WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, 23 May 2022, I fished with long-time client Dwight Stone, a retired restaurateur from Georgetown, TX, accompanied by first-time guests, the father-and-son team of Jim and Derek Curlee.
Jim is a retired U.S. Army physician now working in his own practice focused on sleep medicine out of his Georgetown-based Georgetown Sleep Center.
Derek serves as Vice President of Business Development of Airrosti Rehab Centers, a healthcare group focused on rapid recovery treatment for soft tissue injuries.
Sleep and dreaming have always intrigued me, so, with an expert onboard, I inquired about some observations I’ve made while watching my 17-year-old female lab mix, Pumpkin. Every now and then when she’s sleeping, she’ll make some muffled barking sounds and/or act like she’s running while on her side. I asked Jim if he knew if dogs dream. He said, in no uncertain terms, that they do. I was nice to have confirmation on something I’d always wondered about!!
Here is how the fishing went …
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My next openings will be on July 12th – 14th. Weekday mornings are always best. Saturdays are available for on-the-water sonar training sessions (only) until after Labor Day when I’ll again offer Saturday morning fishing trips (until mid-March 2023).
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Jim & Derek Curlee and Dwight Stone with a few of the white bass we took with a combination of early sight-casting and later-morning deep-water vertical tactics.
PHOTO CAPTION: We used the lighter MAL Original (top) for topwater work in the first hour of light, then, once the fish went deeper, finished up the morning with the heavier MAL Dense (bottom) used vertically.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 23 May 2022
HOW WE FISHED:
You know it’s going to be a pretty good morning when you stop at a random area to demonstrate the tactics you’d like your clients to use and catch multiple fish during the demo.
I was not real sure what I’d be facing this morning after a major change of weather over the weekend, some pretty weak reports from a few fellows in my “network”, and a wind with a northerly component blowing this morning, all capped off by the threat of some fog.
Those concerns got taken off the table pretty quickly this morning. After doing the demo of the smoking tactics using MAL Dense Lures in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope, we worked the fish over pretty good in about 22 feet of water until, right around 7AM, we began to witness some light topwater action with pods of white bass pinning mature shad against the water’s surface and feeding on them until the shad sounded.
I switched everyone over to MAL Original Lures (which are lighter, so they still cast far, but don’t sink below the surface feeders when reeled back in at a moderate cadence).
Everyone enjoyed the sight-casting and just watching the white bass gorge themselves as the shad tried valiantly to escape.
By 8AM, the topwater devolved into just an occasional pop-up here and there, all mainly over deeper water, so, we called an end to the topwater hunt and focused from that point forward on finding large groups of bottom-oriented white bass and fishing them with the smoking tactic everyone was now well-practiced on. By this time, we’d boated 53 fish.
In just shy of three hours, we would go on to land another 150 fish from three locations, all taken using the smoking tactic with the MAL Dense Lures. The fish activity level began to wane just after 10A, and, by 10:50A, they were done.
A complete description of the vertical “smoking:” method is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
Our 203 fish catch included exactly 187 white bass, 14 sub-legal hybrid striped bass, and 2 largemouth bass. Fewer than 20 of our white bass were short.
The entire family of MAL Lures is found here: https://whitebasstools.com/
TALLY: 203 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: Picked the season’s first ripe blackberries last night. First day I spotted widespread open water topwater action.
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6:35A
End Time: 10:50A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F
Elevation: 4.32 feet low, 0.07’ fall in last 24 hours, 32 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 77.1F
Wind Speed & Direction: ENE4-5 at trip’s start, slowly shifting toward the S and building to ESE11 by trip’s end
Sky Condition: A thin fog was in place through around 9A, and was then replaced by a thin, grey cloud layer the rest of the morning which kept the sun’s heat off all morning.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 42% illumination.
GT = 20
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Areas B0103C thru 1581 (topwater), B0149C, 1171, 1944
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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