WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, June 21, I fished with returning guests, Rudy Porter and his two sons, Max and Roman. Accompanying the Porters for the first time aboard my boat were brothers Rohan and Akhil Gudapati. The Gudapatis had gone fishing once before, but had never caught anything so, they were truly starting from scratch today.
The Porters are in visiting from New Mexico where they reside in a dry, high desert climate. Needless to say, the humidity was kicking their butts by mid-trip!!
Here’s how the fishing went…
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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Max Porter, Rohan and Akhil Gudapati, and Roman Porter with a portion of their white bass catch made by sight-casting, counting down, and “smoking” MAL Heavy Lures, as well as by downrigging.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday, 21 June 2023 (AM)
HOW WE FISHED:
Despite being under an ongoing, and already several days-long, excessive heat warning, our conditions this morning were tolerable, as there was both a breeze and cloud cover until about 9:50 AM. As we got going, I felt the simplest approach would be to downrig to find fish and then set up over top of them to work in MAL Lures vertically with the help of Garmin LiveScope after the fish had been found.
We began downrigging with both downriggers running three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with #12 Pet Spoons in silver with white tail. We steadily picked up singles and doubles as the light level remained dim and the skies fairly murky gray. Once the gray skies began to lighten up as the sun’s angle increased, some difficult-to-discern topwater action began to materialize, well-disguised by the chop of the 8 or 9 mph wind blowing.
Against my better judgment, I gave casting lessons to everyone quickly (as they did not have a chance to practice before the trip, as I had hoped) and, with the boat on Spot-Lock, had everybody cast off of the starboard side to fish feeding on and near the surface. For a number of reasons, this, after several attempts, just did not turn out to be as productive as the downrigging.
Whenever the fish disappeared from the surface, and the catching got tough, we reverted to downrigging until the fish quit in this area. The time was now 8:10 AM, and we had boated 34 fish.
Our next success came over open water. A buddy alerted me to the presence of fish in a general area. Upon arrival, we saw where a trio of blue herons were repeatedly diving down, trying to spear white bass as the white bass forced shad up against the surface in an attempt to trap and eat them there.
I once again positioned the boat so all five anglers could cast off the starboard side. When the fish were on the surface, I had them retrieve immediately. When the fish left the surface, I had them count their MAL Heavy Lures down to a six count, and do a straight, plain-Jane retrieve back to the boat. The entire time this horizontal casting was going on, I also ran the splasher, and got the LiveScope units fired up in hopes of consolidating fish under the boat.
This actually did pan out well. After the fish quit hitting on the surface, we were able to continue catching fish which were holding beneath us in a horizontal band about 20 feet beneath the surface in about 40 feet of water. We put another 40 fish in the boat by 9:40 AM.
By 9:40, the skies began to clear, and the wind began to slack off. As this happened, the fishing got instantly tougher. We stayed until 10:20 and managed to land another six fish, all by downrigging, before calling it a good morning as the heat began to pour on.
TALLY: 80 fish caught and released
Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS: Temperature profile this morning:
0 feet, 82.3F
5 feet, 82.6F
10 feet, 82.7F
15 feet, 82.1F
20 feet, 78.9F
25 feet, 74.7F
30 feet, 72.8F
35 feet, 70.5,F
40 feet, 68.2F
45 feet, 65.5F
50 feet, 63.9F
55 feet, 62.8F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6:15A
End Time: 10:20A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F
Elevation: 13.05 feet low, 24 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 82.3F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: S8-9 through 9:50, then easing up to S5-6
Sky Condition: 100% light grey cloud cover between 6 and 9:50 AM gave way to 20% white cloud cover on a hazy blue sky thereafter
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 10% illumination.
GT = 30
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area 483/B0103C – 34 fish by sight-casting and downrigging
Area 1519/B0093G – 40 fish by sight-casting, counting down, and smoking MAL Heavies
Area 1402/B0022C – 6 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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