WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, 13 October, I fished with Mr. Clay Earnshaw and his two sons, Jeffery and Wes, in celebration of Clay’s 62nd birthday.
Clay is a heavy equipment operator, Jeffery is a fire figher, and Wes is in law enforcement.
This trip was a surprise to Clay, as he was previously informed by the boys that they were taking him to go look at a boat to buy. Evidently, Clay’s wife was also in on this. The surprise was pulled off very well!!
The men would go on to land 199 fish during their 4-hour adventure.
My next three openings will be on 9, 17, and 30 November. Weekday mornings are always best.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Jeffery, Clay, and Wes Earnshaw booked on a day with made-to-order weather. The fish fed aggressively for four solid hours. The MAL Heavy Lure worked its magic to the tune of 199 fish.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday (AM), 13 October 2021
HOW WE FISHED:
I’ve now had nine consecutive trips with over 100 fish caught.
This morning’s fishing was fantastic from start to finish. The weather was just right. The wind was up and out of the south, the air had a heavy, humid feel to it, we had grey cloud cover letting just enough sun through that you still needed to squint a little without shades on, and barometric pressure was low thanks to the remnants of a hurricane from Mexico’s west coast passing slowly over Central Texas.
As I awaited my clients’ arrival, there was much greater than normal topwater fish activity randomly occurring around me as rough fish, game fish, and forage fish all were visibly active there.
Within minutes of launching we were on top of fish in about 20 feet of water. Given how tightly bunched up these fish were, we went vertical with MAL Heavy Lures in silver blade/white tail. We landed our first 40 fish in under 40 minutes.
As the morning moved along, our conditions stayed solid until the sun broke through briefly around 10:30. Up to that point we fished four additional areas, all with excellent results. By 8:46 our fish count increased to 76 at the second area we fished; we added just 6 more fish by 9:06 at the third stop; we increased the tally to 102 by 9:38 at the fourth area we tried, then piled ’em on, taking our tally to 175 at our next-to-last stop by 10:30.
This was the only area at which I found enough fish scattered along the bottom sufficient to make horizontal work worth it. We landed about 40% of our fish here using the sawtooth horizontal method, and the remainder came vertically. As the fishing here stopped producing quality fish, we left the fish biting to roll the dice and try to finish up with a few more quality fish.
At 10:30, the sun peeked out. That sun killed the bite for about 15 minutes, then, as cloud cover returned, the bite resumed until the morning feed ended around 11:30.
Our sixth and final stop did produce a better ratio of quality fish. We landed a final 24 more fish as the morning bite died hard right around 11:30, taking our final total to 199 fish.
As happens each year around this time, the number of small fish in the catch tends to increase over spring/summer results, and we are definitely beginning to see this. I suspect this is because the “young-of-the-year” white bass have now grow sufficiently to be attracted to shad roughly the same profile/length as the presentations white bass anglers typically use (jigs, slabs, spinners, tailspinners, etc.). These fish have obviously been present since they were spawned, but were not yet eating that large of prey.
Of the 199 fish landed, 190 were white bass, with 1 largemouth bass and 8 juvenile hybrid striped bass in the mix.
MAL Lure fishing tutorials:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViVz6D91brM
MAL Lures are found here: https://whitebasstools.com/
TALLY: 199 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: The 2020 stocking of hybrid striped bass is really looking promising. These should be to 3 pounds and 18″ by 2023. They are showing up at about 3-4% of my white bass bycatch just about everywhere I’m fishing on Lake Belton now.
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:25A
End Time: 11:40A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F
Elevation: 1.20 feet low, 0.04′ fall, 58 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 77.0F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE13-16
Sky Condition: Heavy grey skies all morning
Moon Phase: First quarter moon at 54% illumination.
GT = 45
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area B0006G – 40 fish; all on MAL Heavy Lure (silver blade, white tail) worked vertically
**Area 788/0190 – 36 fish; all on MAL Heavy Lure (silver blade, white tail) worked vertically
**Area vic B0179C – 6 fish; all on MAL Heavy Lure (silver blade, white tail) worked vertically
**Area 381; 22 fish; all on MAL Heavy Lure (silver blade, white tail) worked vertically
**Area vic 165; 40% on MAL Heavy Lure (white blade/chartreuse tail), 60% on MAL Heavy Lure (silver blade, white tail) worked vertically
**Area 409; 24 fish with 3 taken horizontally
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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