WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, March 6, I fished with a returning crew of three, including brothers Stiles and Miles Parker, and their mother, Trish Littlejohn.
Stiles has come out with me multiple times and is a real student of fishing. Now equipped with his own center console with useful accessories for the pursuit of white bass and hybrid, he does well in his own right.
But, no matter how experienced you are, there is always at least a little something you can pick up by fishing with other experienced anglers. This morning, that nugget was seeing how to approach suspended fish in deep water not relating to the bottom.
PHOTO CAPTION: Trish took this hybrid from a horizontal band of fish holding in 35 to 40 feet of water over a 70′ bottom. We used the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab to imitate a slowly moving threadfin shad to fool these hybrid with the help of LiveScope.
PHOTO CAPTION: Miles took this hybrid from a horizontal band of fish holding in 35 to 40 feet of water over a 70′ bottom. We used the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab to imitate a slowly moving threadfin shad to fool these hybrid with the help of LiveScope.
PHOTO CAPTION: Stiles took this hybrid from a horizontal band of fish holding in 35 to 40 feet of water over a 70′ bottom. We used the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab to imitate a slowly moving threadfin shad to fool these hybrid with the help of LiveScope.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Stiles Parker, his mom, Trish Littlejohn, and Stiles’ brother, Miles Parker, with a few of the white bass they caught, primarily by slow-smoking a slab past suspended fish.
Find the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab here: https://whitebasstools.com/
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday, 06 March. 2024 (AM)
HOW WE FISHED:
I’ve found fishing over at Stillhouse over the course of this past week had been getting progressively more difficult thanks to a very rapid warm-up bringing late March conditions to us by late February and early March this year.
I found that the fish I had been routinely and consistently catching on Stillhouse were rapidly vacating deep water, were more prone to suspend, and were breaking into smaller schools and dispersing versus homesteading in large congregations as they’d been doing all winter.
As I conducted a check of the water temperature profile on Belton, I found it was much the same as the water temperature profile on Stillhouse, with a nearly 10° difference between the surface temperature and the temperature on bottom at 50 feet deep.
A dry, mild cold front blew in yesterday, leaving a light northerly wind, and slowly increasing levels of cloud cover in its wake this morning.
We found our fish this morning in five distinct locations. The first location and the last location featured fish on bottom which chased my crew’s baits up off the bottom and overtook them.
At the middle three spots, we encountered suspended fish and had to rely on Garmin LiveScope to retrieve our baits directly in front of the fishes’ direction of travel in order to get the fish to pursue the lures upwards, overtake them, and then bite.
We relied on only one lure this morning – the white, 5/8 ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slab.
In addition to finding suspended fish at these three locations, our attention was drawn to these areas by the presence of, and behavior of birds, including both terns and gulls. I have yet to see any Laughing Gulls thus far this season.
When all was said and done, my three-angler crew landed a total of 54 fish , including short and legal white bass, short and legal hybrid striped bass, and short and legal largemouth bass.
TALLY: 54 fish caught and released
Here is a tutorial on the slow-smoking tactic we used… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIPopSLUYoQ
OBSERVATIONS: Here was the water temperature measured in 5′ increments from the surface to the bottom in 50′ on Lake Belton on the morning of 06 March…
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:15A
End Time: 12:30P
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F
Elevation: 12.24 feet low, 33 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 62.2F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: W6 for the first 90 minutes, then shifting ENE 6 for another 90 minutes, then going calm for the remainder of the trip.
Sky Condition: Partial sun shining through ~40% cloud cover at trip’s start, increasing to a thin, grey layer of clouds at 100% coverage by trip’s end
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 30% illumination.
GT = 95
Wx SNAPSHOT:
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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