WINDS FROM THE WEST, FISH BITE BEST – 64 FISH @ BELTON

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, Monday, September 16th, I fished with first-time client Dwight Stone of Georgetown, TX.  Dwight recently retired from operating a string of Sonic restaurants and intends to get back to his fishing roots in his retirement.  The purpose of this morning’s trip was two-fold; first, we went to catch fish, and second, Dwight wanted to see Lowrance, Humminbird, and Garmin sonar products in use in real-world applications so he could choose wisely when rigging up his Ranger bass boat.  We accomplished both of those objectives this morning.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION:    Dwight Stone with the one and only hybrid striped bass we landed this morning.  It came as a “double” on a three-armed umbrella rig.  Hooked right along side the hybrid was a 2-year class white bass.  I thought it unusual that the fish looked lean in the belly given the tremendous amount of bait in the area.

PHOTO CAPTION:    Dwight Stone with a pair of white bass.  We caught fish just about everywhere we looked this morning.  I believe this past weekend’s poor conditions (bright, hot, calm), followed by this morning’s favorable conditions (west wind) combined to get fish in a feeding mood.

 WHAT WE FISHED FOR:  White bass & blue catfish

WHERE WE FISHED:  Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED:  16 September 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED:    I wanted to give Dwight a solid overview of Belton’s fishery, so, we downrigged for white bass in 4 separate locations, we vertical jigged with tailspinners, and we fished for suspended blue catfish, all while covering a good bit of water so Dwight could see the various segments of the lake.

The low-light, shallow (<18′) bite was on, giving up 2-year class white bass on the downriggers at our first stop.  We then encountered smaller white bass caught on downriggers set at 22′ at our second stop and therefore moved on.  At our third stop we found a mix of young-of-the-year white  bass and 2-year class fish, plus a bonus hybrid all caught via downrigging with balls set at 26-28 feet.  In order to leave time to gun for bluecat, we left these fish biting and headed elsewhere for catfish.

The blues were easy once a density of suspended fish were found on sonar.  I got range cubes down to consolidate the fish, then followed up with punchbait on trebles to seal the deal.  We fished at 34 feet over a 40 foot bottom for these fish, all of which ran 13-16 inches — lots of fun on light spinning gear.

We closed out the trip right at 10:30 with one final round of downrigging which gave up two sets of triples (all three lures on the 3-armed umbrella rig caught fish), as well as a few singles.

Right at 10:30 I got Dwight back to shore per his request to honor his exercise class commitment he made to his wife.

TALLY:  64 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: No prolonged topwater action today.  I thought it just might happen, but, the wind was a bit stiff (to the point of lightly whitecapping) and it did not materialize.  The westerly wind definitely had fish in a feeding mode today.  If we found them, they bit!

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:   6:45am

End Time: 10:35am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Elevation:  0.86 feet low, 0.2′ 24-hour fall, 34 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:   82.9F

Wind Speed & Direction:  W10-12 through 7:50, then scaling back to W5-6 for remainder of trip

Sky Conditions: 20% cloud cover in the eastern sky at sunrise, then dissipating to nil 

GT =  5

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:     

 

 AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1802 to 813 low light downrigging for whites

**Area B0174C center of mass for downrigging for whites (attempted vertical work twice; fish not interested)

**Area vic 993 – range cube/punchbait blue cats

**Area 1291 center of mass for downrigging for whites

 

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

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