First Catch of a Lifetime – 40 Fish

CLIENTS: This morning, Monday, June 1, I fished a second consecutive trip with two kids who had never caught a fish nor ever been out fishing before. Dr. David Butler treated his grandkids, Gwen and Luke Hansford, ages 12 and 7 respectively, to this morning‘s fishing trip on Lake Belton.

TODAY’S DATE: 01 June 2026 (PM)


NEXT OPEN DATES FOR FISHING: 02 July 2026 (AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Luke Hansford (age 7), Dr. David Butler, and Gwen Hansford (age 12) with the kids’ first fish ever caught — Lake Belton white bass which came from bottom in 42 feet of water.

PHOTO CAPTION: We used tightlined doughbait to fool these bluecat in the final hour of our trip.

PHOTO CAPTION: Luke caught our one and only hybrid this morning in an area which produced mainly white bass — all came on the MAL Dense with silver body and chartreuse tail.

PHOTO CAPTION: The abundant flooded vegetation around the perimeter of Lake Belton is holding plenty of sunfish right up along the shoreline now.

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


WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton


SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

My plan was to follow the path of lease resistance. By that, I mean, if something took too much effort without producing results, we left it behind and moved onto the next thing. First, I looked for active schools of white bass chasing shad in shallow water by using a combination of side-imaging and downriggers, but that simply did not produce this morning.

Next, I used all but Garmin LiveScope (i.e. 2D, DI, and SI) to search for fish hugging bottom in mid depths from 30 to 40 feet deep. We found some limited success and the kids put eight fish in the boat, including seven white bass and one hybrid striper after I tried to quickly get them through the learning curve of reeling smoothly, and continuing to reel once they saw on sonar that their presentations were being chased as they used the smoking tactic equipped with MAL Dense lures.

After that, we moved onto fishing for sunfish up in shallow, flooded cover. That produced 21 fish.

Next, we went out into deep open water and targeted blue catfish on an area I had baited out before my crew’s arrival this morning. That produced seven blue cat and one channel cat.

We landed these fish tightlining doughbait using spinning tackle, assisted by Garmin LiveScope. The LiveScope let us know when fish were drawing near, at which time I coached everyone to then keep their eyes on their rod tip for the sign of a strike.

We closed out the trip heading back up shallow for sunfish, boating a final three sunfish and bringing the kids’ first fishing trip’s total to exactly 40 fish.

With summer vacation season upon us, a majority of my summertime trips will include younger children with limited or no experience, so I have found that by trying to set them up for success by offering a variety of fishing types and by building in transitions by moving as soon as I see them begin to lose interest, kids typically have a good time and catch plenty of fish.

RESULTS: 40 fish, all caught and released

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW WORK AN MAL LURE VERTICALLY: 

OBSERVATIONS:
-USACE is running water through the Belton Dam at a rate of 412 CFS.

-No helpful bird action today.

-I measured 2.70″ of rainfall between 8P and 4A on 25/26 May. This has brought Belton up to 1.87 feet above full pool, although it began to fall once again starting today, 01 June.

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Taken on Lake Belton on 24 May 2026, approx. 6:25AM…

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