CLIENTS: This Friday morning I fished with returning guests — the grandfather-grandson team of Charles Simmons and Caden Kimpel. Charles resides in Salado, and Caden, whose dad works in the international petroleum industry, currently resides in Cairo, Egypt. He won’t start school until early September, so, we got to enjoy a very uncrowded Lake Belton this morning.
DATE: Friday, 16 August 2024 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES: 26-30Aug. (AM & PM)
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Nine-year-old Caden Kimpel and his grandfather, Charles Simmons, landed 101 fish on an unbusy Lake Belton using a combination of tactics between first light and 10:30AM.
PHOTO CAPTION: Triple!! Caden landed these three “keeper” white bass simultaneously on his 3-armed umbrella rig equipped with #12 Pet Spoons which did a great job imitating the smallest shad in the system right now.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED: Fishing was pretty straightforward this morning. With high pressure firmly in control of the weather, a light southerly breeze, and no boat traffic, the fish were ready to feed come first light, and stayed feeding for just shy of four hours.
We started the morning downrigging just to have baits in the water as I covered water with sonar to search for fishable concentrations of fish. After finding fish, we quickly discovered they much preferred a horizontal presentation to a vertical one, so, we kept right on downrigging as long as the fish cooperated. This accounted for 44 fish coming in as singles, doubles, and triples, all on #12 Pet Spoons behind 3-armed umbrella rigs.
Once this area quieted down, I found our next batch of fish in some timber, so, we smoked and cast MAL Originals through “lanes” in the timber working them sawtooth-style, as downrigging was not an option. There was a bit of a learning curve to this, but, Charles and Caden added 8 more fish to the count before these fish lost interest.
By now, it was hot and bright and outside the “low-light” window which has produced quality fish both AM and PM. We mostly smallish fish from this point forward, but, they were quite cooperative, responded well to the splasher, and provided lots of action. These fish were taken by smoking MAL Minis vertically using Garmin LiveScope to gauge fish response. Bending the shaft about 15-20 degrees on these tiny spinners which imitate young-of-the-year shad is a great “tackle tip” if they don’t spin easily out of the package.
The trick on the “smoking” tactic in the summer, regardless of which MAL you choose, is getting the spinner going as close to the bottom as possible, and keeping the retrieve speed down thereafter. Hence, I use 5.2:1 gear ratio reels for my clients.
Here is a tutorial on smoking the MAL Lure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: We downrigged as long as we were finding fish on clean bottoms with #12 Pet Spoons, then “smoked” MAL Minis and Originals for the latter portion of the trip, once the fish got lazy and pushed lower in the water column. Find all MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/
TALLY: 101 fish caught and released, including 5 drum, 1 largemouth bass, and a 60/40 mix of short and keeper white bass.
OBSERVATIONS:
1) No topwater action observed.
2) Mainly undersized fish after ~8:30A.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
Here was the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6 AM on Friday, August 16 …
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6:20A
End Time: 10:30A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F
Elevation: 0.24′ low and falling slowly with a 33 cfs flow; .04′ fall in last 24 hours
Water Surface Temp: 88.2F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: S8 all morning
Sky Condition: 25% white cloud cover on a light blue sky
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 86% illumination.
GT = 65
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
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