shad there.  The activity drew 4 or 5 boats, but to no avail — they quickly dispersed.

We encountered no helpful bird action this morning — everything was done by slowly probing the depths with sonar.  We spent about an hour atop the first group of fish we found, putting exactly 25 fish in the boat before they got lazy (still present on sonar, but totally disinterested in presentations of any speed).  We caught all of our fish here on MAL Lures, with suspended fish witnessed on Garmin LiveScope being the most likely candidates to chase and be caught, while the fish on bottom tended to be more reserved.

About the time we transitioned from our first area to our second, Joey let his mom know that his feet were getting cold.  He had multiple layers of socks on, but the caused his feet to fit too tightly in his shoes, so, mom “engineered” a solution, taking his shoes off, adding a third layer of socks, and having Joey stand on a spare jacket to keep his feet dry.  This actually worked okay, even if Joey did resemble a character out of a Dr. Seuss story!

We moved on to fish two more areas, both in 45-47 feet of water.  Sonar revealed the fishing was going to be tough before we even dropped lures down to test things out, as the fish were super-tight to the bottom and only one fish deep.  There was no clean target separation on these fish on my Garmin 8616 in DownVu with magnification turned up, meaning they could not even be seen on the lower resolution of the Humminbird Solix 15.

We just kept working the MAL Lures on the fish we could find, doing well catching cruising “suspenders”, and, once in a while, fooling a group of greedy bottom-huggers into chasing and biting, as well.  This “ground and pound” got us 23 more fish before the wind went out of their sail and the bite stopped right at 11:30.

With that, I cleaned the “sticky” off of Joey’s spinning reel handle (Cinnamon Toast Crunch residue), bid them farewell, and watched Joey march off in his pink socks, headed for What-A-Burger!!

 

See the MAL Lure, Hazy Eye Slabs, and Stinger Hooks here: https://whitebasstools.com/

See tutorial video on how to work the MAL Lure here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE&t=239s

TALLY: 48 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:   There was no helpful bird activity this morning.  Although birds did feed on shad naturally occurring on the surface right at first light, these shad were not driven there by gamefish.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  7:45A

End Time: 11:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 41F

Elevation:  1.00 low with a 0.03’ 24-hour rise and 34 CFS flow thru the dam

Water Surface Temp: 57.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNW10 just about the entire trip — post-frontal tapering off of wind velocity was in play.

Sky Condition: Bluebird skies

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 7% illumination

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  B0201C, 1552, 1298, vic 1325  – slow but steady action at each location under post-frontal weather.

 

 

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

Time to “Rest & Digest” – 103 Fish @ Belton

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Friday, August 28th, I fished with Nathan and Trisha Ratliff and their four kids, Amelia (11), Hannah (10), Hunter (7), and Clara (4), of Harker Heights, TX, on a Kids Fish, Too! adventure on Lake Belton.  

 

PHOTO CAPTION #1: Back row: Nathan and Trisha; front row, from left: Amelia, Hunter, Clara, and Hannah.

 

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

 

HOW WE FISHED:   The Ratliffs arrived with no prior fishing experience and no prior boating experience, so, I planned ahead to have them show up a bit earlier than normal so as to cover things more thoroughly than I might with a family that had prior experience.

Trips like this, with quite an age spread over several kids, can be a bit tough as what it takes to interest and engage an 11-year-old is quite different from what it takes to interest and engage a 4-year-old. My plan was to seek after quantity, and let quality fall where it may so as to keep fish coming over the side of the boat and maintain the kids’ interest over the 3 1/2 hours these kid-specific trips last for.

We started out looking for topwater action which did not materialize thanks to the heavy chop on the water, but, that kept the traffic light and allowed us to get onto fish without company nearby until right as the fish were winding down their low-light feed.  We had the fish to ourselves for about 40 minutes, during which time we put singles and doubles in the boat on downriggers equipped with 3-armed umbrella rigs; only once did we stop to fish MAL Lures, primarily because in the time it would take to make everyone proficient, we’d miss a lot of opportunity for fish on the downriggers which everyone was already now familiar with. 

