Fishin’ with the Dead Duck Discharge Dude – 128 Fish

CLIENTS: This morning, Thursday, October 29, I welcomed aboard returning guests Stiles Parker and his friend, Brent Ellis. Joining me for the first time was Brent‘s fiancé, Victoria Mathis of Lexington, Texas.

All three anglers are fine, taxpaying, American citizens with respectable jobs … but it wasn’t always so.

No, by his own admission, Brent, who grew up near Dimebox, Texas, was once paid to physically grab ahold of non-frozen dead ducks and toss them convincingly for dog-owning chaps at a retrieving contest so their high-dollar dogs had something realistic to go and fetch. And, not just any toss would do. These ducks had to be flung by one foot and one wing so they would “pancake” (kind of like a cast net). For his trouble, Brent was paid $60/day for a 2-day weekend event, with a $20 bonus if he made the entire two days. Evidently, many did not make it, as the conditions were cold and wet, notwithstanding the buckets full of frigid fowl intended for tossing. It may come as no surprise that Brent is now a utility lineman.

TODAY’S DATE: 27 October 2026 (AM)


NEXT OPEN MORNING DATES: 28 Oct., 24, 30 Nov., 2-4 Dec. 2026

PHOTO CAPTION: As fall moves into winter, our “bycatch” of species other than our target species (white bass) always increases right into late February. Today, we picked up 4 largemouth and 5 hybrid striped bass on the MAL Dense worked vertically between 19 and 54 feet of water, moving from shallow to deep as the morning progressed.

PHOTO CAPTION: From left, that’s Stiles Parker, Brent Ellis, and Victoria Mathis. This crew worked together with some good-natured competition amongst them for a 128-fish catch under cloudy, breezy conditions.

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

This morning was just a very pleasant autumn morning here in Central Texas. The temperature at sunrise was in the mid 60s, and did not warm very much thanks to increasing cloud cover throughout the morning. We enjoyed a gentle southeast wind the entire time, and, in the final hour, that wind brought in some light, continuous rain from the southwest, which would continue well into the evening.

The fishing continues to be very consistent and productive thanks to the fall cool down spurred on by two significant cold fronts so far this season, one on 01 Oct., and the other on 16 Oct.

We began our trip up shallow in the 20 foot range, hitting two areas and working them vertically with the MAL Dense lure, using a smoking tactic and taking full advantage of the benefit of a splashing device as well as keeping eyes beneath the boat by way of Garmin LiveScope. As the totally obscured sun rose and began to brighten the sky through the cloud cover, the shallow bite moved deeper. We caught a few fish in the 30 foot range just before 9:30, then finished up the trip fishing deeper, clearer, more open water in our final two hours.

As has been the case over the past two weeks or so, the latter half of the morning has produced both more fish and better quality fish than the early half of the morning.

There was no need to do anything other than work the MAL Dense using the smoking tactic today, as the fish responded to it quite well.

By trip’s end, my three anglers had landed 128 fish, including 4 largemouth bass, 5 hybrid striped bass, and 119 white bass.

RESULTS: 128 fish, all caught and released

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

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

SEE THE “SMOKING TACTIC” TUTORIAL HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

OBSERVATIONS:
-This fall’s second significant cold front came in on 16 Oct., dropping overnight lows to 48F with winds 25-40mph all day on 16 Oct. This has put the white bass fishing into overdrive. More fish are now in more places, and all are using bottom once again, thus making locating them much simpler than during the extended summer we just lived through when fish were largely suspended.

-After catching fish at 48′ on 27 Oct., which was the deepest I’d encountered fish since last spring, I found fish on bottom even deeper today, at 54′. There is still a sulphuric odor at the dam, so complete turnover has not yet taken place, but the level to which oxygenated water has sunk to is just below this 54′ mark — much deeper than the ~43′ mark it was at all summer.

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Taken on Lake Belton on 27 Oct. 2026, approx. 7:00AM…

Taken on Lake Belton on 21 Oct. 2026, approx. 7:10AM…