WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, March 8th, I fished with John Reed and Chad Makosky.
John retired as a senior non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, then went to work for Walmart, opening the Harker Heights main store (Sporting Goods Dept., of course), where he then stayed on for 13 years before retiring for good at age 62.
Chad is John’s neighbor and works for Frito-Lay doing truck deliveries in Coryell and Lampasas counties.
Being the frugal sort of fellow I am, I asked Chad if he got a good employee discount on chips, etc. He said no, but, that employees do occasionally get to dine on expired goods. I don’t know if you’d call that a silver lining kind of deal, or not!
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: John Reed and Chad Makosky with a few of the stubborn white bass we boated today on Lake Belton.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 08 March 2021
HOW WE FISHED:
Fishing was pretty one-dimensional and tedious today. Although fish were not all that tough to find, only a single school we located ever really fired up and bit consistently, and even that school did so for just a short while.
We encountered very few suspended fish today. Rather, LiveScope revealed fish traveling very tight to the bottom. It was kind of funny because these fish were definitely moving, but only horizontally. Generally speaking, they were reluctant to cant skyward and chase a bait any distance.
We tried snap-jigging, snap-jigging with a slow lift added in, and slow-smoking. The slow-smoking is what caught the fish today, but we had to watch 40 or 50 other disinterested fish go by to get that one over-achiever to fire up and come after us.
We had post-frontal, calm, bright conditions yesterday, with radiational cooling due to clear skies overnight, and, although this was the first day of returning southerly winds, those calm, clear skies and cool temperatures are what started this day off.
At the one area where we did have fish fire up briefly, we also had fish moving horizontally in the lower third of the water column and up off the bottom. I tried using an MAL Lure, and, although we caught a few on it, the results were no better or worse than the slab produced, so, we stuck with the 3/8 oz. white Hazy Eye Slab since it could be moved more slowly than the MAL.
We put together a catch of 43 fish today, including 39 white bass and 4 drum. Hybrid, even undersized ones, have been curiously absent from the catch for quite some time now.
By 11AM we’d landed the last fish we would catch, although we searched a while longer at various depths and locations.
Hazy Eye Slabs, MAL Lures, and Stinger Hooks are found here: https://whitebasstools.com/
TALLY: 43 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: All of the areas we fished produced best in the first few minutes following our arrival, and then fell of sharply thereafter.
Temperature profile:
0 feet 52.9F
5 feet 52.9F
10 feet 52.6F
15 feet 52.2F
20 feet 51.9F
25 feet 51.7F
30 feet 51.1F
35 feet 50.2F
40 feet 49.5F
45 feet 49F
50 feet 48.7F
55 feet 48.4F
60 feet 47.9F
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:40A
End Time: 11:55A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 43F
Elevation: 0.72′ low with a 0.00’ 24-hour change and 26 CFS flow thru the dam.
Water Surface Temp: 51.5 F
Wind Speed & Direction: Winds were calm at trip’s start, and then started SSE around 8:15A, tapering up to SSE6-7 for about 90 minutes, then settling back to SSE5 for remainder of trip.
Sky Condition: Cloudless sunrise, slowing increasing to 40% light white cover
Moon Phase: Waning crescent at 24% illum.
GT = 40
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**vic 1738/B0013G, B0151C, 1859, B0145C (best producer with 3 short hops), B0050G
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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