WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, April 12, I fished with returning guests, Dr. Jim Wood and Sky Sparks.
Dr. Wood is a retired surgeon and wound care doctor and Sky makes his living as a medical scribe.
This morning’s weather was nearly cookie-cutter as compared to yesterday, and the fish did much the same things at the same times and in the same places as yesterday.
Here is how the fishing went…
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Next available dates are June 01, 06-08 (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Dr. Jim Wood of McGregor, TX, and Sky Sparks of Killeen, TX, pair up for a 140-fish morning on Lake Belton. The men worked MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails vertically for the vast majority of their catch on this bright, cool, calm morning.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday, 12 April 2023 (AM)
HOW WE FISHED:
Our first 45 minutes or so were fairly slow as it was dead calm with a bright, rising sun and conditions cold enough to require a couple upperbody layers on, but not quite cold enough for gloves.
While the fish were slow, we used white, 5/8 ounce, bladed Hazy Eye Slabs with an easing tactic to coax lethargic, bottom-hugging fish up off bottom in a attempt to get them to chase and strike our rising baits. We landed four fish this way before departed, hoping to find at least a ripple on the lake’s surface in water more open than the water we were currently fishing.
After finding just the slightest ripple on the water over top of an area which normally produces well this time of year, I watched sonar and saw the telltale sign of bottom-hugging white bass in right at 34 feet of water. As we set up on top of these fish, the commotion we created combined with that of the splasher, began to pull these fish up off bottom very quickly before we even dropped our baits down.
Although I had intended to start off here with slabs, this behavior indicated to me we needed to go with a more aggressive approach, so, I switched everybody over to MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails so we could drop straight down and race these upwards with a smoking tactic. These fish responded well, and we spent 2.75 hours pulling fish after fish from the school, for a total of 110 fish landed at this area.
Whenever the action waned a bit, I kept Jim and Sky working vertically and I worked an MAL Dense out horizontally to draw fish in from around us by getting them to follow the lure (or a hooked fish which I slowly reeled in) back to the boat, thus “restocking the pond” for Jim and Sky.
During this time, we slowly found ourselves surrounded by other boats, but the MAL Heavy really outperformed everything else around us. Observing this, Jim said something to the effect of, “Now, I’m a pretty obtuse guy, but if I was one of these guys in these other boats, I think I would ask, “What the heck are you guys using?”.“
Definition of obtuse according to the Oxford Dictionary: annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand.
By about 11 AM it was clear these fish were slowing way down, so I moved us to the same location where I wrapped up yesterday’s trip with a strong final bite.
What I found directly over the channel were, literally, thousands of white bass milling around about 12 feet up off the bottom in a long school, which was about 12 feet thick. I Spot-Locked atop one portion of the school, got the splasher going in order to hold some of these fish under the boat, and Jim and Sky worked their baits with a smoking tactic, focusing on those fish highest up in the water column.
I don’t know if these fish were spawning (thanks to a lack of flow in the tributaries), or migrating, but they definitely were not feeding. Despite the huge number of fish present, we still had to work for these. One tip I gave Jim and Sky was to single out one fish at the top of the school and try to run their MAL right in front of its nose instead of coming through the fish or behind the fish as it appeared on Garmin LiveScope. We added a final 26 white bass to our count here before calling it a good day as these fish begin to lose interest right at noon.
Our 140 fish haul included one largemouth bass, one crappie, two legal hybrid striped bass, and four short hybrid striped bass, along with 132 white bass.
TALLY: 140 fish caught and released
Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS: Here is the water temperature profile down to 45′ taken yesterday (11 April)…
0 feet, 63.8F
5 feet, 63.9F
10 feet, 64.1F
15 feet, 63.9F
20 feet, 63.8F
25 feet, 63.7F
30 feet, 63.5F
35 feet, 62.8F
40 feet, 61.7F
45 feet, 61.2F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:45A
End Time: 12:00P
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 52F
Elevation: 14.37 feet low, 24 CFS flow, .04′ fall over the last 24 hrs.
Water Surface Temp: 63.8F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: NE3-4 after the first hour’s calm conditions
Sky Condition: Clear skies for the first 2 hours, then puffy white clouds at 10% coverage moved in from the NW
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 60% illumination.
GT = 65
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area 1371 – 4 fish early on eased slabs
Area 717 – 110 fish on smoked MAL Heavies
Area 0158/B0067G – 26 fish on smoked MAL Heavies
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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