By the time the low-light feed was over, we’d landed 28 white bass. We gave the white bass time time to ‘rest and digest’ (Amelia really like that term) from their early morning binge by heading up shallow to do some sunfishing with plans to save our final hour to pursue additional white bass out in deeper water. The shallow sunfishing went well.  We landed 40 sunfish (bluegill, greens, and longears).  By around 8:45 AM I was hoping to get back in open water to start hunting white bass again, and, by this time, the kids had landed 30 sunfish.  Amelia asked if she could catch ‘just one more’ about 10 times!  Yep — she’s hooked!  Anyway, we sunfished another 15 minutes and put 10 more fish in the boat for a total of 40 sunfish, then, around 9AM we headed back out for a final hour’s worth of white bass fishing.

We hit two areas, finding fish suspended at 25-27′ deep at the first and finding fish on bottom in 25′ at the second.  In our final hour or so, we landed 3 sets of triples, about as many doubles, and plenty of singles, all in the 0, 1, and 2 year class.  By 10AM, the time we’d all hoped all four kids would be able to make it through, we had 94 fish in the boat.  This time it was dad urging the kids to push on ’til we’d reached 100 fish for the morning. That took all of about 12 minutes as we landed our final triple, four singles, and one double in that span of time.

It’s always nice to be able to “finish strong”, especially with kids on board.

TALLY: 103 fish caught and released (62 white bass, 1 hybrid striper, 40 sunfish)

 

OBSERVATIONS:  ~12 mph chop put would-be surface feeders down this morning, so there was no topwater action where we were.  Sonar lit up and provided ample downrigging opportunities.

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  6:30A

End Time: 10:15A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F

Elevation:  2.70′ low, -0.06′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:  83.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: Light winds under 3mph from the ENE due to counter-clockwise rotation of the atmosphere impacted by Hurricane Laura Sky Condition: Hazy blue skies

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous with 78% illumination

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 903 – combination of downrigging and working MAL Lures vertically for low-light fish away from the crowd; lasted until ~7:40

**Area B0163C – 40 sunfish

**Area vic 684 – downrigging for whites (+ 1 hybrid); fish at 25-27′ suspended, balls at 23′

**Area B0021G through B0030G  – downrigging for whites; fish at 25′ on bottom, balls @22′

 

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

ALL ABOUT EATER CATFISH – 21 FISH @ BELTON

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This past Friday evening, May 1st, I welcomed returning guests Rick Powell and Ricardo Cisneros aboard.  During the Coronavirus shutdown, I took my wife, Rebecca, and a handful of friends out fishing specifically for blue catfish on Lake Belton.  Ricardo, who regularly follows my Facebook posts, saw this and hoped to duplicate the effort on occasions where he hoped to catch a few “eating-sized” catfish (12+ inches).

He requested I take he and his friend (and boss) Rick Powell out to show them what I’d learned.

No, I’m not starting to guide for catfish and don’t intend to do so in the future, but, as the fishery offers consistency and as the quality of these fish continue to improve on Lake Belton (due to zebra mussel consumption, I suspect), I will no doubt routinely mix in some catfishing in my multi-species trips. Additionally, my 100% C&R policy still pertains to this species.

 

PHOTO CAPTION: This is what the methods I’ve pieced together (with a good bit of help from Steve Webb) typically produce – smaller “eater-sized” blue catfish, two of which provide 4 fillets — just enough for a 1-person serving if kept and cleaned properly. Most fish are 12-15 inches, like this one held by Ricardo Cisneros.

WHEN WE FISHED:  01 May, 2020, PM

HOW WE FISHED: First, I search for blue catfish concentrations on sonar.  Next, I Spot-Lock and chum with range cubes, then get right down to fishing vertically with my “Catfish Plumb” bait holders tipped with fresh, dead shad or non-stink doughbait.  To enhance things, I’ve brought Garmin LiveScope to bear, which allows slightly suspended fish to be targeted.  Otherwise, the default bait position is just inches off bottom.

