WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, October 11, I fished with Mr. David Furnace of Salado, Texas.
David did an on-the-water sonar training session with me back earlier this summer, and after returning from his summer place up in Michigan, booked a fishing trip with me now that the weather has moderated, and the fishing has begun to pick up.
David’s concern was more with the approaches I take to finding fish, than actually catching fish. Fortunately, this morning allowed for both.
Here is how the fishing went…
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PHOTO CAPTION: David Furnace arrived loaded with questions and ready to learn this morning. We went over multiple tactics and detailed the blended use of multiple sonar technologies during our 4+ hour morning trip which yielded 105 fish.
PHOTO CAPTION: The MAL Heavy with white tail accounted for 86 of our 105 fish this morning.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
HOW WE FISHED:
For the second consecutive day, the skies brightened slowly through grey, cloudy skies. This morning’s skies were completely greyed over from before sunrise through to the end of the trip. Yesterday’s cloudy conditions lead to a near total lack of topwater action, and this morning was similar in that regard. Although we saw a handful of schooling fish, they were so widespread, and appeared so infrequently that we did not focus on them.
As I looked over multiple areas where topwater action has been occurring, I found abundant, suspended fish present along with an abundance of bait. This screamed out for a downrigging approach, and that is exactly the approach we took. I explained each step of the downrigging process, as well as how the various components of the downrigging set-up function to David.
We quickly got to downriggers in the water, each equipped with a three-armed umbrella rig sporting #13 Pet Spoons as the baits. With two rods and six baits in the water, things started happening very quickly for us. In no time, we had boated multiple singles, multiple doubles, and a triple, taking our count to 14 fish before the area we were focused on became so saturated with fish that I felt downrigging would no longer be our most efficient option.
I quickly put the downrigging gear away and changed over to fishing MAL Heay Lures vertically, using a splasher to draw fish to us, consolidate them beneath the boat, and make them more readily caught.
Fish were present primarily in the lower third of the water column, and were moving at a fast pace, parallel to the bottom, indicating they were patrolling and actively chasing bait. With the help of Garmin LiveScope, we quickly took our fish count to 41 before taking a break to give topwater another consideration. Over a 1/8-mile area, three ospreys were working pretty intently, and diving occasionally. As we arrived in that area, we found widespread, sparse surface activity, which was not going to lend itself well to throwing topwaters. Sonar revealed ample fish on bottom in the same area, so we returned to smoking MAL Heavies in conjunction with LiveScope, and took our count to 70.
During this time I had an opportunity to demonstrate the sawtooth method, so, David now had three techniques under his belt.
After these fish cooled off, we checked out a third area which had produced well at around the 9:30 time frame on Monday. After a little looking, we found a small area in 32 feet of water carpeted with fish and sat on them, again smoking MAL Heavies, aided by LiveScope. We took our count to exactly 100 and left them biting so as to introduce David to one final tactic.
For that one final on the water lesson, I took David to an area where I’d viewed abundant blue catfish in 32 to 34 feet of water on yesterday‘s trip . These fish were still present, so we used Catfish Plumbs baited with two different kinds of prepared baits to tempt these fish. We spent our final 30 minutes working for these blue cat and landed five which represented about 50% of the strikes we experienced.
We wrapped up the trip with exactly 105 fish landed, including five blue catfish, two short hybrid, striper, two freshwater drum, and the balance (96) white bass with about 25% of them being short fish.
TALLY: 105 fish caught and released.
Find the MAL Lure here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS: With cloud cover and breeze all morning, a long-sleeved shirt worn all morning was comfortable for the first time in a long time!
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 710A
End Time: 11:50A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F
Elevation: 18.85 feet low, 47 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 75.6F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8 all morning
Sky Condition: 100% light grey cloud cover all morning
Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 10% illumination.
GT = 50
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area vic B0032C thru B0231G – downrigging for 14 fish
Area vic B0231G – 27 fish on smoked MAL Heavies
Area vic B0185G – 29 fish on smoked MAL Heavies
Area vic B0037C – 30 fish on smoked MAL Heavies
Area B0069G to 344 – 5 bluecat on Catfish Plumbs
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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