Hitting the Century Mark in Early March – 113 Fish

CLIENTS: This morning, Monday, March 9, I fished with returning guest Joseph Lewis, accompanied by first-time guest, Hugo Greenway, a ranch hand at Joseph’s beef cattle operation here in Central Texas on the banks of the Lampasas River.

When Joseph is not tending to cattle, he runs Lewis Construction and Welding (www.LewisCW.com) where no welding job is too big or too small.

TODAY’S DATE: 09 March 2026 (AM)


NEXT OPEN DATES FOR FISHING: 24 March (AM or PM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Joseph Lewis and Hugo Greenway enjoyed a 113-fish catch during their 4-hour fishing trip on Lake Belton. That largest fish Hugo is holding measured 14.75″ — a really solid fish for Lake Belton.

FIND LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/


WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton


SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

If you’ve fished with me, you’ve probably heard me say I’d prefer to catch one fish on topwater than ten fish any other way. Given that we enjoyed some decent topwater action last week, I went hoping (but not expecting) we’d see a recurrence today, but, the impacts of the weekend’s cold front overrode that and we wound up having to fish other than on the surface, despite having good cloud and wind conditons.

We got on fish right away and stuck with them right up until around 11:10, when they finally shut down after a 3-plus hour feed.

We found our fish shallow early (18′) and moved deeper as the light levels increased, ending up in ~27′.

We found one tactic worked well, and although other tactics might have produced given how aggressive these fish were this morning, we just stuck with what was working.

What was working was racing a white, 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slab with stinger hook up off the bottom for at least five cranks, or until the lure was at least two cranks higher than the shallowest fish showing on LiveScope. This is the same tactic as “slow-smoking”, only the retrieve speed is substantially higher (86 to 92 cranks per minute).

In this manner, Joseph and Hugo put exactly 113 fish in the boat, including two largemouth bass, one short hybrid striped bass, and 110 white bass, with the largest (a personal best for Hugo) measuring 14.75″.

The peak activity this morning ran from 8:30 to 9:30 during which time it was a landed fish or hooked and missed fish on every other drop or so. These fish were moving very quickly as they swam parallel to the bottom and often as much as 1/3 of the way up in the water column.

Although bird were present, the fish were not really presenting topwater targets for them, so they covered a lot of ground and were not reliable for fish-finding on this particular morning.

RESULTS: 113 fish, all caught and released

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW “SLOW SMOKE” A BLADED HAZY EYE SLAB VERTICALLY: Click here for tutorial

OBSERVATIONS:

-Next to no topwater action today following a weekend cooldown.

-Fishing has improved dramatically with this early spring warmup we are in the midst of

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Taken on Lake Belton on 05 March 2026, approx. 6:20AM…

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