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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning, May 15th, I conducted the fourth SKIFF trip of the 2021 season.

SKIFF is an acronym for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun. It is a program now in its 12th year, sponsored by the Austin Fly Fishers, and supported by individuals and entities, all of whom desire that kids separated from a parent by that parent’s military duty, be given an opportunity to experience the outdoors through fishing during that time of separation, free of charge.  The program offers a time of respite for the home-front parents who made need a short break from single-parenting.

This morning I was joined by Mrs. Soo Yi and her four children, three of which were old enough to participate in the fishing.  On the rods today were 7-year-old Kaleo, 6-year-old Shalom, and 4-year-old Zech (and on snack and nap duty was 2-year-old Shiloh!).

The children’s father U.S. Army Captain Joshua Yi has been deployed for seven months now to Poland where he serves his fellow soldiers as a chaplain there.  The Yi family has been part of the military for 2 years now.  They are stationed at Fort Hood and live in Copperas Cove.

Incredibly, despite juggling 4 young kids single-handedly, and making part of the drive to the launch site in the dark, Mrs. Yi arrived about 10 minutes early with the kids fully equipped and clothed as I’d specified in the pre-trip email I sent to her two days in advance.

PHOTO CAPTION:    In front, from left: Shalom, Zech, and Kaleo Yi, chaperoned by their mom, Soo Yi, on today’s SKIFF trip provided free of charge to military kids separated from their parents by military duty.  Not shown is 2-year-old Shiloh, who was napping soundly in the bow.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday (AM), 15 May 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

With kids so young, experience told me we needed to “keep things moving”, meaning we could not do any one tactic in any one place for very long or else the kids would lose interest, even if we were being successful.

I broke the trip up into 3 parts over the 3.5 hours we fished.  Part one involved downrigging with twin downriggers equipped with 3-armed umbrella rigs rigged with #12 and #13 Pet Spoons.  We worked deep flats in open water and did well, landing 21 white bass, including a triple (one fish on each of the three lures of the umbrella rig simultaneously), six doubles, and 6 singles.  The downrigging allows the kids to move about the boat while the ‘riggers are working the lures, and lends itself to taking turns and making sure everyone catches about the same number of fish.

The second part of our adventure involved heading up shallow to pursue sunfish with poles and fixed-length lines.  The sunfish aren’t teeming in the shallows quite yet due to the cool, cloudy weather we’ve been having, but we managed 5 longear sunfish regardless.

We closed out the trip using MAL Lures for congregated, bottom-hugging white bass caught with the aid of Garmin LiveScope, which the kids loved.  They got quite excited every time a pack of red footballs (the fish signatures on the Garmin color palette I prefer) showed up moving left and right on the screen.

I found a nice school of white bass occupying a gentle break in about 32 feet of water, Spot-Locked on them, and got them stirred up as the MAL Lures started working their magic.  We more than doubled our catch of 26 fish up to that point, taking our tally to 56 fish in our final 40 minutes on the water.

By 10:30 both the kids and the fish were wearing out, so, we headed back to the dock.

Hazy Eye Slabs, MAL Lures, and Stinger Hooks are found here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 56 fish caught and released (51 white bass, 5 sunfish)

OBSERVATIONS:   I took a temperature profile this morning, as follows:

0 feet 72F
5 feet 72.1F
10 feet 72.2F
15 feet 72.1F
20 feet 71.7F
25 feet 71.6F
30 feet 71.5F
35 feet 70.5F
40 feet 67.9F
45 feet 65.5F
50 feet 61.1F
55 feet 57.5F
60 feet 54.3F
65 feet  53.6F

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  7:00A

End Time: 10:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Elevation:  0.14 feet high, +0.01 24-hour change, 1 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 72F

Wind Speed & Direction: ESE7 at trip’s start, shifting and increasing to SE11 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover all morning

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent; 12% illumination

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1741 – 21 whites on downrigged Pet Spoons

**Area SH0132C – 5 sunfish

**Area vic 130 – 30 whites 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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

WHO I FISHED WITH:   This past Wednesday evening, May 12th, following a successful morning trip, I welcomed aboard my brother, Andy Maindelle, of Austin, and a co-worker of his, Johnny Perez, who traveled in from San Antonio.

The two work at Blizzard Entertainment in Austin providing support for online video gaming.

It remained unusually cool today, rising only to 64F in the afternoon with heavy grey skies and a steady NW wind with just a touch of drizzle for a few minutes during our first hour on the water between 4:00 and 8:15 p.m.

PHOTO CAPTION: Johnny Perez, left, and Andy Maindelle with two of the sixty fish we caught in our first 2 hours’ of effort using MAL Lures worked vertically in ~42 feet of water.

PHOTO CAPTION: We devoted the last 2 hours of our trip to “hanging bait” for hybrid, but, that species continues to elude this spring.  Suspiciously absent are the 18-19″ fish which normally make up the majority of a spring trip’s hybrid catch.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday (PM), 12 May 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

Although cool, the conditions were solid for a good catch with grey cloud cover and wind.  We set out and immediately got into fish which were literally carpeting the bottom in about 42 feet of water.  Once both fellows (quickly) got the hang of using the MAL Lure, it was game-on.

Andy and Johnny landed 65 fish in our first two hours on the water — 100% white bass, all with the aid of Garmin LiveScope.

So, when two guys who make their living in the video game industry come aboard your boat, look at and use your electronics successfully and say things like, “This is so cool!” or “It’s like having a video game come to life.” — you know you’re on to something.  Truth is, everyone who uses this technology –whether young, old, techy, or old-school — really see the value in using it.

Well, since I had live bait on board from the morning’s strong spawning run, I suggested we put in another hour of fishing for whites, then devote our final hour to fishing bait in an attempt at hybrid stripers.

The fellows considered the offer and “countered” with calling it quits on the white bass and heading right out to shoot for hybrid stripers at that point, thus allowing us a full 2 hours to pursue them.

We fished lively live shad for 2 hours, right up through 8PM.  We landed only one legal hybrid during that time, as well as a bonus smallmouth bass, and numerous white bass.  The crop of 18-19″ hybrid are glaringly, obviously lacking from the population structure this year.

By 8PM, the light was beginning to fail early due to the still-heavy cloud cover.  I felt we had another 15 minutes, max, to put fish in the boat, so, at that time, we reverted to fishing the MAL Lures for their flash, color, and vibration, and added a final 15 fish to the count in that short period of time.

We ended the evening with 95 fish caught and released.

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: 130 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:  The crop of 18-19″ hybrid are glaringly, obviously lacking from the population structure this year.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  4:00 PM

End Time: 8:15 PM

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Elevation:  0.34 feet high, +0.08 24-hour change, 27 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 70F

Wind Speed & Direction: NNW8-9 all afternoon with occasional higher gusts

Sky Condition: Heavy grey skies all afternoon

Moon Phase: Day after new moon; waxing crescent at 0% illumination

GT = 25

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area B0078C – white bass galore — 65 fish in one Spot-Lock in ~ 2 hours’ time on MAL Lure

**Area B0089C – 1 hybrid and multiple white bass on shad

**Area B0084G – 1 smallmouth and multiple white bass on shad

**Area B0084G – 14 white bass on MAL Lure in final 15 minutes of light

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

WHO I FISHED WITH:   This morning, Wednesday, May 12th, I fished with Mrs. Tracie Byrd in celebration of her forthcoming 72nd birthday.  Celebrating with her was her husband, Tom, and Tom’s sister, Pat Williams.

Tom, a former USAF fighter pilot, and Tracie live “in the country” on the outskirts of Austin in Weir, TX, where they keep up with their own horses and board one other horse, as well.  Patty is a long-time Frost Bank employee.  The Byrd’s have been out with me for a number of years, typically in celebration of Tracie’s birthday.

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Tom and Tracie Byrd, and Tom’s sister, Pat Williams.  They bundled up for this atypically chilly mid-May day and put 130 white bass in the boat!

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday (AM), 12 May 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

For the second morning in a row, the air temperature was only 59F, but, this morning’s chill was accompanied by a light mist and a 13 mph wind behind it, making it feel much colder.

A reinforcing cold front moved in from west to east last night, increasing the velocity of the already northerly winds and a tweaking the barometer just enough to fire the fish up as the winds blew and the skies remained grey to the point of looking like a light fog.

The shad spawned this morning from ~6:25 to 6:40 at Area SHAD017.  Typically, if the shad are spawning, the fish will not be problematic to find and catch.

That correlation held true this morning, as I only had to make two stops to keep my crew of three fully engaged in fish catching this morning.  Our first stop came in about 47 feet of water.  From approx. 7:15AM to exactly 9:03AM we put our first 100 white bass in the boat, every one of which came on a vertically worked MAL Lure.

By the time that 100th fish came over the gunwale, everyone was ready for a warm up.  We headed back to the dock and Tom, Tracie, and Pat headed up to the car to turn the heater on and absorb some BTU’s.  I’m telling you, it was really raw feeling out there.

After the 30-minute warmup, we set back about the business of fishing, but this time with a special request:  to find fish in a non-windy area.   That was a tall order to fill, but, I found a little niche on a sharply dropping bottom which sonar showed to be holding fish in about 42 feet of water.  I Spot-Locked on them, got the MAL Lures working, and up came the white bass!

We landed a final 30 white bass here in the time between 9:45AM and 11AM.  By then, Mrs. Tracie had all of the wind, drizzle, waves, and white bass catching she could take, at least until this time next year.

Despite the cold, wind, drizzle, and crazy Texas weather, the Byrd’s reserved their next birthday trip a full year in advance for 2022!

We ended the morning with 130 fish caught and released.

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: 130fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: The air temperature was 11 degrees cooler than the water temperature before dawn this morning; shad observed spawning for ~a 20 minute span at Area SHAD017

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  7:00A

End Time: 11:00A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 59F

Elevation:  0.34 feet high, +0.08 24-hour change, 27 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 70F

Wind Speed & Direction: NNW8-9 all morning

Sky Condition: Grey skies with occasional light mist all morning

Moon Phase: Day after new moon; waxing crescent at 0% illumination

GT = 45

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1021 – 100 fish in under 2 hours with no short hops; MAL Lures for 100% of catch

**Area  B0084G – final 30 fish in 1.25 hours; MAL Lures for 100% of catch

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

WHO I FISHED WITH:   This past Thursday morning, May 6th, I fished with Jeff and Pam Stump from near Giddings, TX.

We tried scheduling this trip as far back as December of 2020 but weather and full calendars prevented a good match until this morning.

We enjoyed steady, productive fishing for our first hour and final two hours on the water this morning, with a one hour lull thanks to the cessation of winds.

PHOTO CAPTION:  Jeff and Pam Stump worked MAL Lures for four hours straight to put together their haul of 131 white bass, all of which were released.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday (AM), 06 May 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

We finally saw something close to post-frontal conditions this morning as the north winds which began overnight on Monday finally blew themselves out and left us with a calm surface by around 8:30AM.

Calm water and bright skies are never a good combination, but, the “rising metabolism factor” which kicks in from mid-March to around the end of May was definitely in play here and still allowed us an above average catch as compared to the whole-year average of just over 80 fish per trip.

The fish definitely shut down for about an hour from 8:30 to 9:30, then, as winds began to puff light and variable, the fishing started to come back again, although not with the level of intensity we’d seen on Tues. and Wed.

Oftentimes under difficult conditions, finding fish as deep as possible seems to help — it seems to me that the deeper the water, the more buffered the impacts of negative weather seem to be.

The fish we caught from 9:30 to our close at 11AM were all in well over 50 feet of water with the deepest fish coming from 57 feet of water.  I specifically sought these out due to the calm, bright conditions we faced.

We took 100% of our fish on MAL Lures worked vertically in conjunction with LiveScope.

As the fish wound down between 10:35 and 11:00AM, we worked them to the very last drop and finished up with a total of 131 fish caught and released — 100% of which were white bass with the vast majority being 2 and 3 year class fish.

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: 131 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: We used deep water as insurance against the negative impact of calm, bright surface conditions. Thanks to recent rains, Belton has risen nearly a foot this week and is approaching full pool (just hundreths of a foot away).

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  7:00A

End Time: 11:00A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 57F

Elevation:  0.05 feet low, +0.16 24-hour change, 26 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 68.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: ENE5 at dawn, tapering to calm by 8:30, staying calm for an hour, then going light and variable thereafter with “puffing” light gusts.

Sky Condition: Clear blue sky

Moon Phase: Waning crescent with 24% illum.

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  B0075C – majority of our fish landed which were landed before the winds went slack

**Area   B0037C- majority of our fish landed which were landed after the 1 hour period of slack winds

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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WHO I FISHED WITH:   This past Wednesday, Cinco de Mayo, I fished with a retired couple from the outskirts of Temple, Tommy & Sylvia Maedgen, who have been coming out with me a couple times each year for several years now.

The Maedgens understand the importance of timing in regards to fishing, and are wise to book their trips with me during peak conditions (mid-March to late May, and late October to mid-December).

Tommy runs his own bass boat and the couple rountinely fishes on their own, but typically for largemouth bass.  They tend to allow me to guide them to white bass and/or hybrid stripers when they have a desire to pursue those species.

PHOTO CAPTION:   Tommy and Sylvia Maedgen caught and released 247 white bass on Lake Belton this past Cinco de Mayo.  100% of these fish were taken on the original (5/8 oz.) and heavy (7/8 oz.) versions of the MAL Lure.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday (AM), 05 May 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

Had I listened to the weatherman, we’d likely have postponed this trip … and what a mistake that would have been!  We were due to have clear, calm, cool post-frontal conditions this morning — usually making for the toughest weather scenario there is this time of year.

The one thing that played in the back of my mind was how rising water temperature will trump all else in the spring, so, we pressed on with our plans to pursue white bass on Lake Belton.

When I arrived about 30 minutes in advance of the Maedgens, we had about 60% cloud cover, and there was a sustained light wind from the ENE at about 8 mph.  Neither of these desirable conditions were in the forecast.

As we got down to fishing, we found fish on sonar obviously on patrol up off bottom feeding on shad in the lower third of the water column.  We stopped and caught those fish.

Once these fish quit, we moved on.  By this time the wind was at ENE12 with a bit less cloud cover.  We only fished four locations, finding ample bottom-oriented fish at each which were very willing to follow their hooked schoolmates well up into the water column, thus indicating a high level of aggression.

We began our trip at 6:50AM.  By 8:49AM the Maedgens had boated their 100th fish.  By 10:03AM their 200th fish came over the gunwale, and by trip’s end at 11AM, they had managed to land a grand total of 247 fish.  Of these, 246 were white bass, with one largemouth bass thrown in for good measure.

As we experienced during the first three hours of the previous day’s trip, there were very few sub-legal fish in our catch this morning, with the majority of the fish going at least 11.5 inches, with a few reaching or just surpassing the 14 inch mark.  Our single largest fish went 14 5/16 inches

Every single fish the Maedgens landed came on the MAL Lure in chartreuse.  Sylvia stuck with the original (5/8 oz.), while Tommy started and finished with the original, and put in about 90 minutes of work with the heavy (7/8 oz.) version while the fish were really going crazy.

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: 247 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: No Franklin’s gulls observed for the first morning since they first arrived back in March.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  6:50A

End Time: 11:00A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 55F

Elevation:  0.22 feet low, +0.18 24-hour change, 26 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 67.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: ENE8-13

Sky Condition: ~60% white cloud tapering back to 30% .

Moon Phase: Waning crescent with 33% illum.

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area B0022C – handful of fish at first light which moved on pretty quickly

**Area 1012 – solid action on MAL Lures

**Area 1489 – solid action on MAL Lures

**Area 0404 – produced over 150 fish for us 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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec