7-Year-Old w/ Newest White Bass Invention — 66 Fish
CLIENTS: On Saturday morning, December 27, I fished with Anthony and Kristina Carlucci, accompanied by their three kids Bentlee “Benny” (age 10), Kolesyn “Coco”, age 7), and Rosaleigh, who, at age 3, was pretty much just along for the ride.
The Carluccis came out with me previously and so had a pretty good idea of what to expect and how we would go about approaching these wintertime fish, so, even with elementary-aged boys, the learning curve wasn’t too bad at all.
TODAY’S DATE: 27 December 2025 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: Tuesday, 30 December 2025 (AM or PM)
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Anthony and Kristina Carlucci brought their kids (from left) Rosaleigh (age 3), Bentlee (age 10), and Kolesyn (age 7) out for a full 4-hour morning fishing trip on Lake Belton while the temperatures were unseasonably warm. Everyone joined in on the catching.
PHOTO CAPTION: The “newest thing” for white bass, invented by my young client, Kolesyn “Coco” Carlucci! Now, that is not just ordinary bread … no, sir! … that is hand-plucked from a yeast roll.
PHOTO CAPTION: Dad got the big one today! A nice Lake Belton hybrid striped bass (a.k.a. “wiper”) depending where in the country you live.
FIND LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
As is the case on almost every trip in the winter, weather was the major factor. This morning we found ourselves on day nine of what will be a 10-day-long warm-up taking surface temperatures to near 61° after they dropped down as low as 55° in early December. We were blessed with a good southerly wind today, although the thick, gray cloud cover was thick enough to hinder the bite a bit. The ideal cloud cover scenario occurs when there is 100%, gray cloud coverage which still lets enough sunlight through to cause you to squint without sunglasses on.
With low light conditions challenging us, we wound up moving around quite a bit today typically catching most of the fish at a given area in the first few minutes there and then seeing the bite quickly drop off thereafter.
As has been the case since this past Wednesday, I had everyone using MAL Lures. Today, everyone used the MAL Dense with silver body and worked these lures with a slow-smoking tactic, enhanced by both a splashing device and Garmin LiveScope. Once again, the trick on attracting fish was to get the lure’s spinning blade going as close as possible to bottom and then retrieving the lure as slowly as possible while still keeping the blade spinning. We found that slow-tapering bottoms between 25 and 34 feet produced well. In four hours’ time this family of five landed 66 fish including 61 white bass, four largemouth bass, and one freshwater drum.
RESULTS: 66 fish, all caught and released
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW “SLOW SMOKE” A BLADED HAZY EYE SLAB VERTICALLY: Click here for tutorial
OBSERVATIONS:
-This was day 9 of a lengthy warming trend which has raised water temperature back up to 61 +/- which has caused fishing to improve.
-No assistance in fish-finding by birds today.
-Cloud cover was thicker than ideal.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
Taken on Lake Belton around 7:10AM on 25 December 2025…
0 feet 60.6F
5 feet 60.6F
10 feet 60.4F
15 feet 60.3F
20 feet 60.3F
25 feet 60.1F
30 feet 60.0F
35 feet 60.0F
40 feet 59.6F
45 feet 59.4F
50 feet 59.4F
55 feet 59.4F
60 feet 59.2F
65 feet 59.0F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:45A
End Time: 11:45A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F
Elevation: Belton is 0.56′ low with no change in the last 24 hours. USACE is releasing 26 CFS.
Water Surface Temp: 61.1F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: S8 at trip’s start, slowly tapering up to S12
Sky Condition: 100% thick, grey cloud cover preventing “squinting” light from coming through the clouds
Moon Phase: First quarter moon at 50% illumination.
GT = 5
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH MOST SUCCESS:
Area vic 676 – 6 fish on slow-smoked MAL Lures
Area vic 2055 – 20 fish on slow-smoked MAL Lures
Area vic B0098C – 3 fish on slow-smoked MAL Lures
Area 793 – 14 fish on slow-smoked MAL Lures
Area 2336 – 11 fish on slow-smoked MAL Lures
Area vic 2337 – 7 fish on slow-smoked MAL Lures
Area vic B0186C -5 fish on slow smoked MAL Lures
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