WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, April 4th, I fished with first-time guests father-and-son team Cody and Ron Stanley.
Cody now lives in Belton, TX, and runs his own construction company; Ron, in for a visit from Comanche, TX, operates heavy equipment for another small construction company.
Cody’s wife, Audra, contacted me back around the holidays to purchase a gift certificate for this trip. Our first attempt was foiled by winter weather, our second attempt was foiled by the flu bug which visited Cody’s home, and, the third time was a charm this morning.
Here is how the fishing went …
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My next opening will be on Tuesday morning, May 17th. Weekday mornings are always best. Saturdays are available for on-the-water sonar training sessions.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Cody Stanley and his father, Ron, each grip a pair of the white bass they took from Lake Belton this morning. The water has now warmed to ~60F from 30′ deep to the surface and spring is progressing rapidly.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 04 April 2021
HOW WE FISHED:
We got off to a bit of a rocky start this morning. Cody had to return some rental equipment and was delayed over 30 minutes. This cost us a good bit of low-light fishing for white bass up shallow, as well as the opportunity to hit a few choice areas in advance of any other fishing pressure arriving.
We worked through that and, in the 9 o’clock area began to settle in to catching fish which were a bit sluggish due to turbulent weather in advance of storms due in late tonight and fairly dark skies.
The majority of the fish we took in the first half of the trip came on MAL Heavy Lures (silver blade, chartreuse tail) fished horizontally with a sawtooth tactic in under 22 feet of water. Around 10AM, we noted that the fish were just as present and abundant as they had been when we were doing well, but our catch rate began to drop off. The fish were getting reluctant to chase long or hard.
At this point, we changed over to a vertical tactic using white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs with a moderately-paced smoking tactic. The fish definitely responded more positively to that approach, but only for about an hour. By 11AM, although we continued to successfully find fish, we had to work through quite a number of them to get one to perk up and bite. So it went until ~11:55 when I found a more aggressive (but also smaller-sized) white bass in 12-15′. We tossed the same MALs we’d used earlier and put a final 15 fish in the boat this way, of which only ~25% were of legal size, whereas the rest of the morning we ran ~90% legal.
In all, we landed 85 fish, including 4 short hybrid, 4 freshwater drum, and 77 white bass.
Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs and MAL Lures are found here: https://whitebasstools.com/
TALLY: 85 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: I half-expected to witness some early threadfin shad spawning this morning, but saw none. Here is the temperature profile I measured this morning:
0 feet 65.1F
5 feet 65.0F
10 feet 64.7F
15 feet 64.1F
20 feet 63.1F
25 feet 61.1F
30 feet 59.8F
35 feet 58.4F
40 feet 58.0F
45 feet 57.4F
50 feet 57.2F
55 feet 57.1F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:40A
End Time: 12:30P
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F
Elevation: 3.52 feet low, 0.04′ fall in last 24 hours, 30 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 65.1F
Wind Speed & Direction: SE6-9 all morning
Sky Condition: Moderate, 100% grey cloud cover all morning
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 10% illumination.
GT = 100
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Areas fished successfully today: Areas vic 169, 1659 with MAL Lures
Areas fished successfully today: Area vic B0179C, 169, B0082G, 1845, on white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab
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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