WHO I FISHED WITH:     On Wednesday morning, August 14th, I fished with first-time clients Dr. Mike Reis and his wife, Barbara, of Belton, TX.  Mike is a family medicine doctor, and Barbara just retired from being a mom, only to take on a full-time job of being a grandma, with at least 3 new “clients” on the way from their two sons, one daughter, and their respective spouses!

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  Barbara Reis took this nice Lake Belton hybrid striped bass on a tailspinner fished vertically in an area loaded with bait and with white bass present, as well.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  Once again this morning the topwater blitz remained reliable, albeit short-lived.  About 35 minutes is all these fish will stay at the surface given the cloudless conditions we’ve had most morning for the past 3 weeks.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: White bass the entire trip, with an “intro” to both jugfishing and sunfishing (both to be shared with grandkids) mixed in

WHERE WE FISHED:  Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED:  14 August 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED:    This morning began like most morning under these last 3 weeks of stable weather, but the mid- to late-morning fishing was definitely enhanced by the wrinkle in the weather today triggered by an incoming, mild cold front.  The topwater blitz that has routinely taken place occurred again this morning, but afterwards we enjoyed some pre-frontal fish feeding activity, most of which was subsurface but aggressive.

We were able to locate active white bass the entire morning which responded best to downrigging, but also took horizontally retrieved bladebaits and vertically worked tailspinners.  These fish were very actively moving, hence, Spot-Locking over top of them did not really work very well as they just would not stay put.  The ability to see fish on side imaging, mark them, then downrig over them quickly on a subsequent pass put a lot of fish in the boat this morning in the form of both singles and doubles.

While we downrigged, we also kept an eye on 20 juglines we quickly set out, all baited with shad.  We got 8 pulldowns on 20 jugs in 2.25 hours, which resulted in 2 landed blue catfish (a lot of gar in the area told me we’d have a lot of “false alarms”, as well).

To close out the trip, and because Mike requested that I show him some options for fishing from his own boat which is not trolling-motor equipped (and because he and Barbara will be doing a lot of fishing with a lot of grandkids before long), I did a “demo” on shallow water sunfishing, providing them with some tips on rigging and bait selection which will help them help others be successful.

TALLY:  58 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: 1) We had a wrinkle in the weather today as a mild cold front hit at precisely 9:10am.  This allowed for an average topwater feed at low light, but, thanks to prefrontal activity and some cloud cover, there was a solid white bass bite beyond the topwater blitz this morning.  2) The slight change in the behavior of the topwater feeding fish I noted Monday and Tuesday mornings repeated itself again this morning.  Instead of moving parallel to the shore during their feed, the fish moved perpendicular to the shoreline from shallow to deep, finally leaving the surface while over ~40 feet of water.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:   6:30a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Elevation:  0.05 high, 0.03′ 24-hour fall, 34 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:   85.2

Wind Speed & Direction:  Prefrontal winds were light and variable generally from the south, then winds went NNW6-7 at 9:10 as the mild cold front hit

Sky Conditions:  High white haze over a blue sky just thick enough to cut some of the sun’s heat through 8:20, then increasing grey cloud cover up to 50% built in.

GT =  55

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:     NOAA nailed it today.  The forecast windshift of the incoming cold front was literally within minutes of the forecast shown on the day’s weather graph…

 

 AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1792 to 1804 for early morning topwater action with little post-topwater downrigging action today

**Area 788-172  for successful mid- to late-morning successful downrigging action with less successful blade bait and tailspinner attempts thrown in

**From Area  B0085C to to the small cove  – jugfishing for 2 bluecat and a lot of false alarms due to gar

**Area B0168C – sunfish intro for a half-dozen fish

 

 

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: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH:     On Tuesday morning, August 13th, I fished with returning guest Mr. Kelvin Gladden Sr. and his two sons, Kelvin Jr. and Tevin.  The elder Kelvin is now retired, his son, Kelvin, works locally for Walmart, and Tevin is in graduate school pursuing a Masters of Business Administration degree up in Alaska.

Kelvin’s last trip out with me saw him, Kelvin Jr., and two neighbors land 220 fish in the more fishing-friendly month of March (2018).  I was very upfront with Kelvin as he called to book this August trip that the fishing is pretty tough — and it was.  More important to him, though, was the chance to spend time with his sons while they were both in town.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  From left:  Kelvin Jr., Kelvin Sr., and Tevin Gladden, with a few of the beefy white bass we took during a brief morning topwater spree on Lake Belton via sight-casting.

PHOTO CAPTION: Tevin landed this just-legal hybrid striper on topwater as it mixed in with its white bass cousins.  We landed 3 other hybrid during this morning’s topwater binge, but, they were all around 14 inches.

 

 WHAT WE FISHED FOR: White bass early, then jug fishing for bluecat thereafter

WHERE WE FISHED:  Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED:  13 August 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED:    Fishing was August-tough already, made even tougher by a light wind situation this morning.  After a short topwater feed, things got very quiet.  We managed a few more white bass after the topwater blitz ended by using downriggers, then headed to shallower waters to give jugfishing a try.  We only landed 2 on cutbait this morning, but the most excitement was caused by the “two that got away”.  In both instances, we had free-floating juglines set out in the light winds.  Over the course of the set, we had approximately 8 tip up.  Two of these began to obviously cruise at a steady clip upwind, leaving no doubt there were fish attached.  As we approached the first “cruiser”, the fish spooked, thus pulling the jug so far under that we couldn’t grasp the line.  This happened 3 or 4 more times before we finally secured the line.  Kelvin Sr. was the “jug man” and tussled with the fish at boatside.  It was about a 3-foot longnose gar.  As sometimes happens with gar, this one had the hook in its bony snout and, without much “meat” for the hook to grab into, the hook pulled out as Kelvin tried to lift it aboard.  The second scenario involved an even larger fish which moved the jug about a quarter-mile upwind before we spotted it (as it had broken away from the rest of the flotilla of jugs).  On a number of occasions the fish plunged the jug well beneath the surface an kept it there for long whiles.  Eventually we got the gaff around the line only to have this fish, which was over 4′ long, get off, as well.  Because we couldn’t spot this jug for quite some time, I asked if we needed to consider abandoning the jug, thinking perhaps a yellow cat had tangled it in a subsurface snag.  Kelvin Sr. tactfully stated, “Well, Bob, you know inquiring minds want to know.”   I knew he wanted a look at whatever was big enough to pull that jug under, so we persisted and were at least treated to a glimpse of the mystery fish.

TALLY:  24 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:  The slight change in the behavior of the topwater feeding fish I noted yesterday morning repeated itself again this morning.  Instead of moving parallel to the shore during their feed, the fish moved perpendicular to the shoreline from shallow to deep, finally leaving the surface while over ~40 feet of water.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:   6:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Elevation:  0.08 high, 0.02′ 24-hour fall, 69 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:   85.2

Wind Speed & Direction:  S3-4 the entire trip

Sky Conditions:  High white haze over a blue sky just thick enough to cut some of the sun’s heat

GT =  0

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:     

 

 AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  018 to B0165C to 793 – topwater white bass under low light conditions

**Area  1791 to B0153C for post-topwater downrigged white bass

**Area  B0110C to 031 – jugfishing for 2 bluecat and 2 missed longnose gar

 

 

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: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle