WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, May 10th, I fished with returning guests Frank Sumner and Steve Arnold.
Back in May of last year I had Frank scheduled for a morning trip targeting hybrid, and rain forced a delay to later in that month (and in the evening, to boot, as all of my morning’s were booked up by that point). Hybrid fishing tends to be weaker in the PM than the AM, so, we did a multispecies trip at that time, focusing on white bass.
Frank brought as his guest on that trip Mr. Steve Arnold. Steve leads the men’s ministry at the church he and Frank attend and, on numerous occasions, taken Frank out on his own fish-and-ski style boat in pursuit of fish, primarily on Stillhouse Hollow.
Steve caught the first hybrid of his life during that May 2020 evening trip and was so excited about it that he immediately inquired about fishing specifically for that species.
Today’s efforts were the result of that spark which happened nearly a year ago.
PHOTO CAPTION: Frank Sumner with a shad-caught hybrid. Despite the atypical trend on hybrid this season, we invested some time hunting them this morning and came up with 7 legal fish in about 2.75 hours’ time. Missing from the catch was the 18 to 19-inch 3-pound class fish which normally make up the lion’s share of a day’s catch of legal fish. All of these fish were 4+ years old.
PHOTO CAPTION: Steve Arnold with a Lake Belton hybrid striped bass. These fish have been few and far between thus far this season.
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 10 May 2021
HOW WE FISHED:
Knowing that Steve was really keen on the hybrid, I got out on the water early, looked for spawning shad as a sign that the wet cold front which eased in overnight hadn’t put the fish off, and proceeded to find and net shad in the pouring rain. There was ample spawning activity, so, that was a good sign.
As Frank and Steve arrived, I went over “the plan”, which was to give live shad for hybrid a try for at least 60-75 minutes from sunrise forward, then to base our decision to stick with that or change over to high numbers of white bass on how we’d done up to that point.
As it turned out, we fished live bait on tight-lines for 2.75 hours and landed a total of 34 fish during that time, including 27 white bass and 7 legal hybrid striped bass. 4 of these hybrid came in the first hour, and the remaining 3 came early in the second hour. We landed no hybrid after 8:30AM.
By 9:45, we changed our focus to catching white bass using MAL Lures in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope. I extended the trip by 30 minutes, giving us about 1.75 hours to find and catch whites.
We found a solid collection of mainly suspended, 3-year-old fish and, from one Spot-Locked position, landed a total of 54 more fish, thus taking our final tally to 88 fish landed on the morning. Fewer than 10 of these fish were short whites.
MAL Lures are found here: https://whitebasstools.com/
Tutorial on how to fish MAL Lures is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
TALLY: 88 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: Thanks to the steadily rising water, Belton is now above full pool for the first time in quite a while. Lake Proctor is over 3′ high and is letting out 541 CFS, whereas Belton is only letting out 27 CFS, so, Belton is accumulating 514 CFS, thus accounting for the rise. As often happens with rising water, fish are much more likely to be seen suspended. That was the case this morning.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00A
End Time: 11:30A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F
Elevation: 0.25 feet high, +0.15 24-hour change, 27 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 71.5F
Wind Speed & Direction: NNE12 pre-sunrise and until ~8:30, then quickly shifting NNW and increasing to 12-13 before settling back to NNW9 in the final hour on the water.
Sky Condition: Grey skies with the lightest of occasional drizzle during our trip hours (had a downpour while netting shad prior to clients’ arrival)
Moon Phase: Waning crescent with 2% illum. (new moon tomorrow)
GT = 25
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area B0087C & 1374 – 7 legal hybrid and 27 white bass with 2 short hops
**Area 1079- 54 suspended 3-year class white bass taken 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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