DO YOU KNOW YOUR GULLS, SIR? — 172 FISH @ BELTON

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, Friday, April 21, I fished with returning guest and prospective new fishing guide Will Crenshaw who resides on Lake Travis. Joining Will was a fishing buddy of his, Justin Ortiz.

Will is a capable multi-species angler who desires to offer family-oriented fishing trips on Lake Travis. Aside from catching fish today, Will wanted to pick my brain about establishing and maintaining  growing a fishing guide business. When you get right down to the nuts and bolts of it, catching fish is actually one of the easier parts of running a fishing business. For that reason, we focused instead on business structure, licensure, insurance, taxes, marketing, logistics, maintenance, access, and other things which all small business owners must contend with themselves.

Here is how the fishing went…

Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 6 and 7 (AM)

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  Aspiring fishing guide Will Crenshaw (left) and Justin Ortiz caught and released 172 fish on a morning favorably impacted by the arrival of a cold front.  The majority of their catch was made on the MAL Heavy with chartreuse tail.

PHOTO CAPTION:  This Franklin’s gull (often mistaken for a laughing gull) and about 10,000 of his buddies are using Belton Lake as a stopover point as they migrate back north.  Today, these gulls helped put us on fish in the latter half of the morning as they spotted gamefish feeding on shad in open water.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Friday, 21 April 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

Thanks to the Corps of Engineers’ new (and unnecessarily complicated!!) system for paying for park access, Will and Justin got held up at the entry to our meeting point on Lake Belton, hence we got started a few minutes late. Fortunately, the heavy cloud cover kept the light level dimmed down, and things did not get started fishing-wise, until after we had launched and begun looking for fish for 10 or 12 minutes, so, the late start really didn’t hurt us.

Surprisingly, despite the violent weather overnight and resulting northwest winds this morning, the threadfin shad spawn was still taking place this morning, seemingly uninterrupted by the weather.

Unlike the rest of the mornings this week, we did not find any shad spawn-related topwater action to sight-cast to. Hence, all of our fishing today was done offshore using both vertical and horizontal tactics.

As is often the case with an incoming cold front, the fishing this morning was above average, and continued to improve as the northwest wind velocity increased.

Fish were aggressive, they were up off the bottom, they were moving parallel to the bottom at a brisk pace, and they reliably ran down, overtook, and struck our MAL Lures.

90% of our fishing this morning was done vertically using the smoking tactic while employing the MAL Heavy Lure with chartreuse tail. The balance of our fishing, done at two separate locations, included, short periods of horizontal casting using the sawtooth method.

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

I got a little worried around mid-morning as the gray cloud cover which had kept the light levels dimmed down nicely, began to clear. However, there was no need for concern, because as the skies cleared, the winds picked up and overrode any negative impact the brightening skies may have had. It was during this clearing process that birds, including a few terns, and a lot of Franklin’s gulls (with black heads) begin to work shad over open water, thus helping me identify three fish-holding areas which I had not recently tried fishing. Hopefully, this will bode well for next week’s clients.

By around 11:15, the fish activity level began to slack off, the birds began to settle on the water, and our catch rate began to decline. We stayed until exactly noon and wrapped up with 172 fish caught including one blue catfish, 13, short hybrid stripers, and the balance of 158 white bass, including over a dozen exceeding 13.5 inches.

TALLY: 172 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS:  Franklin’s gulls were very active and helpful in fishing-finding in the latter half of the morning today.

 

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:38A

End Time: Noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Elevation: 14.36 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.18′ rise over the last 24 hrs.

Water Surface Temp: 66.5F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: NW9-13 all morning.

Sky Condition: Grey skies for 2 hours, then rapid clearing to 30% white clouds on blue skies thereafter

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 2% illumination.

GT = 50

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Area vic 714 – 54 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area 1552 (2 hops) – 53 fish on smoked MAL Heavies & sawtoothed MAL Dense Lures

Area B0148C – 29  fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area 346 – 7 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area B0043G – 21  fish on smoked MAL Heavies & sawtoothed MAL Dense Lures

Area B0188G – 8 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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