WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Monday morning, April 19th, I fished with returning guests David Burke of Belton, and Glen Waggoner and Steve Pennington from the DFW area.
David is a U.S. Navy veteran. Back in the day, he was a shipboard helicopter refueler. He went on to become a counselor after the military. Glen manages an estate in the DFW area, and Steve owns his own business, Wind Deflector, producing wind blocking devices for high-end convertible automobiles.
David has been out with me four times previously, Glen’s been with me thrice before, and this was Steve’s second outing with me.
PHOTO CAPTION: White bass galore today — 170 white bass, 1 short hybrid, and 2 smallmouth came over the rail this morning. When all the fishing was done, I sent these three buddies to Sam’s Southern Eatery in Temple after they asked about where to go to have fish for lunch.
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 19 April 2021
HOW WE FISHED:
A year ago when this trip went on the books, we had hoped to devote our efforts to catching hybrid stripers on live bait. Unfortunately, the season has not progressed to the point where I am confident/satisfied that I can put quantities of quality hybrid in the boat quite yet, mainly due to the lagging water temperature.
I was very upfront with the fellows about this situation days in advance of our trip, and they were fine with targeting white bass instead.
Still, I came prepared to go after hybrid full-bore, but, each location we checked on yielded the same results which included outstanding fishing for white bass, but an utter lack of hybrid stripers.
We’d find fish on sonar, Spot-Lock in the vicinity, then get live baits down, only to have white bass show in great numbers within minutes. These white bass would typically terrorize our bait spread, swallowing smaller baits and harassing/killing the larger baits they couldn’t swallow. We’d then change tactics to catch the white bass which presented themselves, and did quite well on that species.
We repeated this five times over in water ranging from 22 to near 50 feet deep and in a variety of bottom settings — whites were just everywhere.
Everyone got the hang of using Garmin LiveScope to zig when they needed to zig and it was game-on with the original MAL Lures we were using (all chartreuse today).
Hazy Eye Slabs, MAL Lures, and Stinger Hooks are found here: https://whitebasstools.com/
TALLY: 173 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: No widespread shad spawning yet – just dribs and drabs here and there.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:15A
End Time: 11:30A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 47F
Elevation: 0.87 feet low, .01 foot 24-hour fall, 26 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 63.5 F
Wind Speed & Direction: SE under 8mph the entire morning
Sky Condition: ~60% broken white/grey cloud cover to start the day, clearing 30% by trip’s end
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent at 42% illum.
GT = 25
Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 0187; MAL Lures
**Area B0115C; MAL Lures
**Area B0147C; MAL Lures
**Area 1819; MAL Lures
**Area B0065C; MAL Lures
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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