CLIENTS: This morning I welcomed aboard Amanda Adams and her sons, Carsen (16) and Carter (14) from Eugene, Oregon, which is in the southwestern part of the state. Amanda’s brother-in-law, T.J. Yagalla, a client of mine, scheduled the trip for her. As his text came in, my wife and I were actually in Eugene wrapping up a week’s vacation taking in the giant Northern California coastal redwood trees and doing some rockfish fishing off the coast near Crescent City, CA. Having experienced both places now, I’d much rather be in Oregon in August!!
DATE: Monday, 26 August 2024 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES: 28 Aug. (AM), 10-12 Sep.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Amanda, Carsen, and Carter Adams with a few of the 147 fish they caught using a variety of tactics and baits on this late August morning fishing trip on Lake Belton.
PHOTO CAPTION: While “triples” (catching three fish at a time using a 3-armed umbrella rig) do happen while downrigging in the summer months, this crew landed five sets of triples today!!
PHOTO CAPTION: Carsen landed our single largest fish of the trip. This smallmouth buffalo hit his MAL Mini inline spinner as he was working it vertically through a school of white bass. It weighed 10.50 pounds on a certified scale.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
We began the morning downrigging under low-light conditions. Fish were fairly active by 6:50A, then continued to feed more and more enthusiastically until about 25 minutes after the sun began to shine directly on the water. During this time we used #12 Pet Spoons behind 3-armed umbrella rigs to catch mature white bass in under 20 feet of water. Fish were quite willing to come as much as 7-8 feet off bottom to chase these lures.
During this low-light period, we encountered one instance with several hundred fish showing out to starboard, so, I stopped the downrigging, Spot-Locked, and got everyone quickly tossing MAL Originals with chartreuse tails to those fish, and retrieving with a sawtooth method. This quickly added 11 fish to our count before these fish dissipated.
We returned to downrigging until the fish moved deeper than 20 feet and no longer showed an interest in rising off bottom, nor in chasing lures enthusiastically. The sun had now been shining on the water for about a half-hour.
At this point, I used side-imaging and down-imaging to find less active fish grouped together on bottom. Once found, I Spot-Locked on them and, with the help of Garmin LiveScope had everyone use MAL Minis with a vertical smoking tactic to tease these fish into chasing these baits upwards. The splasher was invaluable for drawing fish in from the surrounding area.
The rest of the morning was spent finding fish, Spot-Locking atop them, and working MAL Minis vertically while being aided by both LiveScope and the splasher.
Here is a tutorial on vertically smoking the MAL Lure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
Here is a tutorial on horizontally “sawtoothing” with the MAL Lure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ
LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: We downrigged as long as we were finding fish on clean bottoms with #12 Pet Spoons, stopped once to 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: 147 fish caught and released, including 3 drum, 1 largemouth bass, and a 60/40 mix of 143 short and keeper white bass.
OBSERVATIONS:
1) Only brief (lasting just seconds) topwater action observed, primarily just prior to sunrise.
2) Best quality fish came in the first 80 minutes; mainly smaller fish after ~8:30A.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
Here was the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6:25 AM on Monday, August 26 …
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6:35A
End Time: 10:50A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F
Elevation: 0.60′ low and falling slowly with a 52 cfs flow; .04′ fall in last 24 hours
Water Surface Temp: 88.2F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: Light and variable all morning
Sky Condition: 25% white cloud cover on a light blue sky at start, increasing to 40% by trip’s end
Moon Phase: Last quarter moon at 49% illumination.
GT = 55
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