June | 2023 | Fishing Report

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE FORAGE — 204 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

June 5th, 2023June 5th, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, June 5, I fished with a crew of four from the Fellowship of Christian Sportsmen. This trip was coordinated by that organization’s president, Mr. Randy Rowley. Joining Randy were Bill Atkinson, Jim Magee, and Dusty Hunt, all club members.

Bill is a retired veterinarian, Jim is a retired Campus Crusade for Christ missionary, Randy is with Texas’ Health and Human Services, and Dusty works in the concrete cutting business.

I really appreciated Randy, as he is a detail-oriented person. He asked good questions and really laid the groundwork for his group to have a good outing as result of his pre-trip research and “due diligence”.

Here’s how the fishing went…

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

Next available dates are July 10, 12, & 13 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: Fellowship of Christian Sportsmen members (from left) Dusty Hunt, Randy Rowley, Bill Atkinson, and Jim McGee. This crew landed 204 fish on MAL Mini Rigs early and MAL Heavies late.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 05 June 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: This morning’s fishing broke down into two distinct parts. The first part involved gamefish pushing bait, most of which was young-of-the-year shad, to the surface in water under 20 feet deep while the light level was low and the cloud cover was 100% gray.

During this time we used MAL Mini rigs, and either sight-cast or counted these rigs down to no more than a four-count, and caught white bass consuming these small shad, the largest of which were perhaps 1.25 inches in length and about as large in diameter as a pipe cleaner.

The first group of fish we found included a majority of undersized fish, but after that, the mix was roughly 7 to 1 on legal versus under sized fish.

We found such fishing at two distinct areas, then, as the sun began to climb higher in the sky and burn off the gray cloud cover, this bite ended right at 8:04 AM.

The second chapter involved a distinctly different population of fish feeding on adult shad out in open water. These fish were holding at 16 to 20 feet down over a 32-foot bottom.

Occasionally, these fish would push bait all the way to the surface and expose their location, which allowed us to swoop in, catch fish by sight-casting, then, when they disappeared, by counting our lures down.

Once they sounded, we also found we could consolidate them by creating commotion with the splasher and our presentations, and by hooking and playing fish. As this happened, we were able to fish vertically using a smoking tactic both with and without the aid of Garmin LiveScope.

None of my crew had experience using LiveScope the way we used it this morning and that really seemed to be a treat for them. As was the case all week last week, the fishing began to taper between 9:40 and 9:50 and was over by 10:20.

This Fellowship of Christian Sportsmen’s crew landed exactly 204 fish this morning every last one of which was a white bass.

Bottom line: it was critical to watch and see what size shad the fish were feeding on, and then imitate that forage size via good lure selection.

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

TALLY: 112 fish caught and released

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

OBSERVATIONS: Being prepared (i.e. with lures already selected and tied on) to imitate both juvenile shad and adult shad was key today. The wind shift to the north did not seem to impact the fishery versus the SSE to due S winds we had last week. Here is the water temperature profile I detected prior to sunrise:

0 feet, 78.6F
5 feet, 79.6F
10 feet, 79.9F
15 feet, 80.1F
20 feet, 80.1F
25 feet, 76.7F
30 feet, 71.2F
35 feet, 68.4F
40 feet 66.9F
45 feet, 65.5F
50 feet, 64.1F
55 feet, 63.2F
60 feet, 62.2F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:15A

End Time: 10:20A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 12.63 feet low, 24 CFS flow, a 0.01′ drop over the past 72 hours

Water Surface Temp: ~78.6F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: NW5-6 all morning

Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover until ~8:00, then rapidly dissipating to blue skies and 30% white cloud cover.

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 92% illumination.

GT = 80

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic B0123C – 27 fish on MAL Mini rigs via sight-casting to surface feeders

Area vic 15576 thru 1411 – 37 fish on MAL Mini rigs via sight-casting to surface feeders & counting down to suspended fish

Area vic B02020G – 78 fish on a combination of smoking, sight-casting, and counting down MAL Heavies

Area vic B0129G – 89 fish on a combination of smoking, sight-casting, and counting down MAL

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

IMITATING ALL SIZES OF SHAD WAS KEY — 112 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

June 4th, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Friday morning, June 2nd, I fished with first-time guests Mr. Joseph Schmidt from the Austin area, and his friend Patti Powell who lives in Belton.

Joseph practices general dentistry and has his own boat and a strong background in saltwater fishing; Patti is stepping back into real estate and arrived this morning already handling spinning gear well, which was a big help.

Here is how the fishing went…

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

Next available dates are July 5, 10, & 11 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: Joseph Schmidt and Patti Powell with a few of the 112 fish they caught and released using a variety of methods to imitate both the juvenile and adult shad which the gamefish were feeding on this morning.

PHOTO CAPTION: Triple! Joseph landed two sets of triples as we covered water using downriggers while keeping an eye on sonar to find large concentrations of fish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Friday, 02 June 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: We began at 6:15 AM in order to take advantage of any early topwater action which might materialize. There wasn’t much going on until just after the sun rose. Once it did, I spotted several pockets of topwater action. After observing yesterday’s substantial topwater feed, I came prepared this morning not only with small MAL Mini Rigs, but also with even smaller Cork rigs with small streamers to imitate the smallest of the newly hatched shad which so many of the white bass are now focused on.

We spotted our first school of open water white bass around 6:40, and they were definitely pursuing young-of-the-year shad. Both Joseph and Patti cast to the schools accurately as I kept the boat in range. They picked up their first 10 fish this way before this action died quickly.

I spotted a second group of fish, but there were already boats nearby, so we just bypassed that “boat show” and continued on to find our own fish.

The topwater action got quiet for a while, so, through 8:20, we used a combination of downrigging to cover ground and find fish (most of which were suspended around 16-22′) and, once we found an area which a greater than average density of fish, we’d stop, let the splasher work to draw the fish in, and work MAL Heavies vertically through them using a smoking tactic. We added 18 more fish to our tally in this manner.

Around 8:20, with partly cloudy skies and a gentle S. wind, open water surface feeding began with great numbers of white bass pursuing adult threadfin shad to the surface. We swapped back and forth between sight-casting when the fish were plentiful and nearby, showing themselves on the surface, using a vertical smoking tactic in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope when the screens lit up indicating fish moving beneath us, and a count-down tactic when we saw the majority of the fish out to the port or starboard side of the boat courtesy of side-imaging.

The action began to taper around 9:40, and by 10:15 things had throttled way back to the level they were at prior to 8:20.

We wrapped up right at the 4-hour mark with 112 fish landed, including 2 short hybrid stripers, 1 blue catfish, 1 largemouth bass, 1 freshwater drum, and 107 white bass, of which ~8 were short.

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

TALLY: 112 fish caught and released

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

OBSERVATIONS: Being prepared (i.e. with lures already selected and tied on) to imitate both juvenile shad and adult shad was key today.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:15A

End Time: 10:20A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 12.64 feet low, 24 CFS flow, a 0.00′ change over the past 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: ~78.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE3-5 at trip’s start, very slowly swinging to due S while maintaining the same velocity

Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover until ~8:20, then rapidly dissipating to blue skies and 30% white cloud cover.

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 97% illumination.

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic B0057G – 10 fish on Cork Rigs with fry imitator streamers

Area vic B0092G – 14 fish via downrigging to find & smoking MAL Heavies to catch

Area vic B0228G – 88 fish on a combination of smoking, sight-casting, and counting down 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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

GO SMALL OR GO HOME – 169 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

June 2nd, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: On Thursday, June 1, I fished with first-time guests Bret, Grayson, and Bryson Necessary.

Brett is a civil engineer working for MW Builders, and the boys, ages 17 and 15 respectively, are working their way through high school.

