WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, October 15th, I fished with returning guests Oscar Leal and Dwight Stone, both of Georgetown.
You may recall Oscar is on his seventh career after retiring approximately 6 times now, and currently works at AMD in Austin, and Dwight recently retired after owning a string of Sonic restaurants.
PHOTO CAPTION: Dwight Stone landed his personal best smallmouth bass today on Lake Belton. As we jigged vertically for white bass, we heard and saw some near-shore commotion. As it turned out, a mix of largemouth and smallmouth bass were feeding on shad, pinning them against the surface under abundant cloud cover.
PHOTO CAPTION: The staple of our trip was white bass, which we caught on downrigged spoons, on vertically presented tailspinners, and on slabs.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: 15 October 2019, AM
HOW WE FISHED: I was excited about our prospects this morning based on the weather forecast (shown below). That forecast, however, did not materialize. Instead of a SW wind, we had a SE wind; instead of 10mph breeze, we had 5-8 mph breezes; and, instead of 75% cloud cover, we had very thick, 100% cloud cover. The fish were just noticeably sluggish this morning. I noted that not nearly as many fish came up to feed shallow this morning, only a few very active individuals rose upward in the water column to take our downrigged baits early on, and then the slabs we offered were typically refused in favor of smaller, more heavily vibrating tailspinners.
We downrigged from first light until the fish dictated we do something different, resulting in just 19 fish during the low-light period. As the wind backed off from 8 to 5 mph, getting a deep-water bite going was also a bit of a challenge. Fish would fire up, then cool off, then a few more would fire up, then the school would cool off again.
We saw a noticeable preference for tailspinners which, over the summer, have become a ‘new favorite’ for white bass in tough conditions. We worked on white bass through 10:15 AM, then left ourselves an hour plus to specifically pursue blue catfish, per Dwight’s request. We wrapped up the white bass fishing with 71 fish landed, including 2 hybrid stripers, 3 smallmouth bass, 1 largemouth bass, and 65 white bass in the 0-2 year classes. All but the largemouth and smallmouth came on gentle slopes in 28-33 feet of water.
I expressed my concerns about ‘leaving fish to find fish’ to Dwight and Oscar, giving them an illustration trying to draw a parallel between this and an ill patient leaving the hospital against medical advice. They assured me they were okay with leaving active white bass behind, so, in pursuit of blue catfish we went. This morning we caught far more catfish on bottom than we did while fishing with our baits suspended. I experimented with my new pink doughbait formula, and it worked very well. We were typically able to get at least two powerful hooksets per bait. We still relied on chum to consolidate fish that were already present, as seen on sonar. We landed 26 catfish, including 3 channel cats and 23 blue cats.
TALLY: 97 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS:
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:50A
End Time: 11:30A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F
Elevation: 1.78 feet low, 0.02′ 24-hour fall, 34 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 76.8F
Wind Speed & Direction: SE8 at trip’s start, falling off to SE5 by 9:00A and staying there the remainder of the trip.
Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover for the entirety of the trip, with several brief periods of rainfall
GT = 55
#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1805 – center of mass for downrigging; 19 fish
**Area 1666/1909 – sluggish white bass in 28′
**Area vic 1819 – sluggish white bass in 30′
**Area vic 1815 – white bass in 32′
**Area B0178C – catfish
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