WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, July 7th, I fished with Jim Dendy in visiting from Mississippi, accompanied by his son-in-law, John Davidson of Gatesville, TX, and John’s son, 14-year-old Preston Davidson.

This was a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip, just for Preston.  Back around Spring Break of 2013, Jim took another local grandson, J.J., from McGregor, TX, out on a similar trip with similar results.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:    From left: John Davidson, John’s 14-year-old son, Preston, and Preston’s grandfather, Jim Dendy.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday (AM), 07 July 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

As with all of my Kids Fish, Too! trips, I try to introduce kids to as many techniques as is practical for the season and the day’s fishing scenario, mainly to provide variety and keep the kids engaged as long as possible.  Such was the case for Preston today.

Preston has not fished all that much before, but enjoys it and wants to do more of it.  In fact, for Christmas, he requested that his dad stock the small pond on their family’s land.

This morning we started off the day chasing sporadic topwater white bass.  These nomadic fish were in open water just chasing shad wherever the shad led them.  We enjoyed about 45 minutes’ worth of action, during which time Preston landed 10 white bass.  By about 7:15, the action was spread so far and wide, that it was no longer practical to chase after the fish as they would be gone by the time we got to them.

We changed over to downriggers in the vicinity of the last several schools we saw, but only picked up one white bass that way.

We moved on and fished two mid-depth areas vertically with MAL Lures.  By now the winds had nearly gone flat and the fishing was tough, but, after finding fish using side-imaging, we Spot-Locked on them and fished  for them, taking another 8 fish and introducing Preston to Garmin LiveScope.  Of all the tactics we employed this morning, this was the one he liked best.

After the fish settled down on the vertical bite, we gave the downriggers another go, landing a single and then a triple, and taking our tally to 23 fish.

We invested the final hour into stalking sunfish up in shallow water using bream rods and bait.  We landed 11 sunfish, including bluegill, longear, redear, and green sunfish.

MAL Lures are found here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 34 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Belton’s water is very off-color and there is much suspended particulate matter in the water column due to recent flooding.  USACE is still releasing at 2640 CFS.

 

Start Time:  6:20a

End Time: 10:20a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Elevation:   2.49′ high, .01′ rise, and a flow of 2640 cfs

Water Surface Temp: 82F

Wind Speed & Direction: ESE2-4 all morning

Sky Condition: Solid grey cloud cover all morning thanks to stubborn upper level low pressure sitting right atop Central Texas

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 6% illumination

GT = 5

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1793 topwater

**Area vic 086 downrigging

**Area B0006G vertical MAL work

**Area 0190 vertical MAL work

**Area 1753 sunfish

**Area B0032G sunfish

**Area B0036G sunfish

 

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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