WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, Monday, September 23rd, I fished with first-time clients Cory Delz and Travis Caraway.  Both fellows work at Georgetown-based construction firm Embree Group.  Cory has followed my blog entries for quite some time and, with his curiosity piqued about successful summertime downrigging in particular, decided to give me a call and experience things firsthand.  Thanks to cooperative weather conditions, it was a great day to “show-and-tell” a number of different tactics on Lake Belton.

PHOTO CAPTION:    Cory Delz (left) and Travis Caraway with a few of the mixed bag of 103 fish landed on Lake Belton this morning.  Included in our catch were white bass, hybrid striped bass, largemouth bass, and blue catfish.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR:  White bass & blue catfish

WHERE WE FISHED:  Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED:  23 September 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED:     We put together a 5-part trip this morning.  Part 1 was sight casting to surface feeding white bass and hybrid stripers.  Pets spoons did the trick for the ~30 minutes of action.  The run of fish we landed was the best in overall size/quality of the trip.

Part 2 – we sight cast to schooling largemouth popping small shad under bright conditions after the sustained topwater bite ended.  Smallest Pet Spoons were preferred although these fish were very stubborn regardless of what was thrown.

Part 3 – we downrigged in the vicinity of routinely surfacing “popcorn” white bass with balls set at both 15′ and 30′.  Added ~20 fish to the count with multiple doubles and triples.

Part 4 – we downrigged to find fish I could demonstrate the Garmin LiveScope with and were fortunate to quickly find what we were after.  We sat atop a single school of whites and boated 50+ fish before they tapered off.

Part 5 – spent the last few minutes Cory and Travis could stay using punchbait for bluecat chummed up with range cubes.  Landed 8 and missed a bunch more as the fellows went through the hooksetting learning curve right at first.

TALLY:  103 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:   6:45am

End Time: 11:15am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Elevation:  1.12 feet low, 0.05′ 24-hour fall, 34 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:   82.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE8-11 all morning

Sky Conditions: 40% grey cloud cover in the eastern sky at sunrise, then dissipating to 20% thereafter

GT = 40

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:     

 

 AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 793 to 1788 to 1746 – 21 fish to start the morning with a low-light topwater feed (6 short hybrid, 15 white bass)

**Area vic 1918 – spotty largemouth bass topwater action

**Area  B0175C to B0176C – downrigging with balls at 15′ and 30′ in the vicinity of routinely surface-feeding whites which stayed up only briefly under bright conditions

**Area  163 to B0129C – found fish with downriggers; exploited what we found using LiveScope and tailspinners – 50+ aggressive fish landed here

**Area 993/1940 – finished up here on chummed bluecat on punchbait with the time we had left – 8 landed, as least as many missed bites; left them biting.

 

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

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