WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, May 24th, I fished Lake Belton with pastors PJ Condit and Scott Smith.
PJ and Scott became friends a few years ago when they attended an event at the same retreat center near Lexington, TX.
PJ is the lead minister at Community Christian Church in Round Rock, and Scott is the senior pastor at Crestview Christian Church in Copperas Cove.
We’ve come to refer to our fishing trips together as “two-Goretex gatherings”, as the fellows have a habit of taking me up on discounted, last-minute cancellations I post on Facebook, typically when wet and/or cold weather deters less hearty anglers.
This morning, I had a crew (understandably) back out because they had hoped to catch hybrid and the hybrid have been terribly scarce this spring.
This morning, we focused all of our attention on white bass taken on artificial lures.
PHOTO CAPTION: If we’d have listened to the weatherman, all three of us would have been sitting at home on the couch today. Instead, PJ Condit and Scott Smith donned Gore-Tex and we put 255 fish over the side of the boat in right at 4 hours of non-stop action on Lake Belton. The wetter, the better!
WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 24 May 2021
HOW WE FISHED:
Despite the threat of rain all morning, the conditions were near-perfect this morning. The major player is the low-pressure system which has been influencing our weather for over 10 days now. It continues slowly moving east from its location over Utah, and continues to draw Gulf moisture over us in counter-clockwise moving bands. Add to that rising water temperature, and the stage was set.
The only thing that concerned me was the flow which began Friday as the COE opened the gates, but, that was a non-issue this morning.
We fished simply and effectively this morning at only three locations, with our last 150+ fish coming at our third and final anchorage. We initially approached this area based on suspicious, but short-lived, bird action by Franklin’s gulls.
We found fish on sonar, Spot-Locked atop them, then used MAL Heavy Lures worked vertically with outstanding results. Given that the water temperature has now breeched the 70F mark, I retied my rods with MAL Heavy lures in white. Up to this point I’d been using the lighter, slightly shorter, original MAL Lures using chartreuse and white interchangeably.
Both Scott and PJ have fished with me previous using this tactic, so there was no learning curve. In fact, Scott took our first fish of the trip on his first drop of his MAL Heavy.
We landed our 100th fish at exactly 8:48AM; we landed our 200th fish at exactly 10:19AM; we ended the trip at 10:55 with 255 fish landed. 100% were white bass, 100% were landed on the white MAL Heavy, and only 12-15 of all of these fish were short (under 10″).
As the fourth hour past sunrise came and went, the fish had just about wrapped up their morning feed, and some uncertain weather was coming in from the SE, so, we called it a great outing right at the 4-hour mark and headed on in to get these guys fed at Sol de Jalisco in Morgan’s Point (yes, they went to Miller’s Smokehouse on their last trip with me).
The weatherman says drier, sunnier weather ahead late this week … I kinda hate to see this grey, wet stuff go as it sure makes the fishing easier.
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: 255 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: Belton’s floodgates were finally opened late last week as the inflow from Lake Proctor, upstream from Lake Belton, increased to 1425 CFS given that Proctor is now 3.77 feet high. Belton is releasing 3117 CFS and wound up falling slightly (0.16 feet) over the last 24 hours. The fish seem to have adjusted already, as the fishing was excellent today.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:45AM
End Time: 10:55 AM
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F
Elevation: 1.51 feet high, -0.16 24-hour change, 3117 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 70.6F
Wind Speed & Direction: SE8-9 all morning
Sky Condition: Grey skies all morning; spotty, light precipitation.
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous at 94% illumination
GT =0
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1552/1012 – low light fish
**Area B0089G/2033
**Area B0190G – fish were, at times, in a 20-25′ thick vertical band in over 50′ of water (bird assist)
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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