Day: December 11, 2018

2 MEN, 4 HOURS, 109 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Dec. 11th, I fished with father and son team Doyle and Heath Wooten.  Heath recently acquired the former Thomas’ Bait Shop located at the bustling corner of FM1431 and Hwy. 281 in Marble Falls, TX.  The store has now reflagged as Waymore Bait & Tackle.  Although primarily engaged in wholesale bait sales (with a healthy sideline in firewood sales), Heath is expanding into retail and has a solid plan to do so.

Heath Wooten landed this 7.25 pound largemouth (which was blind in its right eye) on a 3/8 oz. Hazy Eye Shad Slab with stinger hook attached as we worked over a school of white bass.  The bass’ gaping mouth was more than capable of gulping down some of the smaller white bass we boated today.

Heath Wooten (left), and his dad, Doyle, quickly took to snap jigging this morning and caught white bass from start to finish on their 4-hour trip — 109 fish in all.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR:  This was a multi-species trip focused on white bass.  

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday morning,  December 11, 2018

HOW WE FISHED:    The morning began bright, windless, and cold, following a cold front which moved through over the weekend.  Today’s forecast called for the return of a southerly wind and some light cloud cover, so, we remained hopeful that these would materialize.  Fishing was predictably slow until around 7:45 when the lightest breeze began to ripple the water.  Fishing steadily picked up around 8am, peaked around 8:30 to 9:30, then began tapering off around 10.  Snap-jigging was our go-to tactic this morning although during the peak time from 8:30 to 9:30 we did have some opportunities to use a smoking tactic for active, suspended fish.

From 10:30 to 11:00, mainly because Doyle and Heath were more interested in learning various techniques than they were in running up their fish count, we switched over to deadsticking in deep water, adding about 10 more fish to our tally as they went through the learning curve on this very slow, intentional method of presenting a horizontally oriented bait to more lethargic fish.

During our time on the water, we enjoyed a by-catch of 4 largemouth bass including a 7.25 pound fish, a 4-pound class fish, and 2 dinks.  We also caught a number of drum up to 17 inches, as well as 4 hybrid striped bass, all short of the 18″ minimum.

OBSERVATIONS:     Hybrid have been hard to come by lately — the only hybrid I’ve seen have moved beneath the boat in small wolfpacks at mid-depth in the water column as I’ve sat stationary vertically jigging for white bass.  They’ve made up an unusually low percentage of my catch on all of my trips since the mid-October flooding. Also, some light bird action assisted us in finding fish during the 8:30-930 peak bite.

TALLY: 109 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 32F

Water Surface Temp: 54.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: Calm at trip’s start, turning light S. by 8:30a, then increasing slowly up to S9 by trip’s end.

Sky Conditions:  Bright and cloudless at trip’s start, clouding up to 40+% thin white clouds by trip’s end

Water Level:  3.46′ high and rising slowly after last Thursday and Friday’s 2.8″ of rain, and a flow of 1,116 cfs

GT = 45

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:   

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  B0110C – snap jigging

**Area vic 738 – snap jigging

**Area  B0111C  – snap jigging and smoking

**Area B0112C to 099 to B0110C –  – snap jigging after the peak bite

**Area 473/B0103C – deadsticking

 

 

Bob Maindelle, Belton Lake Fishing Guide

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

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle