WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Saturday, December 3rd, I fished with father-and-son team Clay & Riley Miller of Morgan’s Point, TX.
Clay is the owner of Miller Custom Leather Tool Co. in Temple (https://www.millercustomleathertoolco.com/). Even if you have no interest in leatherworking, you should look at the beautiful work in his photo gallery!
Riley is 18 and one of a set of triplets, with his siblings both being girls. They are all seniors at Lake Belton High School and will be in the first graduating class which spent all four years at that new school. Riley has his sights set on college.
This trip was rescheduled from an earlier date when thunderstorms forced a postponement.
My next weekday opening is on 12 Dec. My next weekend opening is Sat., 31 Dec. (New Year’s Eve)
Here is how the fishing went …
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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Riley Miller and his dad, Clay Miller, with a few of the 67 fish they landed on Lake Belton after a cold front pushed into Central Texas overnight.
PHOTO CAPTION: As we target white bass, other species often strike our shad-imitating baits, as well. This morning our “bycatch” consisted of 2 short hybrid striped bass, 1 freshwater drum, 2 largemouth bass landed, with another 2 largemouth bass which threw the hook on the jump before making it into the boat. Is it just me, or does Clay look cold?
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday, 03 December 2022 (AM)
HOW WE FISHED:
Fishing was a bit tough this morning. We got on the “backside” of the cold front which pushed in overnight, and, as a result, we encountered decreasing wind speeds the entire morning, starting around 17 mph, and dropping down to 12-13 mph by trip’s end.
The best of the best “frontal” fishing, as we encountered on Wednesday this week, takes place when the winds are shifting from west to north and the wind velocity is increasing. When that takes place during daylight hours, excellent fishing will be normally be encountered.
Although we missed out on that window today, we still found fish routinely, but they took a lot of convincing to bite. One of the beauties of Garmin LiveScope is that it shows everything there is to see wherever you point it. So, we saw a lot of follows not resulting in strikes, a lot of refusals, and a lot of fish moving very slowly this morning. Although some would be disappointed at this, it is all still better than not seeing it at all. By seeing this, we were able to adapt the speed of our presentations to what the fish were doing and still enjoy solid results. That speed was “low and slow”.
Although we didn’t knock the ball out of the park today, Clay and Riley landed a full, 2-man limit of white bass (50 fish over the 10″ minimum), as well as a few short whites and a few other species which came along as bycatch.
Of the 67 fish they landed, 63 came on the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab, and the other 4 came on the MAL Dense worked with a sawtooth method when we saw a large school of bottom-oriented white bass moving into the wind on the starboard side of the boat and cast out to them.
As was the case on Thursday, although gulls were present and helpful, they were focused on what turned out to be very small schools of mobile, feeding fish near the surface. They rarely led us to large collections of fish holding on bottom which we could sit on and catch for long whiles. Eventually, we left the birds to go use sonar to find less mobile fish.
When all was said and done, we landed 67 fish including 2 short hybrid striped bass, 1 freshwater drum, 2 largemouth bass, 10 short white bass, and 52 keeper white bass.
TALLY: 67 fish caught and released
Find Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs with Stinger Hook here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS: 1) This was the 14th consecutive trip with helpful bird activity. Birds were active from 8A-10:30A. Birds have begun to work over loons and cormorants, not just gamefish.
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:15A
End Time: 11:45A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 54F (with temp. falling to ~51F before bouncing back up due to incoming cold front).
Elevation: 12.95 feet low, 0.01 fall in last 24 hours, 41 CFS flow.
Water Surface Temp: 59.2F
Wind Speed & Direction: NNW16-17 at trip’s start, backing off to NNW 13-14 starting around 9:50A
Sky Condition: Fully greyed sky.
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 79% illumination.
GT = 50
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area B0202C – 6 fish
Area B0171G, (3 hops) – 33 fish
Area vic 2038 – 8 fish
Area B0005C – 12 fish
Area B0063G – 8 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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