11 | October | 2020 | Fishing Report

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday afternoon, October 10^th, I fished with a crew hailing from West Virginia.

Mr. Jason Thompson drove down to Texas from West Virginia to visit his son, Brenden, who is a field artilleryman stationed at Fort Hood. Accompanying Jason was his girlfriend, Heather Moore, and Heather’s 15-year-old son, T.J. Goodman.

Back in Morgantown, WV, Jason works in the maintenance field, Heather is in the handy-woman business doing cleaning and running errands for others, and T.J. is working his way toward high school graduation.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: TJ Goodman, Jason and Brenden Thompson, and Heather Moore with a sampling of our 125 fish catch, all taken on MAL Lures worked vertically in the lower third of the water column from 35 to 44 feet deep.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday (PM), 10 October 2020

HOW WE FISHED:

Despite weather which was 180-degrees different from today’s morning trip, this afternoon’s efforts turned out well.

We had near-90F temperatures today with clear, bright skies and light SSW winds as upper level high pressure pushed out the last of Hurricane Delta’s anti-clockwise winds and cloud cover by mid-day.

After spending some time bringing everyone up to speed on exactly how to use the MAL Lure, we fished only two distinct areas, making multiple “short hops” at both to put a total of 125 white bass in the boat this evening in right at 4 hours.

Every last fish was taken on either a white or chartreuse MAL Lure fished with a “smoking” style retrieve in 35-44 feet of water.

I just released a new video about using the MAL Lure and so thinking through the wording on the script for that video helped me improve my coaching for clients. You can see that video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE&t=151s

The first area we hit showed fish carpeting the bottom in 40-44 feet of water. It produced well from 3:30P through 6P, then went flat. We moved and fished up a bit shallower and found another hour’s worth of action in about 35-38 feet of water. By 7P, the sun had set and I’d really talked up Miller’s Smokehouse (which closes at 8P on Saturdays), so, we reeled lines in right at 7:00 and headed to the dock so Jason and crew could enjoy some Texas BBQ before heading back east.

TALLY: 125 fish caught and released (100% white bass)

OBSERVATIONS: We saw unseasonably high afternoon temperatures today at 91F, with a forecast for even warmer highs tomorrow, then a cold front is due in for Monday with a mid-to-late-week cooldown expected thereafter.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 3P

End Time: 7P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 87F

Elevation: 0.03′ high with a 0.01’ 24-hour drop and 34 CFS flow thru the dam

Water Surface Temp: 77.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW3-4

Sky Condition: <5% white cloud cover on a blue sky

Moon Phase: Last Quarter (a waning moon at 45% illum.)

GT = 20

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0009C to B0010C to B0184C — multiple short hops through 6P for 82 fish

**Areas vic B0044G – 2 short hops from 6-7P for a final 43 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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

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

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#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning, October 10^th, I fished with the Hinshaw family from right here in Central Texas.

Denny and Cindy treated their 7-year-old son, Grant, to this fishing trip for his birthday, on the recommendation of several co-workers in the anesthesia department at Baylor Scott & White in Temple where Cindy has worked for many years as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist.

This was a “Kids Fish, Too!” packed trip, just for Grant, but, as always, I encouraged Grant’s parents to bring their licenses to they could be as “hands-on” as possible helping me help Grant be successful.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: Cindy, Grant, and Denny Hinshaw with a few of the white bass we landed via a combination of downrigging and vertical jigging with MAL Lures.

PHOTO CAPTION #2: Cindy Hinshaw holds our largest fish taken this Saturday morning — a 3.75 pound hybrid striped bass which raced about 25 feet off bottom to overtake her MAL Lure and grab it about 12 feet below the surface.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday (AM), 10 October 2020

HOW WE FISHED: To keep things interested for 7-year-old Grant, I planned on as much variety as the weather and season would allow for. We downrigged early, we fished MAL Lures vertically in the mid-part of our trip, and wrapped up sunfishing in the shallows.

The downrigging was as good as I’ve seen it in the past several weeks. A handful of boats, all working vertically, struck out, moved out of the area, and allow for long, full sweeps of the contours where I was finding fish. We landed non-stop singles and doubles of 1- and 2-year class fish from the first drop of the downrigger balls just after 7A through to 8:20 when the bite slacked off.

We moved on to deeper water, found fish congregated with bait in their midst, and went to work with MAL Lures worked with a smoking retrieve in a vertical format from our fixed position above them with the boat held steady via Spot-Lock.

Grant did surprisingly well keeping the cadence necessary to do well on this tactic, landing a fish on his third iteration and then never looking back as he piled the fish in the boat.

After a 37-fish run here, it was around 9:50A, and I sensed a change of venue would be a good idea. We retooled for shallow-water sunfishing, headed up shallow, and coached Grant to a 28 sunfish streak landed in just 30 minutes.

We wrapped up right at the 3.5 hour mark with exactly 100 fish landed for our efforts.

TALLY: 100 fish caught and released (71 white bass, 1 hybrid striper, 28 sunfish)

OBSERVATIONS: For the second Saturday in a row lake traffic was enjoyably light thanks to archery season taking some outdoorsmen off the water, cool temperatures taking recreational boaters off the water, and the academic year pulling families away to school-related sports and activities.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7A

End Time: 10:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 61F

Elevation: 0.03′ high with a 0.01’ 24-hour drop and 34 CFS flow thru the dam

Water Surface Temp: 75.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: Light and variable

Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover all morning, with patchy fog on the drive to the boat ramp

Moon Phase: Last Quarter (a waning moon at 45% illum.)

GT = 45

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS: