As I introduced everyone to Garmin LiveScope, Mike observed that, “This is just like Blue Force Tracker for fish!”.

He was referring to a GPS-based military system called “Blue Force Tracker” which allows commanders to track the location of friendly (and enemy) forces on a monitor, the appearance of which looks much like the Garmin monitors strapped to the starboard gunwale of my boat.

PHOTO CAPTION #1:  Jerry Saikley coordinated this morning’s trip for three of his buddies, Justin Brown, Mike Giganti, and Jeff Burns.  He took our largest fish of the trip — a nice 3.75 pound hybrid striped bass.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION #2: Mike Giganti took this nice hybrid which rocketed off bottom to overtake his MAL Lure as it rose through the water column toward the surface.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION #3: Mike Giganti, Jeff Burns, Jerry Saikley, and Justin Brown each with a pair of some of the larger white bass we landed this morning.

 

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday (AM), 25 November 2020

HOW WE FISHED:

Fishing was pretty cut-and-dried this morning.  The fish were very active through 9:35AM, then geared down a notch, then knocked off at 11:10AM.

Thanks to the passage of a cold front overnight, the fish were very aggressive and were willing to rise into the water column up off the bottom a greater distance that they have been under non-frontal weather conditions.

We fished two areas before some light bird action got going, then spot-hopped as indicated by gulls for a full 90 minutes thereafter.  In both areas we fished before getting up under the birds, we encountered an unusually high number of small fish (this year’s crop).

The fish we caught under the birds and at two locations without birds after the birds stopped working at 9:17AM, were of a better size mix.

The MAL Lure really shone today — it was super effective on both bottom-hugging and suspended fish, minimal tangling, high hook to land ratio, and easy to work.  We caught 100% of our fish on MAL Lures this morning,.  The fellows were so impressed with the lures (after experiencing average fishing on slabs they’ve been using in their own fishing efforts), that they purchased lures from me “off the tailgate” from a ziplock bag I keep just for such occasions.

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: 183 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:   For the second day in a row, and during the mid-morning period, a flock of gulls, numbering ~2 dozen, pointed the way to active white bass over open water.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  7:30A

End Time: 11:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 50F

Elevation:  0.82 low with a 0.01’ 24-hour rise, and 34 CFS flow thru the dam

Water Surface Temp: 63.7F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Winds were NW13 at trip’s start, tapering down to NW8-9 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: 80% grey cloud cover at trip’s start, quickly clearing to cloudless in the wake of last night’s cold front passage

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous at 80% illumination

GT = 65

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area B0196C, 5 fish on MAL Lures (SP)

**Area 354, 48 fish on MAL Lures (SP)

**Areas 1390/1866, 2038/953, then 2038 – 80  fish on MAL Lures with “short hops” in and around these 3 areas as indicated by gulls (SP)

**Area B0150G,  16 fish on MAL Lures (SP)

**Area 097,  a final 34 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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