November | 2021 | Fishing Report

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, November 2nd, I fished with Rick Bookout and his son, Lincoln, from Haslet, TX, just north of Fort Worth.

I first got acquainted with the Bookouts through my friends at Mepps lure company when Lincoln wrote a very well-worded testimonial to Mepps about his success at a white bass tournament on Cedar Creek Lake using the MAL Lure which Mepps produces for me.

Lincoln is working his way through high school where his favorite subject is “ELA” (English language arts — no surprise there) and where he competes on the school’s bass fishing team. Rick, a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, now sells pharmaceuticals for a living. Our common service academy and military experiences gave us plenty to talk about.

Long story short, I invited Lincoln and his dad down for a morning of fishing in the deeper, clearer waters of Central Texas to both meet them in person, and show them how Garmin LiveScope dovetails well with using MAL Heavy Lures in the vertical presentations required on Hill Country reservoirs.

Here’s how this morning went…

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My next three openings will be on 7, 9, &14 December. Weekday mornings are always best.

PHOTO CAPTION: Rick Bookout and his son, Lincoln, with a nice 4.25 pound Lake Belton hybrid which Lincoln brought to net around 8:15AM. This fish was taken on an MAL Heavy Lure with white blade and chartreuse tail — the same lure Lincoln enjoyed recent success with for striper on Lake Texoma.

PHOTO CAPTION: Although Lincoln (left) and Rick “waded” through quite a few small ones in today’s take of 203 fish (all released), quality white bass were there and fell for both vertical and horizontal presentations with the water temperature still above 70F.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday (AM), 02 November 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

The lead edge of a very slow moving, wet cold front shifted our winds to the N overnight, around 3AM. We had a light, northerly breeze all morning rippling the water, along with 100% grey cloud cover.

In addition to catching fish and highlighting the effectiveness of the MAL Lure/Garmin LiveScope combination, I also wanted to give the Bookouts an overview of Lake Belton, so, we “sampled” the fishing in the Leon River arm, in the main basin near the dam, and in the Cowhouse Creek arm over the 4+ hours we fished, catching fish in all three locations.

The bite got off to a slow start, as it often does this time of year with murky skies. The bite continued to improve and peaked around 10:30AM with increasing breeze and light, stayed at a high plateau through 11:30AM, and then began to fade out to near nil by noon.

Thanks to the weather conditions, we witnessed light topwater feeding at three distinct locations this morning.

The vast majority of our fish came on MAL Heavy Lures with silver blades and white tails fished vertically, although we did a bit of horizontal work using the “sawtooth method” with MAL Heavy Lures with white blades and chartreuse tails.

Gently sloping areas in 22-36 feet were the common threads on fish location today.

The fish seemed more mobile today, allowing fewer fish to be caught at a given location before we had to move to keep up with them. It was not that they quit biting, rather, they simply moved on in pursuit of shad.

The last area we fished today we fished as a result of spotting the season’s first birds working shad pushed to the surface by gamefish beneath (these were ring-billed gulls). I don’t know if these birds will reside at Belton, or if they are just passing through, but, by the third week of November we normally have some resident birds to help solve the fish-location puzzle.

By 11:45, we had landed 155 fish. I told the fellows that if we focused on the LiveScope and made a concerted effort to fight and land each hooked fish, we could eclipse the 200 fish mark before heading in. In the next 23 minutes, the three of us hooked and landed 48 more fish to finish up the morning with exactly 203 fish.

Of the 203 fish landed, 192 were white bass, with 3 freshwater drum, 1 legal hybrid (4.25 pounds), and 7 juvenile hybrid striped bass mixed in.

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: 203 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: A handful of gulls were sighted this morning, several of which pointed the way to fish during the late morning.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:25A

End Time: 12:05P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 59F

Elevation: 1.41 feet low, 0.03 fall, 59 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 71.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: N1-5 all morning as the lead edge of a mild, wet cold front arrived

Sky Condition: Grey skies at 100% all morning

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 8% illumination.

GT = 100

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1659 – 9 fish, all on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically

**Area 565 – 14 fish, all on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically

**Area 1843 & B0183C – 20 fish on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically & MAL Heavy Lure with white blade fished vertically

**Area B0105G – 9 fish, all on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically

**Area 132 – 40 fish on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically & MAL Heavy Lure with white blade fished vertically

**Area 752 – 101 fish on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically & MAL Heavy Lure with white blade fished vertically (and a handful taken by sight-casting to whites feeding on top)

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 #mepps

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, November 1st, I returned to the water after a four day lay off. Thursday and Friday had gale force winds, Saturday’s post-frontal conditions were more well suited to a sonar training, and I don’t fish on Sundays, so, today was the first day back on the water after last week’s strong (albeit not very cold) cold front. I fished with Woody and Peggy Ray of Youngsport, TX.

Woody has run a well-respected large/small animal veterinary hospital for many years in Killeen and Peggy used to work on the administrative side of a large construction firm. They now continue on in the vet business, raise cattle and (as you fellow cattlemen know) have a host of “supporting activities” that go along with it … raising food for the cattle, fixing the irrigation system to raise the food to raise the cattle, etc., etc.

Here’s how this morning went…

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My next three openings will be on 7, 8 and 9 December. Weekday mornings are always best.

PHOTO CAPTION: Woody and Peggy Ray caught and released 120 fish on this first day of November during a lull in weather between fronts.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 01 November 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

Today saw a returning south wind after a very classic calm, bright, cool, post-frontal weekend. This morning’s temperature was 7 degrees warmer than Sunday’s as humidity came in off the Gulf on those south winds.

As autumn cold fronts often do, this last one scattered the fish a bit. Fish were in a few of the locations they’d been in, they were also absent from a few of the place they’d been in, and, they were in a few new places, as well.

We did not struggle to find significant concentrations of fish to fish for, and wound up being successful in four of the six areas where we located fish. The other two locations held fish, but those fish were not aggressive when we tried tempting them.

All but four of our fish were taken vertically this morning, using the tried and true MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade and white tail.

There was a noticeable increase in the water’s siltiness, no doubt due to the strong winds we experienced of late. This will settle through Wednesday, but another front is due in thereafter.

Although we caught small fish at each location, there were more small fish in some locations than others, so, I used my standard approach of gauging the first 15 fish landed at an area and basing my decision to stay or move on the size mix from that 15-fish sample. We moved only once due to a predominance of small fish.

By 11AM we noted the wind going out of the sails of our bite, and, by 11:30, things had slowed to a crawl. We finished up with exactly 120 fish.

Of the 120 fish landed, 114 were white bass, with 6 juvenile hybrid striped bass mixed in.

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: 120fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: 1) The water was more off-color today due to the recent winds; 2) here is what the cold front did to the lake’s water temperature, down to 60′. Last week we had 78.1 at the surface and 74 at 60’…

0 feet 72.7F
5 feet 72.8F
10 feet 72.8F
15 feet 72.8F
20 feet 72.8F
25 feet 72.8F
30 feet 72.8F
35 feet 72.7F
40 feet 72F
45 feet 71.6F
50 feet 71.6F
55 feet 71.5F
60 feet 71.3F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:25A

End Time: 11:25A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 55F

Elevation: 1.38 feet low, 0.02 fall, 59 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 72.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE all morning, starting at near calm, building to SSE7

Sky Condition: Cloudless blue skies with a slight white haze all morning.

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 15% illumination.

GT = 125

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1659 – 15 fish, all on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically; most small fish

**Area 1620 – 42 fish, all but 4 on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically

**Area B0206C – 5 fish, all on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically

**Area B0105G/1075 – 41 fish, all on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically

**Area B0201C – 17 fish, all on MAL Heavy Lure with silver blade/white tail fished vertically