WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, May 17th, I fished with Mr. Jeff Madden, his twin 12-year-old sons, Cash and Cooper, and the boys’ buddy from their soccer team, Ethan Stewart, age 13.
Everything was pointing to an excellent morning of fishing: manageable winds, grey cloud cover, warm overnight temperatures, rising water elevation and water temperatures, and weather driven by low pressure. If we could avoid the storms and lightning, I knew we’d be in great shape today.
Fortunately, three of the four members of this crew had fished MAL Lures with me (twice) back in November and had done very well both times, so, they were already well-acquainted with the tactics necessary to maximize the potential of this method. Ethan was a fast learner, as I find a lot of student-athletes are, and he got in the groove more quickly than most adults.
PHOTO CAPTION: Jeff Madden holds our largest fish of this morning’s trip, and his personal best (heaviest) fish ever. This hybrid striper came in at 4.25 pounds and hit an MAL Lure worked vertically.
PHOTO CAPTION: Ethan Stewart scored early on this hybrid. It was one of the first ten fish we landed. Of the 242 fish we caught today, only 2 were hybrid stripers.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Cash Madden, Ethan Stewart, and Jeff and Cooper Madden. We took this photo on our “weather break” when wind and hard rain forced us off the water for about thirty minutes just after 8 AM. By this time, my crew had already landed 99 fish.
PHOTO CAPTION: As we fished our last area this morning, around 10:45 AM, we saw a plume of smoke rise up from the vicinity of Temple Lake Park and at least two fire trucks responded to the area of the north boat ramp. Later, one of my fishing buddies who lives nearby sent me this photo from the parking lot …
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 17 May 2021
HOW WE FISHED:
There were so many things going right today, if you could find fish, you were just going to catch a bunch of them. The weather conditions were, truly, a perfect mix of elements to whip the fish into a lather.
We sat on one school of fish from just before 7AM to 8:08AM and landed our first 99 fish of the morning until a storm cell with rain and high winds forced us temporarily off the water. Fishing was super-simple. No jigging, juking, jiving, or jerking — just a plain-Jane retrieve with the MAL Lure as I describe in my tutorial video, and we had the fish literally competing with one another to attack our baits; then, once a fish was hooked, we could watch on Garmin LiveScope how schoolmates would follow the hooked fish and try to tear the MAL Lure out of the hooked fish’s mouth. At one point, the fish were so thick and so high up off the bottom Jeff said to his son, Cooper, “If you don’t get one now, you shouldn’t be fishing.” LOL!
The fishing settled down (a bit) after that storm blew through, and the action then rose and fell with the wind the remainder of the morning. We returned to the same general vicinity we’d been doing well at following the storm’s passage and the fish stayed turned on there for another 45 minutes or so. We picked up another 75 fish, bringing our tally to 174 before we left to search elsewhere.
We next fished Area 682 in over 50 feet of water along a break (I chose this due to the calm conditions we temporarily experienced) and picked up another 17 fish, most of which were small. Our tally now stood at 191.
We finished up in about 45 feet of water at Area B0087G, putting a final 51 fish in the boat over a 45 minute span, ending our day with 242 fish landed, 100% of which came on the MAL Lure.
At the last two areas we fished before wrapping up, because we were in the 3rd and 4th hours beyond sunrise during which the morning bite slowly wanes, we were sure to move as soon as the bite weakened instead of attempting to “camp out” on fish we could see, but which would generally not respond aggressively to our presentations. This is yet another area where the Garmin LiveScope really comes in handy.
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: 242 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS:
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:45AM
End Time: 11:15AM
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F
Elevation: 1.48 feet high, +0.44 24-hour change, 26 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 69.5F (this represents a slight net cooling for the week)
Wind Speed & Direction: Varied from WNW to NE with approach and departure of small storm cells
Sky Condition: Heavy grey skies all morning; we sat out 30 minutes from 8:05 to 8:35 due to heavy rain and brief high winds
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent at 27% illumination
GT = 75
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 714 count to 99; white bass on MAL Lures (before storm arrived)
**Area 1489 count to 174; white bass on MAL Lures (after storm passed)
**Area B0149C count to 191; white bass on MAL Lures
**Area B0120C count to 242; white bass on 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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