Here is how the fishing went…

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

Next available dates are July 5, 6, 10 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Grayson, Bret, and Bryson Necessary with a sampling of the white bass they caught and released from Lake Belton. Imitating young-of-the-year shad was critical as the fish are very focused on those small baitfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 01 June 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: We got going at 6:15 AM this morning, anticipating a low-light top water feed.

Note that this is not the same sort of topwater as we had just a short week ago. That topwater at that time consisted of gamefish pushing adult shad, which were spawning, toward the shore and toward the surface to trap and eat them.

A rapid transition is now taking place with gamefish focused on the very small young of the year shad. These shad are generally located away from the bank and the fish feeding on them are much harder to visually detect, because the shad are so easily slurped in that they require very little effort on the gamefishes’ part to overtake and ingest. Thus, no, splashing, typically accompanies this sort of feeding.

I checked several areas before finding enough topwater action to keep us in business. Once located, I used a combination of drifting with the wind, repositioning with Spot-Lock, and the jogging function on my trolling motor to keep my three anglers within a reasonable casting distance of the schooling fish. Our 100th fish came over the side at 8:20 AM. These fish all came from a roughly 300 yard area.

These fish were all taken on the new MAL Mini Rig. This consists of a substantially downsized MAL Lure designed to imitate small, young-of-the-year baitfish. Ahead of the small MAL is a 3/4 oz. weight to provide enough heft to cast the rig out and beyond the feeding fish so the retrieve can be made through the entire school.

PHOTO CAPTION: The MAL Mini, designed to imitate young-of-the-year shad, shown below three (of 8) shad regurgitated by a single white bass during this morning’s trip.

Once the gray, low cloud cover began to burn off, this feed ended fairly quickly. I looked around for remnant schools, found one area which gave up six more fish, then that chapter closed for good around 8:40.

As the sky brightened, but still with fully clouded skies, adult threadfin shad began to get forced to the surface out in open water. The fish chasing these we’re doing so more aggressively and throwing some spray up into the air which could be seen with a trained eye.

Additionally, occasional visits out over open water by blue herons gave the general location of this sort of action away. I hustled to the scene of the crime, and we were able to finish out the remainder of our trip at first racing MAL Lures vertically through fish suspended around 20 to 25 feet deep, then, after sonar revealed these fish were pulling up even higher in the water column, we began to cast MAL Heavies, and let them sink to a four count before retrieving.

Once the winds calmed a bit, and the skies brightened as the clouds thinned, we begin counting down further to six, then eight, then once the fish got back down as low as the 20 foot mark, the feed came to an end.

The action had just about cooled by 9:50 AM, and by 10:10 AM we decided to give downrigging a try as a “mop up“ effort. The fish were shut down hard enough by this time that the downrigging did not even produce. We called it a day right at 10:20 with 169 fish landed including two blue catfish, one largemouth bass, and the remainder of white bass.

TALLY: 169 fish caught and released

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

OBSERVATIONS: Generally speaking, fish are heavily focused now on young-of-the-year shad, thus, downsized baits are a must.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:15A

End Time: 10:20A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 12.64 feet low, 24 CFS flow, a 0.01′ fall over the past 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: ~78.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SE6 all morning

Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover until ~8:20, then rapidly dissipating to blue skies and 30% white cloud cover.

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 91% illumination.

GT = 100

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic B0202C thru 1796 — 100 fish by 8:20AM on MAL Mini Rigs

Area 1795 – 6 fish on MAL Mini Rigs

Area vic B0092G – 63 fish on a combination of smoking and counting down 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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

SHAD NETTING FUNDAMENTALS – 106 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

June 1st, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: On Wednesday, May 31, I fished with returning guests, Dr. Jason Locklin and his two oldest kids, Ava, age 17, and Morgan, age 15.

