Deployed Downriggers ASAP – 95 Fish

CLIENTS: This morning, Wednesday, June 10, I continued an annual tradition for Mr. Stephen Simank from the Georgetown area. Each year Stephen has his grandkids come in from West Texas for a summer visit and, up until now, has taken his granddaughter, Owen (now age 10) out fishing with me.

This year, Owen’s brother, Harvey, age 6, was deemed old enough to participate.

As I always do in trips involving young kids, I discussed my plan with Stephen ahead of time so he and I were on the same sheet of music were one or both of the kids not able to make it through the entire 3.5 hours – which is a very real possibility in the Texas summer heat.

Stephen and his son, Kyle, run Guns Plus on Austin Ave. in Georgetown ( https://www.gunsplus.net/ ).

ABOUT “KIDS FISH, TOO!” TRIPS:  Kids Fish, Too! trips are intended just for the kids. They are considerably less expensive than standard trips ($215 for up to 2 kids vs. $315 for up to 2 adults; and more can be added), and typically go a maximum of 3.5 hours versus 4-plus hours for standard trips.  On these trips, licensed adults who desire to do so often help me help the kids be successful by baiting hooks, untangling lines, resetting our downrigger spreads, etc. so the kids’ efforts are maximized, but, the adults do not fish.

TODAY’S DATE: 10 June 2026 (PM)


NEXT OPEN DATES FOR FISHING: 6, 10 July 2026 (AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: Mr. Stephen Simank continued a fishing tradition with his 10-year-old granddaughter, Owen, and began one with his nearly 7-year-old grandson, Harvey. The kids landed 95 fish with Stephen’s very capable assistance. Nice “Guns Plus” caps, ya’ll!!

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


WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton


SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

I got to the lake around 6:30 AM in advance of this crew’s arrival at 7 AM. I did a little scouting around and found a congregation of fish I felt we could downrig for, so, when everyone arrived, and after we got lifejackets on and went over overall the safety stuff, I deployed downriggers ASAP and then five minutes into it, Harvey was fast to a white bass double with fish coming on two of the three Luhr Jensen Pet Spoons on one of the two three-armed umbrella rig I had rigged up with.

On umbrella had #13s and the other had #12s.

Minutes later, Owen got a double of her own, then Harvey got another before the sun cleared the clouds and pushed the fish down and away from shore and sent us in a different direction.

This was the first time I’ve caught fish on the downriggers thus far in 2026, despite having them mounted for several weeks now. Both the quantity of fish up shallow early and the quantity of topwater feeding fish have been low thus far in the season as compared to years past.

With that chapter of the trip now closed, I took us up shallow for Round One of what would be two rounds of sunfishing. This is Owen’s favorite way to fish and it allowed for some “instant gratification“ which was going to be necessary to keep my six-year-old engaged. The kids made short work of 20 sunfish caught under floats on bait in under 5 feet of water before we went to invest some time in looking for better quality fish.

I spent just under an hour looking for the kind of easy white bass fishing that would keep the kids catching, not just fishing, but we really didn’t find that in the short time I had allotted for that this morning.

The kids landed two more white bass and one largemouth during this time, but I never found heavily schooled fish in numbers sufficient to keep the engaged without being overly technical, so, we closed out the trip with Round Two of sunfishing, landing all manner of sunfish and some spottails, as well. By the time 10:30 rolled around the kids had boated a total of 95 fish and we’re already talking about trying to break their record for next year.

Even days before the trip Owen was super-focused on catching more than the 81 fish she landed single-handedly during last summer‘s trip, and asked me with just about every other fish that came aboard how many we had landed up to that point so she was sure not to miss the record-breaking fish.

The 82nd fish came over the gunwales around 10:05, and the kids just kept on catching, making next year’s record an even tougher one to beat!

RESULTS: 95 fish, all caught and released

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW WORK AN MAL LURE VERTICALLY: 

OBSERVATIONS:
-USACE shut down the flow through the Belton Dam going from a rate of 412 CFS to just 64 CFS over the weekend, then reopened the gates, running 1060 cfs beginning on Monday, 08 June. That flow continued today, 10 June.

-No helpful bird action today.

-Lake Belton fell 0.07′ to 2.3′ above full pool

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Taken on Lake Belton on 08 June 2026, approx. 6:25AM…

Taken on Lake Belton on 02 June 2026, approx. 6:35AM…

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: https://www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle