WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Wednesday morning, October 25, I fished with a crew from the Sun City Rod and Gun Club out of Georgetown, Texas.
Mr. Pat Patterson is the club’s fishing director, and he did a great job of communicating clearly and well in advance to the crew he assembled for this trip so as to make the trip as enjoyable as could be for the three fellows who joined him: Jim Pax, Russ Gibbs, and Bill Domescik.
Everyone had prior fishing experience, including experience with spinning gear, so we were in good shape for the morning. Here is how the fishing went…
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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Jim Pax, Russ Gibbs, Pat Patterson, and Bill Domescik, all members of the Sun City Rod and Gun Club, converged on Lake Belton this morning for a 108-fish haul.
PHOTO CAPTION: Jim Pax took our largest fish of the trip, a hybrid striped bass in the 4-pound class.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: the 3/4 oz., 5/8 oz., & 3/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs complete with bladed treble hook and stinger hook will see increasing action as the water cools. Our fish came on the white 5/8 oz. version this morning as it did the best job of imitating the size of the shad I saw the fish we were catching regurgitate.
Find the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab here: https://whitebasstools.com/
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday, 25 October 2023
HOW WE FISHED:
We had a third consecutive day of rainy, cloudy weather. There were about three 10 to 15 minute spans during the trip when it rained heavily enough to send us grabbing for our rain gear.
With the grey, dim skies at sunrise, the fish were not yet active on the bottom. I moved to a new location to search out some subsurface, low light activity, and was successful in finding just that.
We took nine fish via downrigging right off the bat this morning, including whites, hybrid, and one largemouth bass, before the skies got bright enough to illuminate the deeper water to kick off the fish feed there. I continued downrigging until I saw evidence of fish feeding on the bottom, and once I did, we switched over to a vertical tactic and never looked back.
Given my experience yesterday, finding schooled fish which were heavily congregated on bottom and eating shad roughly 2 inches in length, I stuck with the 5/8 ounce, white, Bladed Hazy Eye Slab instead of going with the larger MAL Lure. I believe this turned out to be a good choice, which put additional fish in the boat, especially given that many of the fish we encountered today were on the small end of the spectrum.
Over the course of the morning, we hit approximately seven deepwater areas and the scenario at each was the same. I spotted fish either with down-imaging or side-imaging, positioned atop them using the Spot-Lock feature on my Minn Kota, then maintained contact with these fish using Garmin LiveScope in downward mode. My four clients were all in the back of the boat so we confined all of the commotion we created to one area. I had them smoke the slabs from bottom upwards for a default amount of seven cranks. The first group of fish we got into allowed us a very quick 42 fish in about as many minutes, but the vast majority of these fish were small.
Feeling that everyone had the gist of the smoking tactic at this point, I offered that we could continue right on doing what we were doing, or roll the dice and hope to find larger fish in other locations. This works out about 30% of the time. Everyone put their heads together and agreed they’d like to go after larger white bass, so we moved routinely, and all of the areas we went to produced at least a few fish larger than all of the fish we caught at that first area.
By the time noon rolled around, we had just eclipsed the 100 fish mark and took the count to 108 before the fish finally gave up the ghost.
Our tally of 108 fish included 1 largemouth bass, 5 hybrid striped bass, 8 freshwater drum, and 94, white bass of which about 45% were legal.
TALLY: 108 fish caught and released.
OBSERVATIONS: Water temperature profile measured 7:10AM, Monday, 23 Oct. Although much slower to disappear this year thanks to prolonged heating, we’re finally seeing the thermocline disappear…
0 feet, 73.4F
5 feet, 73.3F
10 feet, 73.3F
15 feet, 73.3F
20 feet, 73.1F
25 feet, 72.8F
30 feet, 71.7F
35 feet, 71.6F
40 feet, 70.7F
45 feet, 69.0F
50 feet, 64.5F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:30A
End Time: 12:10P
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F
Elevation: 19.37 feet low, 47 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 73.1F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE11-15 all morning
Sky Condition: Heavy grey skies with scattered, occasional, brief, light rain over the 4 hour trip
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 85% illumination.
GT = 125
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area vic B0171G – downrigging for 9 fish
Areas 717/0005 (42 fish), B0094C (5 fish), BDH010 in 42′ (14 fish), 0151 (18 fish in 2 hops), and B0240G (20 fish) for a total of 99 fish smoking Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs
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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