Jason is a professor at Temple College, and the two of us have not only fished together previously, but also had the opportunity to work together on a study comparing zebra mussel populations in Stillhouse Hollow and Lake Belton.

For sometime now, Jason has wanted to understand what it takes to both capture live shad, and then use them as bait for hybrid striped bass. This season, I chose not to pursue hybrid, both due to low numbers of legal size fish present as our Lake Belton hybrid program is rebuilding, and because I injured my left rotator cuff, thus making throwing a cast net impossible during the early part of the season.

Here is how the fishing went.…

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

Next available dates are July 5, 6, 10 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: Ava and Morgan Locklin with a few of the white bass they landed by sight-casting to surface feeding white bass with MAL Heavies, and by tightlining live shad off bottom.

PHOTO CAPTION: Ava Locklin with our best fish of the trip. This bluecat fell for a piece of cut live shad we fished amongst a spread of 5 other rods with live gizzards and threadfins.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 31 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

Regardless of the whole shoulder thing, I told Jason I would try to figure out a way to at least show him the ropes this season. Unfortunately we had to wait for the kids to be done with school and, as a result, our shad spawn has since ended, so that meant capturing shad the hard way. We met up at 4:45 AM with both a traditional net and a tape net, and proceeded to collect enough bait before sunrise to see us through that portion of our trip dedicated to the pursuit of hybrid.

I covered topics I felt were critical for catching and keeping shad:

Cast net styles
Shad tank fundamentals (aeration, filtration, circulation, and insulation)
Water treatments
Sorting/transfer bucket use
Throwing methods
Deep water throwing vs. shallow water throwing
Bait net use
Filter material and cleaning

With a mix of threadfin and gizzard shad now in the bait tank, we got lines in the water just after first light around 6:25 AM.

We hit three areas getting set up and then allowing the baits and splasher to work their magic for about 25 minutes at each location. Although we drew strikes and landed two white bass, neither the strikes, nor the sonar signatures I saw led me to believe we were dealing with hybrid.

The night before this trip, suspecting that the shad and/or the hybrid might be difficult to come by at this point in the season, I asked Jason what he would like to do if we struggled in either regard, and he was open to pursuing other species in other ways.

As we headed to a fourth area to search for hybrid, I spotted some widespread surface activity and was pleased to see that the white bass were feeding on adult threadfin shad. I say “pleased”, because when these fish are feeding on young of the year shad, they are much more difficult to fool, as it is hard to find a lure small enough to imitate these tiny fish.

For about 45 minutes, Morgan, Ava, and Jason sight-cast on one side of the boat or the other, as I maneuvered the boat to keep them with in casting range of the surface feeding fish.

This trio put 68 fish in the boat and made quick work of it. The time was now 9:20 AM, and we had planned to wrap up around 10:20 AM, so we agreed to put in our final hour in pursuit of hybrid once again.

I surveyed a windblown point with sonar, saw activity, and got baits down quickly as everyone was now very familiar with the routine. We fished this area until the bait ran out and wound up with 36 additional fish, including 33 white bass, two blue catfish, and one largemouth bass .

Our grand total for the morning was 106 fish with 68 taken on the MAL Heavy with chartreuse tail sight-cast and/or counted down, and an additional 38 fish taken on live threadfin and gizzard shad using essentially a Carolina rig, suspended vertically off the bottom terminated with a Kahle style hook.

We did not land a single hybrid, but still got to cover the approach to fishing live shad including:

Shad size
Shad location
Shad species
Hook choice
Hook positioning
Hook mono tags
Tightline setups
Rod holder positions
Bite detection
Bait clicker functions
Chumming

TALLY: 106 fish caught and released

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

OBSERVATIONS: With two consecutive days without spawning shad activity despite ideal conditions, I believe “Shad Spawn 2023” is now complete; and, by the looks of the numbers of juvenile shad now showing up, it looks as if it was quite successful.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 4:45A

End Time: 10:20A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 66F

Elevation: 12.63 feet low, 24 CFS flow, a 0.04′ fall over the past 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: ~78.1F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SE6-8 until ~9:20, then dropping to SE4-5

Sky Condition: Blue skies with under 10% cloud cover all morning.

