WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Monday morning, November 23rd, I fished with returning guest Rick Snelgrooes of Liberty Hill, TX, his son Sean, Sean’s buddy from Orange Co., CA, Grant King, and Rick’s nephew-in-law, Tim Webster, from Ft. Collins, CO.
As I watched my crew make their way from the parking lot to the courtesy dock, my first comment was (only half-jokingly), “It looks like someone didn’t get the email.”
It was 50F and cloudy with a northeasterly breeze blowing, and Tim was wearing shorts and a hoodie. I had on 5 layers on my torso. I expressed my concerns but, Tim insisted he’d be okay, sharing that he occasionally golfs with snow falling up in Colorado.
With that, we headed out to hunt for fish.
PHOTO CAPTION #1: This was Monday morning’s crew, from left: Rick & Sean Snelgrooes, Grant King, and Tim “The Man in Shorts” Webster.
PHOTO CAPTION #2: Tim took this nice 8-pound bluecat in ~47 feet of water. Most of Tim’s prior experience has been fishing in saltwater on the Texas coast, or pursuing trout in Colorado and Wyoming streams. He was a quick-study and picked up on the MAL Lure tactics easily.
PHOTO CAPTION #3: Sean came up with a deep-water smallmouth from the same area where we picked up the bluecat. An abundance of shad had all sorts of fish pulled into this area.
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 23 November 2020
HOW WE FISHED:
Despite having fished my entire life, I still get excited when we get a combination of grey cloud cover and wind, just knowing that feeding fish are out there to be found. This morning, although the winds had an easterly component, it was still moving the water, and the grey cloud cover stuck around all morning.
Since I’ve fished nearly every day but Sundays and Thursdays since returning from Alaska in mid-September, I was able to compare/contrast today’s fishing which was influenced by an easterly wind, with the fishing on days with wind from other directions. I found that although the fish were willing to bite, they would “flare up” soon after we got our presentations down to them, go strong for a short while, then cool off more quickly than with a southerly or westerly wind. Thus, in today’s 4-hour trip, we moved a bit more (6 stops in all), whereas I’ve been able to put together a solid 4-hour trip with just 3-5 stops under more favorable wind conditions.
I also noted that we had more fish “pass” on our lures as they cruised by, thus having to “work” harder to catch a given number of fish.
Once again, 100% of our catch was taken on the MAL Lure this morning, in fact, I didn’t even bring any other rods as I was very certain that without a major change in weather and with the water temperature remaining stable, the fishes’ interest in the MAL Lure would continue.
In all, we landed 155 fish by using a smoking tactic in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope. Once everyone got the fundamentals of the MAL Lure retrieve down, I then introduced LiveScope to make them more efficient by seeing/knowing when to retrieve short and when to retrieve long, based on fish reactions to their presentations.
It was a good day and, to my surprise, Tim’s lips did not have a notably blue tint to them by the time he was ready to wrap them around some Miller’s Smokehouse fare following the trip.
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: 155 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: No helpful bird activity witnessed today.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:30A
End Time: 11:30A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 50F
Elevation: 0.80 low with a 0.03’ 24-hour fall, and 30 CFS flow thru the dam
Water Surface Temp: 64.2F
Wind Speed & Direction: Winds were NE5-6 all morning
Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous at 63% illumination
GT = 120
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area B0103C, 55 fish on MAL Lures (SP)
**Area 717, 14 fish on MAL Lures (SP)
**Area B0053G, 24 fish on MAL Lures (SP)
**Area B0057G, 12 fish on MAL Lures (SP)
**Area 606,19 fish on MAL Lures (SP)
**Area 1945, 31 fish on MAL Lures (SP)
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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