FIRST FISH ON A LURE — 34 FISH POST-FRONTAL

WHO I FISHED WITH:  On Tuesday, 25 Oct., I ran an afternoon trip for Rob Gagne, a U.S. Air Force veteran and his friend, Carrie Bryan.

This trip was courtesy of Mr. Frank Dubuisson, who presented Rob with a gift certificate for the trip some time ago.

We had a pretty tough go of it this afternoon as we found ourselves on the wrong side of the cold front which blew in powerfully during the overnight hours.  More about that below.

Here is how the fishing went …

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PHOTO CAPTION:   Rob Gagne and Carrie Bryant with a few of the fish they landed on a tough, post-frontal scenario after our most recent cold front moved east more quickly than forecast.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED:  Tuesday, 25 October 2022 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

The weather forecasters all correctly forecast that a cold front would hit Central Texas late Monday and into Tuesday.  The details, however, changed by the minute, it seemed.  I tried to work the day’s two scheduled trips so we’d be fishing after the violent weather passed, but before the winds died and the actual high pressure built in.

Well, I went 0 for 2 on that.  I wound up having to postpone the AM trip as the straightline winds were blowing 20-25 with gusts to 45 — no can do!!

Then, as we got going in the afternoon, those hard morning winds died very quickly and left us with tough fishing as a result.

We found fish here and there and when we did, we encountered a lot of refusals.  The only really solid fishing was in our final 45 minutes as the fish went on a pretty good feeding binge just before the sun sunk below the horizon.

Of the 32 fish we landed, all but seven came on the MAL Original with white tail worked vertically in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope.  I often scale back to this smaller, lighter version of the MAL under tough conditions.  Four came on downrigged Pet Spoons, and the remaining three came on the same MAL Original worked horizontally right before that feeding binge kicked in right under the boat.

Carrie had never before caught a fish on an artificial bait — most of her fishing was done with a cane pole using livebait back home in North Carolina.  Regardless, she was willing to be coached and did very well as a result.

Of note was the fact that the USACE significantly reduced the flow of water through the dam over the weekend.  We dropped from several weeks of releasing 385 cubic feet per second (which caused a ~0.12′ fall each day) to a 34 CFS flow, which drains the lake ~0.03 to 0.04 feet per day.

For our efforts, we wound up boating exactly 32 white bass.

TUTORIAL SMOKING VIDEO (Vertical): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
TUTORIAL SAWTOOTH VIDEO (Horizontal): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY:  32 fish caught and released

Find MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS: We dropped from several weeks of releasing 385 cubic feet per second to a 24 CFS flow.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 2:50P

End Time:  6:40P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 71F

Elevation: 13.07 feet low, 0.00′ fall in last 24 hours, 30 CFS flow –  the overnight rain simply prevented any losses, but no gains were made on water level

Water Surface Temp: 71.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  NW15 tapering down steadily to NW6

Sky Condition: Bright, clear, cool, dry conditions

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 1% illumination.

GT = 50

Wx SNAPSHOT:  This is a graphic representation of the cold front’s arrival Mon/Tue…

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Areas 1024 to B0174C (downrigged); B0064G – MAL work for majority of our catch

 

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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