WHO I FISHED WITH:
This morning, Monday, June 26, I fished with returning guest, Mr. Freddy Mize from Montgomery, Texas, accompanied by first time guests David Mize (Freddy‘s son), and David’s two adult sons, Kolby and Clayton.
Freddy and his wife came out with me a few years back and had a good time, and so his daughter-in-law, Tabatha (David’s wife) coordinated this trip way back in late April to send all four of the fellows out once again.
Here is how the fishing went…
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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: David, Freddy, Clayton, and Kolby Mize with a portion of their 101-fish catch under hot, dry, high pressure weather conditions.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 26 June 2023 (AM)
HOW WE FISHED:
We got going at 6:15 AM and a pretty stiff 12 to 14 mph breeze made spotting top water action pretty tough. I quickly surveyed a number of areas and did not see anything to really get excited about, so, we hunkered down over an area where an abundance of bait was showing on sonar and began downrigging.
We pulled a few fish on the downriggers, and as we were getting set to put them back out again, the surface erupted with what would turn into about 80 minutes’ worth of solid action. Multiple large schools of white bass were herding bait to the surface. This bait included everything from the youngest of the young-of-the-year shad to adult shad.
Since all four of my clients were able to cast spinning gear, I put some 8′ long, light action, St. Croix Panfish Series spinning rods in their hands mated to Pflueger Large Arbor reels and light braid so they could throw the MAL Mini quite some distance. This accounted for our first 45 fish before the topwater action got more spotty.
Sonar clearly revealed that the fish were still in the area, but they just moved further down in the water column as the cloudless sky got brighter and brighter. Seeing this, and having witnessed adult shad in the area, I was not hesitant to swap out the rods, reels and lures everyone was using and replace them with spinning outfits pre-rigged with MAL Heavies. Once everyone was re-rigged, I coached everyone to let their casts sink to bottom and then do a plain-Jane retrieve at a moderately fast cadence in order to cover the entire water column.
We picked up another 30 fish in this manner before this action died.
I headed out looking for fish, bait, and bird action. At this point, I looked in the same areas where last week’s late morning bites tended to take place.
There was really not much going on here, so, I went looking for more concentrated bait in an attempt to wrap up the trip by downrigging and put a few final fish in the boat. We found a fairly straight stretch of bank being directly impacted by the wind with a lot of small shad in the lower half of the water column. We got downriggers going, each equipped with a three-armed umbrella rig, and had steady action right until around 10:15. We landed another 26 fish downrigging, including 24 white bass coming in singles and doubles, as well as one largemouth bass, and one freshwater drum.
With the downrigging getting tougher with each pass we made, we decided to call it a good morning at 10:15 with 101 fish landed, including three hybrid striped bass (all short), one largemouth, one freshwater drum, and the balance white bass, only two of which were under sized.
TALLY: 101 fish caught and released.
Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS: 1) USACE has stopped releasing water from the dam. 2) Temperature profile taken morning of 26 June:
0 feet, 84.2F
5 feet, 84.0F
10 feet, 85.1F
15 feet, 84.8F
20 feet, 84.5F
25 feet, 81.5F
30 feet, 75.6F
35 feet, 71.3F
40 feet, 68.1F
45 feet, 66.1F
50 feet, 64.9F
55 feet, 63.3F
60 feet, 62.2F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6:15A
End Time: 10:20A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F
Elevation: 13.30 feet low, 0 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 84.2F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE11-13 all morning
Sky Condition: Light blue, cloudless skies all morning
Moon Phase: First quarter moon at 52% illumination.
GT = 50
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Areas 473/472 – downrigging under sunrise low-light conditions leading to sight-casting with MAL Minis and Heavies for 75 fish from 7:05 to 8:25
Area vic 1974 – downrigging for fish getting increasing disinterested from 9:25 to 10:15
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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