Concentration is a must, as the catfish typically take only one swipe at the bait, during which time a quick, hard hookset is a must.

In 3.5 hours’ time, some of which was set aside for Humminbird side-imaging explanation and Garmin LiveScope explanation, we put 22 blue cat over the side of the boat with just as many missed on the hookset.

 

TALLY: 22 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: As I searched for spawning shad, a definite, shallow-water and shad-oriented fishery is also ripe for picking, albeit short-lived with the action drying up about the time the direct sun peeks over the eastern horizon.

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:   4:00P

End Time:  7:30P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Elevation:  0.77′  high, 0.06 foot 24-hour rise, 17 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:  70F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S17 at trip’s start, tapering to S14 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: 30% high white haze on blue skies

GT =28

 

Wx SNAPSHOT:   

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0073C (fished it at start of trip and end of trip with 2 other non-productive stops in between)

 

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)

#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

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

102 FISH AND A NEW LAKE RECORD WITH THE WAGNERS

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning I fished a multi-species trip with Kris Wagner and his sons, 14-year-old Nick, and soon-to-be 10-year-old Charlie.  Kris makes his living as a urologist at Scott & White and enjoys biking. Nick is the real fisherman of the family, looking for opportunities to fish whenever and wherever he can, be it for sunfish in Nolan Creek or catfish at summer camp.  Charlie landed our fish for the record books — a spotted bass.  More about that, with a photo, in my Sunday “Guide Lines” column on Aug. 26th, though.

 

From left: Nick, Kris, and Charlie.  Because our fish were coming up from 35+ feet this morning where the water temperature was much cooler, we had to handle our fish quickly to ensure they could be released in excellent shape.  These three fish were actually all caught by Nick at the same time on his 3-armed umbrella rig.  I unhooked them, handed one to each family member, and we snapped a photo — all in a matter of seconds.  We then watched these all dig back down to that deep, dark, cool water they’d come from.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR:  This was a multi-species trip focused on white bass.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED:  Saturday morning, 18 August 2018

HOW WE FISHED:  We fished 4 areas and found fish at three of them.  I also ran sonar over 2 other areas and passed on them due to lack of fish and bait.  When fish and bait showed on sonar, we downrigged successfully and, whenever a mass of bottom-oriented white bass would show on sonar (typically setting both downriggers off as we passed over), we would stop the boat, hover atop of them and work tailspinners vertically.  This approach yielded 54 fish including 2 drum, 1 spotted bass, and 51 white bass through around 11a.  As we headed back to the ramp, I spotted some surface feeding action on a flat adjacent to the river channel.  Sonar revealed heavy schools of young of the year shad present with white bass throughout the lower third of the water column right there with them.  We went right to working tailspinners given how concentrated these fish showed to be on sonar, and wound up staying an additional hour working these fish over, and taking our tally up to 102 fish (adding 47 white bass and 1 drum to our prior total of 54 fish).

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES:  It was surprising to see fish feeding so aggressively at Area SH0053C between 11a and noon after the strong bite we’d experienced elsewhere had clearly died to nil.  This was the best topwater action I’d seen since Monday.

 

TALLY: 102 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 12:00 noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp:   83.8F

Wind Speed & Direction: Light winds under 4mph from S for first 90 minutes, pick up up to WSW12 for the remainder of the trip.

Sky Conditions: ~20% cloud cover

Water Level: 7.36 feet low and falling

GT = 55

Wx SNAPSHOT:  

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area   SH0052C thru 1425 – scant

**Area  1448-495-1970 – white bass via downriggers and tailspinners

**Area SH0053C – 48 white bass between 11a & noon – location revealed by surface action in SW wind at 12 mph

 

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingelleTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle