PLAYING THE WEATHER — 80 FISH @ BELTON

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This past Tuesday morning, February 22nd, I fished with returning father-and-son pair Michael and Joey English.

Joey attends an adult boarding school in Utah where his dad visits him every 8 weeks or so, then, once a year Michael flies Joey back to Texas where he has a chance to catch up with extended family.

Michael booked this fishing trip as one of several special events the two would do together on this winter’s visit.

Here is how the fishing went …

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My next few openings will be on March 1st, 2nd and 22nd.  Weekday mornings are always best.

PHOTO CAPTION:   We “hand-picked” this date based on weather and the Englishes’ flexible schedule.  A wind shift took place today in advance of our next incoming cold front; the later it got, the higher the winds blew, and the better the fish bit, right up until around 11am.  We wound up with exactly 80 fish landed.

PHOTO CAPTION:  This nice Lake Belton largemouth bass fell for a 5/8 oz. white Bladed Hazy Eye Slab in 42 feet of water.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday (AM), 22 February 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

I went into today’s trip assuming the fish were going to continue to display typical wintertime behavior, meaning that they’d be deep, on bottom, and pretty lethargic.  All this turned out to be true.

We found fish with sonar, with down-imaging and colored sonar playing a bigger role than side-imaging now given how tight to the bottom the fish are holding, and how prone to immobility they are.  This keeps them from being easily distinguished from the bottom, thus hindering discovering on side-imaging.

When we found fish, we gauged very quickly whether or not they were active/catchable by seeing if fish would follow the slabs we presented any distance up off bottom.  If they did, we stuck around and tried to capitalize; if they did not chase, we hung it up, moved on, and kept looking for more active fish.

The one and only tactic we employed this morning was “slow-smoking” the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab.  This slab shows up well on Garmin LiveScope and can therefore be followed by folks with limited sonar experience.

Most of our fish were hooked within 4-8 feet of the bottom as they slowly overtook our rising baits.  A simple “wrist snap” hookset sealed the deal most of the time, and produced a catch of exactly 80 fish before we got to the midday lull around 11:15.

We caught 80 fish, including 8 freshwater drum, 3 largemouth bass, 3 short hybrid stripers, and 66 white bass.

Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs and MAL Lures found here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 80 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: No helpful bird activity today.  Temperature profile was as follows:

0 feet 53.1F
5 feet 53.1F
10 feet 52.9F
15 feet 52.8F
20 feet 52.8F
25 feet 52.6F
30 feet 52.5F
35 feet 52.5F
40 feet 52.3F
45 feet 52.3F
50 feet 52.3F
55 feet 52.3F
60 feet 52.3F
65 feet 52.3F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:10A

End Time: 11:15A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 2.89 feet low, 0.07′ rise in last 24 hours, 8 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 53.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE6 at trip’s start, then going nearly slack from 8:45 to 9:20, then picking up from the SW with a slight ripple which increased to SW7 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: 80% cloud cover at trip’s start, slowly clearing to 10%.

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 66% illumination.

GT = 105

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 71298 (11 fish), Area B0152G (6 fish), Area vic B0005C (23 fish), Area vic 1269 (40 fish)

 

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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