WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Thursday, July 27th, I fished the third and final trip of the summer 2023 season with the Brewer clan of Georgetown, TX.
Two Thursdays ago, Mr. Larry Brewer brought out, among others, his grandson, Eymon McCormick; last Thursday, Larry brought his granddaughter, Adi Zwern, and today, it was Miss Finley Zwern’s turn to fish.
Finley will turn 12 next week just before starting the sixth grade where she resides near Houston.
Here is how the fishing went…
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Next available dates are August 21 – 24 (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: Mr. Larry Brewer (left) and his long-time friend, Blake Hoekstra, chaperoned Miss Finley Zwern, but left all the catching to her. She landed 55 fish this morning on Lake Belton.
PHOTO CAPTION: When Finley turned that hat around it’s like she transformed into a superhero with special fishing powers!!! That’s a Texas smallmouth bass she’s displaying.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 27 July 2023 (AM)
HOW WE FISHED:
With both Adi and Finley, I made a request of Larry that he spend just a little time familiarizing both girls with how to cast with spinning gear prior to their arrival so we could have as many options for catching fish open to us as possible.
This small investment of time paid big dividends today, as all but three of the 55 fish Finley landed came on other than downrigging gear.
As we got going this morning, I put twin downriggers down so we could have lines in the water if/when we encountered fish on the surface, right at first light. Unfortunately, there was no strong, sustained topwater feed prior to the sun directly striking the water’s surface, and we settled for three white bass on the downriggers before having to press on. These fish hit 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with a mix of #12 and #13 Pet Spoons.
As the sun rose, but while it was still low in the sky, we began to see “popcorn“ schools of white bass briefly bursting to the surface and feeding on all sizes of shad, but mainly young of the year shad. I put Finley on the front casting deck with me and ran the trolling motor from school to school while she turned her ballcap backwards like she meant business, and put her newly polished casting skills to work. She threw an MAL Mini to imitate the young-of-the-year shad.
By the time this activity settled down, we had added another 11 fish to our count, including nine white bass and two beautifully colored smallmouth bass.
We then opened a new chapter by seeking out more heavily congregated fish in the lower half of the water column and working them over using a sawtooth method with MAL Heavy Lures with white tails. Once again, this required that Finley cast – – this time, long and accurately. She did remarkably well at that, and we added a total of 33 additional white bass to our count before 9:15 AM rolled around.
At 9:15, we put all the white bass gear aside and retooled to go up shallow and pursue sunfish at Finley‘s request. We now had 47 fish in the boat. In the 45 minutes or so we invested in sunfishing, Finley was able to tempt quite a number to pull her float under, and she wound up actually boating eight of those sunfish, including bluegill, longears, and greens.
We wrapped up at 9:50 on this 3.5 hour “Kids Fish, Too!” package trip, by which time Finley had landed 55 fish.
TALLY: 55 fish caught and released.
See a tutorial on the Smoking Method here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
Here is a tutorial on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ
Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS: No low-light topwater this morning in the 9mph SE chop.
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6:20A
End Time: 9:50A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F
Elevation: 15.05 feet low, 56 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 86.4F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: Variable at SSE9-12
Sky Condition: 0% cloud cover cover, but hazy with Saharan dust
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 66% illumination.
GT = 55
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area B0039G – downrigging for sparse low-light action
Area BDH0013 – popcorn topwater
Area BG0022CH – sawtoothing for whites
Area B0226G – sunfishing
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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