Happy 7th Birthday, Grant! — 100 Fish @ Belton

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

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