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 85% illumination.

GT = 50

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 1556 – 2 whites on live shad

Area vic 1519 – 68 white sight-casting to fish feeding on adult shad with MAL Heavies (all legal)

Area 297 – 38 fish on live shad (2 blue catfish, 1 largemouth bass, 35 white bass (all legal)

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

A VERY SHORT WINDOW — 64 FISH @ LAKE BELTON (PM)

June 1st, 2023June 1st, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Tuesday evening, May 30, I fished with the 10-year-old grandson of Dr. Bill Johnston, a retired Scott and White anesthesiologist.

Webb Johnston had a very short window to fish with me during his visit with his grandparents and all I had available during that window was an evening trip, which I normally do not offer this time of year.

Summertime evening bites tend to be very short (but intense), taking place in the last 75 minutes or so of light. It is difficult to have (kids, especially) out in high heat for 2.75 hours catching very little before the good fishing kicks in. Fortunately, a nice breeze helped tame the heat.

Here is how the fishing went…

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

Next available dates are July 5, 6, 10 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: Webb Johnston with a nice 4.75 pound Lake Belton hybrid striped bass taken on an MAL Heavy raced from the bottom toward the surface while observing LiveScope.

PHOTO CAPTION: Bill Johnston treated his grandson, Webb, to an evening fishing trip on Lake Belton. Webb landed a total of 64 fish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 30 May 2023 (PM)

HOW WE FISHED:

The plan was for Webb to do all the fishing today as Bill took photos, videos, and helped me help Webb be successful. I explain to Webb that on most evenings on Lake Belton, the vast majority of the fish activity takes place in the last hour or so before dark.

This evening was no exception.

Since this was a “Kids Fish, Too!“ trip, it was scheduled for 3.5 hours. After about two hours, we had managed 17 fish, primarily by downrigging for suspended white bass which were locked in on young of the year shad.

Around 7:35, as the winds, which came up very suddenly around 4:45 PM as a thunderstorm to the northeast fell apart, died down we began to see many schools of white bass churning the surface chasing primarily after young of the year shad.

Using the new MAL Mini Rig to more closely imitate these small shad than the standard MAL Lure does, Webb proceeded to wear out the white bass, taking our final count up to 64 fish landed as the final fish came in the boat at 8:58 PM.

We got into a good rhythm where Webb stood next to me on my boat’s front casting deck; he would cast to a pod of fish, retrieve quickly to keep his lure up high in the water column, hook and land a fish, then hand that rod — with fish still attached — to me as I handed him an identical rod with the bail already centered and the bait hanging an appropriate distance below the rod tip, absolutely ready for casting.

I would unhook the fish, prepare the second rod, and wait on Webb to hook and land another, and so it went as the two of us worked very efficiently to keep him hooking and landing fish. As fun as this action was, and as appropriate as it was for a young man his age, most of these fish were yearling fish, many of which have already surpassed the 10″ minimum legal size. Perhaps 1 in every 8 or so was 12″ or better.

TALLY: 64 fish caught and released

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

OBSERVATIONS: “Offshore” schools of nomadic white bass feeding on the tiny young-of-the-year shad continues to increase in frequency and abundance.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 4:45P

End Time: 9P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 85F

Elevation: 12.59 feet low, 24 CFS flow, a 0.30′ increase over the long Memorial Day weekend

Water Surface Temp: ~79F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SE16 at trip’s start thanks to collapsing thunderstorms to the NE; then tapering back to SE6 by dark

Sky Condition: Blue skies with under 10% cloud cover all evening.

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 76% illumination.

GT = 50

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic B0019G – downrigging

Area 1766 to 1641 – topwater sightcasting

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com