WHO I FISHED WITH: After my morning trip with the Pennington party, I laid over during the midday, ate some Christmas leftovers on the boat, and welcomed the Ramsey party aboard at 1:30 this past Friday afternoon. Mrs. Jennifer Ramsey coordinated everything for her husband, U.S. Army Chaplain Jim Ramsey, Jim’s 14-year-old son, Jadon, and Jim’s father-in-law, Roger Nord, who traveled in from Arizona for the holidays where he makes his living in the paint industry.
As is the case all throughout the cool water period from late October through mid-March, largemouth bass show up routinely as a by-catch as we work for white bass, especially when we’re working anywhere near timber, which was the case when this chunky black bass struck.
From left: Roger Nord, Jadon Ramsey, and Chaplain Jim Ramsey with a half-dozen of the 100 fish we landed this evening.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip focused on white bass.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Friday, December 28, 2018
HOW WE FISHED: As we began this afternoon’s trip, I started off by looking at some areas I had not fished in the morning, but which were similar in bottom composition and depth. This turned out well for us, as we found ample bait and gamefish at three of the four places we inspected. If there was any difference between the evening bite and this morning’s bite, it was that the fish were a bit deeper, and, especially during the peak wind period of the day (from 1:30 to 3:30), the bite was a bit more aggressive.
We relied upon snap-jigging at all but our first stop. At that first stop, while the wind was up, we put a majority of our catch in the boat via a smoking tactic using a moderate cadence. From 3:30 on, the fish activity backed off a notch, and, in our last hour, we really had to work to put our final 16 fish in the boat to go from a tally of 84 fish at 4:35 to 100 an hour later. The one and only bait we used was the 3/8 oz. slab with my Hazy Eye Stinger hooks attached. White did the trick.
TALLY: 100 fish caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 1:30p
End Time: 5:30p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 51F
Water Surface Temp: 53.7F
Wind Speed & Direction: WInds blew at N10-11 all day with slightly higher gusts between noon and 3:30pm.
Sky Conditions: Cloudless, post-frontal blue skies
Water Level: 3.62′ high with an overnite rise of 1.22 feet and a flow of 1612 cfs
GT = 18
#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area vic 1697 (with 2 short hops)
**Area vic 1827
**Area B0121C
**Area vic 817 to 1671
**Area vic 2039
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