100 FISH & 1,000 QUESTION — CAMDEN THORNAL’S BIRTHDAY TRIP

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning, 07 November, I fished with the Thornal family — Eric and Michelle, and their kids, Camden and Maddie.  Michelle’s mom, Donna, also joined us.  This event was in celebration of Camden’s 8th birthday. It was a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip specifically for the kids, so the duration was shorter than for an adult trip, and only the kids did the fishing.

Camden, who, according to his mom, watches hours and hours of fishing videos on YouTube, must have asked a thousand questions this morning, but, his first one was the one that impressed me most.  He asked, “Will we be using the MAL Lure today?!?”.

I said, “Wow, you must have done your homework.”  He explained that his neighbor, Mr. Holle, had told him about the lure, after which Camden went and watched the tutorial video about that bait.

I greatly appreciate the Niemeier/Haberer crew referring this family my way.

 

PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: That’s 8-year-old Camden, the birthday boy, joined by his mom and dad, Michelle and Eric, and by his 10-year-old sister, Maddie.  The kids landed exactly 100 fish this morning.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday (AM), 07 November 2020

HOW WE FISHED:

Well, we pulled a rabbit out of the hat this morning!  Under clear, calm conditions, we fished just two areas and pulled 91 white bass from Lake Belton in right at 3 hours’ time before the white bass put on the brakes.  This family must be living right, because those kind of results don’t typically happen with that kind of weather.

We found one small patch of white bass in about 36 feet of water just as the sun was rising and caught our first 8 fish there (at Area 1791) and, more importantly, got the kids trained up on how to use the MAL Lure, working the kinks out of their retrieve and cadence.  These fish only stayed fired up around 15 minutes or so.

We moved on and searched out a group of fish near the old river channel.  They were hard to made out on sonar because of the presence of timber, but, once we got them fire up, they stayed active for nearly 2 solid hours.  Many of these were small fish, but, with kids, quantity is much more important than quality, so we stuck with these fish as long as they lasted.  Once the kids showed they were able to use the MAL Lure  well, I layered in Garmin LiveScope, and, with mom and grandma Donna helping Maddie and Eric helping Camden.

By the time 9:45 rolled around, our fish count stood at 91 white bass and the fishing was dying hard.  I wasn’t sure if the shallows would warm up enough to draw sunfish given the cool overnight temperatures, but, I brought sunfish tackle so as to be able to offer the kids variety.

We put our final 30+ minutes into sunfishing up shallow and, by 10:35, put our 100th fish in the boat.  The 9 sunfish the kids landed included bluegill, green, and longear sunfish.

See the MAL Lure here: https://whitebasstools.com/

See tutorial video on how to work the MAL Lure here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE&t=239s

TALLY: 100 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:   No helpful bird activity witnessed this morning.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  6:45A

End Time: 10:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 50F

Elevation:  0.56′ low with a 0.02’ 24-hour drop and 0 CFS flow thru the dam

Water Surface Temp: 65.5F

Wind Speed & Direction:   Light and variable all morning

Sky Condition: Clear skies and calm winds all morning

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous at 61% illumination

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1791; 8 white bass on MAL Lures (SP)

**Area 355/1152 ; 83 fish (1 largemouth, 82 white bass) on MAL Lures (SP)

**Area B0045G; 9 sunfish on bait under slipfloats

 

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

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