WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, November 29th, I fished with first-time guests Ron Moore of Georgetown, TX, and his grandson, Will Hensley, from near Katy, TX.
After graduating from Texas A&M “way back when”, Ron retired from architecture and now brings his expertise to bear with his church’s building committee as a volunteer. Will has talents in welding, ranching, and electrical work and, at age 17, is young enough to pursue any or all of them if he puts his mind to it.
My next openings are the mornings of 5, 6, 7, and 8 Dec. Next weekend opening is Sat., 24 Dec. (Christmas Eve)
Here is how the fishing went …
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PHOTO CAPTION: When Humminbird Side-Imaging revealed a large school of fish to our portside, I had Ron Moore and his grandson, Will, quickly stowed their slab rods and begin throwing MAL Dense Lures with a sawtooth method out to them. We caught just five fish before the school wandered away, but this 5.75# hybrid was one of them.
PHOTO CAPTION: The Bladed Hazy Eye Slab with stinger hook (5/8 oz. white) accounted for 108 of our 113 fish this morning. Adjusting speed to fish activity level was very important.
PHOTO CAPTION: It is good to see some “keeper” sized hybrid just over the 18″ mark like this one back in the catch this fall on Lake Belton.
PHOTO CAPTION: Ron and Will worked through exactly 90 white bass this morning. Incredibly, only 2 of those fish were “short” (under 10″)!!
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 29 November 2022 (AM)
HOW WE FISHED:
We had warm, humid air in place overnight with cloud cover which retained yesterday’s heat, thus, the overnight air temperature only fell to 60F making for a very balmy morning in advance of a strong, dry cold front due in tonight.
We enjoyed the longest run of bird activity I’ve seen since the birds (gulls) first arrived this fall. This morning’s bird activity stretched to 2.25 hours, from 7:35 to ~9:50, with multiple flocks working multiple schools of fish in multiple areas during that span of time.
We had our best success by using the birds as an indicator of where active fish were, then allowed sonar to help us find the “spot-on-the-spot”. Once we Spot-Locked, we dialed in the down-view of Garmin LiveScope to help us keep a visual on our presentations 100% of the time in real-time.
We caught most of our fish on the white 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab with stinger hook, although our largest fish (a 5.75 pound hybrid) and four other fish came on a MAL Dense with chartreuse tail worked with a sawtooth method when I spotted a large, wandering school of fish out to our portside and we worked them over with horizontal casts while they lingered within casting distance.
The vertical work with the Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs required some experimentation with retrieve speed. The fishes’ preference on speed varied — a faster retrieve was appropriate for the first 2 hours while the fish were most aggressive. Once the bird action died down, and the swimming speed of the fish scaled back (as witnessed on Garmin LiveScope), we scaled our speed down and continued to do very well.
Once the fish under the birds quit, the bite died pretty hard. After a 100 fish run through 10A, we landed only 13 additional fish in the 1.25 hours which followed.
When all was said and done, this grandfather-and-grandson team landed 113 fish including 6 legal hybrid, 15 short hybrid striped bass, 1 blue catfish, 1 largemouth bass, and 90 white bass with only 2 short fish in that take of 90 whites.
TALLY: 113 fish caught and released
Find Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs with Stinger Hook here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS: 1) 11th consecutive trip helpful bird activity. Birds active from 7:35A-9:50A.
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:15A
End Time: 11:20A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 60F
Elevation: 12.91 feet low, 0.03 rise in last 24 hours, 41 CFS flow.
Water Surface Temp: 59.3F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8 at trip’s start, slowly increasing to SSE12 by 10A, then shifting SSW and ramping up sharply to 15-16 with higher gusts just after 10A.
Sky Condition: Fully greyed skies all morning.
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 37% illumination.
GT = 25
Wx SNAPSHOT: Prefrontal warming today; cold front moving in around 1AM Wednesday…
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area vic 1293 – 25 fish under birds
Area 1275/151 – 17 fish under birds
Area vic 1144/1142 – 6 fish under birds
Area B0181G – 40 fish under birds
Area B0182G- 12 fish under birds; bird activity ended here
Area vic 472 – 3 fish
Area 0006 – 7 fish
Area vic 151 – 3 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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