DADDY-DAUGHTER DATE DAY! — 86 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, Wednesday, May 24, I fished with the daddy-daughter team of Daniel and Brynn Jeanes of Temple, Texas.

Brynn‘s folks originally got a fishing gift certificate for her last Christmas and planned to fish over the holiday, but we encountered bad weather and had to put it off. It all worked out pretty well, as Brynn, now almost 12, recently completed her school year at Providence Preparatory School in Belton so her schedule was free, and, her dad was able to work some “banker’s hours” and join her for the fishing.

Here is how the fishing went…

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PHOTO CAPTION: Brynn and Daniel Jeanes with a few of the white bass they caught.  The two sight-cast early, did some downrigging after that, then worked MAL Heavies vertically mid-morning, and wrapped up with some “sawtoothing” with MAL Dense Lures to put together their 86 fish catch.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  When you fish with a shad-imitating bait, there is no telling what you’ll catch.  This 10.00-pound blue cat hit Daniel’s MAL Heavy on the fly!

 

PHOTO CAPTION:   Triple!!  Brynn landed three fish at once as we downrigged for aggressive whites and hybrid after they pulled off the bank and slowly headed for deeper water.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday, 24 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

We got going around 6:40 AM and headed right to some visible topwater action. Various year classes of white bass and some 13 to 14 inch hybrid striper had shad pinned into the rear of a cove and were working them over aggressively.

Brynn and Daniel sight-cast to these fish as long as they were on the surface, then, when they sounded, they continued casting and catching by using a countdown method, all with MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails.

After the fish moved offshore a bit more with the increasing ambient light level, I could see that they were pretty well scattered and suspended from 14 to 17 feet. We switched over quickly to downrigging and put singles, doubles, and a triple in the boat taking our count from 22 fish taken by sight-casting up to 39 fish.

During the middle two hours from roughly 8 AM to 10 AM I focused on what had produced well for us on Monday and Tuesday around the same point in the morning, and that was finding suspended fish in open water, getting them to congregate under the boat by using the splasher to create commotion, and then fishing them by racing MAL Heavy Lures through them using the smoking tactic.

Although this certainly produced for us again today, we did not see the fish school as densely nor react as aggressively as they had on Monday and Tuesday. When the most productive school we had drawn in with this approach gave up on us, we had a total of 63 fish in the boat.

With about 45 minutes left in the trip, I found an abundantschool of smaller white bass on a sloped bottom in about 23 feet of water. These would be the only fish we found on bottom all day. I have noted in the past that Lake Belton white bass often leave the bottom during periods of rising water, and I suspect we are seeing some of that behavior currently.

As we got Spot-Locked on top of these fish on bottom, they responded aggressively to a smoking tactic but quickly cooled off after we had boated the first three fish. Seeing this, I quickly switched Daniel and Brynn over to MAL Dense Lures and had them work sawtooth-style to put our final 23 fish in the boat by 10:55 AM.

Our final count this morning was 86 fish, including three blue catfish and a 50-50 mix of white bass and short hybrid striper. Eight of the white bass we landed today were undersized.

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

TALLY: 86 fish caught and released

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

OBSERVATIONS: Moderate threadfin shad spawning was observed this morning ending around 6:50A, the, in an unusual occurrence, I spotted shad spawning around 11A along a ~200 yard stretch of shoreline.  “Offshore” schools of nomadic white bass feeding on the tiny young-of-the-year shad continues to increase in frequency and abundance.  The Franklin’s gulls are all but gone now.

 

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:40A

End Time: 10:55A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 66F

Elevation: 12.76 feet low, 24 CFS flow, a 0.14′ increase over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: ~74.7F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: E6 most of the morning, shifting and increasing to ENE8 around 10A

Sky Condition: Grey skies at 100% most of the morning.

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 14% illumination.

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Area 179 to B0019G – 39 fish on MAL Heavies sight-cast & counted down

Area B0224G – 173 fish on 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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