AFTER HURRICANE HANNA – 102 FISH

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, 27 July, I fished with Mr. Terry Spidell of Harker Heights, TX, accompanied by his two grandsons, 17-year-old Kristian Barr, and 12-year-old Adrian Booker, also of Harker Heights.

Terry joined me once before, accompanied by his son back in May when the fish were still bottom-oriented and the water much cooler, so, today was a very different sort of trip fishing for bait-oriented fish with an existing thermocline.

Lake Belton white bass fishing
PHOTO CAPTION: Terry Spidell, Adrian Booker, and Kristian Barr with a portion of our 102-fish catch.

WHEN WE FISHED: 27 July, 2020, AM

HOW WE FISHED: After laying off the fishing this weekend due to poor conditions generated by Hurricane Hanna, I was back at it this morning under solid conditions, complete with grey cloud cover and SE winds.

The cloud cover was actually a bit heavier than desired, with some light drizzle falling until around 7:10. The fish got off to a later start thanks to the dreary, grey skies, but, around 7:15 things started to happen and the fishing stayed solid right up to around 9:20, then tapered down over the hour that followed.

We started off casting MAL lures to topwater feeding fish for about 40 minutes up shallow, in under 22 feet of water. Once they quit, there was no residual downrigger bite to be had, so we moved on.

Over the next 75 minutes an open-water topwater bite began, peaked, and fell, allowing for downrigging, sight-casting, and some vertical work with MAL lures.

By 9:30, we’d landed 88 fish and hoped to hit 100 by 10:30. We moved to a new area to try to find some fish with the downriggers which we could then sit atop of and work MAL lures vertically for. As it turned out, the fish we found were pretty scattered, so, we just stuck with the downriggers. At 10:30, we had 95 fish, and I told the boys we’d fish until 10:45 or until we hit 100, whichever came first. They redoubled their efforts at keeping up with the downriggers and playing their fish well. By 10:40, we hit 102, thanks to a couple doubles

TALLY: 102 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:  Although the low-light topwater action lasted the longest I’ve seen so far this summer, there was no open water feed thereafter from 8-10AM in the locations such feeding had occurred Mon. – Wed. this week.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  6:20A

End Time: 10:45A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Elevation:  1.26′ low, 0.00′ 24-hour change thanks to light rains over the weekend spawned by Hurricane Hanna, 34 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:  85F

Wind Speed & Direction: SE5-6 all morning

Moon Phase: First Quarter Moon

GT = 60

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area B0123C low-light topwater

**Area B0123C – shallow topwater action & downrigging

**Area B0105C – shallow topwater action, downrigging, and some vertical work

**Area vic B0024G – late morning fish feeding from bottom to halfway up in the water column in ~25-27′

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)

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle