16 | March | 2025 | Fishing Report

Aye, We Landed the Loch Belton Monster, Laddie – 94 Fish

March 16th, 2025 by Bob Maindelle

CLIENTS: On the afternoon of Thursday, March 13, I fished with brothers Joe and Jack Oliver. The Oliver clan, over the years, have proven to be my most frequent clients.

Originally, this trip was intended by Joe to be an opportunity for him to bring three or four of his football coaching coworkers from Temple ISD out fishing during spring break, however, very high winds forecast for Friday, March 14, forced me to reschedule his crew for this afternoon. When everything was said and done, none of the original crew was able to make it, but Joe, still wanting to go fishing, which is his custom during spring break, called his brother, who lives in Marble Falls, and we made it a two-man trip instead. Joe joined me at 3:30, and Jack joined the two of us at 4:15 PM.

DATE: Thursday, 13 March 2025 (PM)

NEXT OPEN DATES: 25, 26 March (AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: Jack Oliver, left, and his brother, Joe, team-lift this “beautiful” flathead catfish (a.k.a. yellow catfish). The brothers had landed 37 white bass at our final stop of the evening when this monster moved through (possibly feeding on white bass?).

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

We fished deep, clear water with Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs on a fairly slow bite through 5:50 PM, given the gray cloud cover greatly reducing sunlight penetration.

I then moved us to shallow water at this time to close out the trip. As we made the trek to fish shallow or water, I stopped at an area in 25 to 28 feet and found a few small white bass present which we caught on the slab.

We continued on and got distracted by gulls actively working over a stretch of river channel. Migratory white bass were pushing shad to the surface. The white bass were in a horizontal band down between 25 and 35 feet deep over 55 feet of water. We picked up a handful of fish, including whites, one largemouth, and one legal hybrid here before the fish toned down, the birds dissipated, and we moved on.

It was now around 6:45 PM and we spent the remainder of the trip casting MAL Originals with chartreuse tails to white bass in water under 18 feet in depth. This accounted for a final 38 fish for the evening.

The very last fish to come over the gunwale was a hefty, 30-pound class flathead catfish which Jack hooked on light spinning gear and eventually landed successfully. Joe filmed three 3-minute segments of the fight and still didn’t capture the entire battle!

RESULTS: 94 fish, all caught and released

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO DO “SLOW SMOKING”: Click here for tutorial

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO DO “EASING” WITH A SLAB: Click here for tutorial

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO SNAP-JIG: Click here for tutorial

LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: We used the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs and the MAL Original with chartreuse tail to catch our fish this trip. Find all MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS:

Two episodes of helpful bird activity this evening — both over the channel feeding on shad driven by migrating white
The warming water is increasing fish metabolism and that is trumping some otherwise troublesome weather conditions, the shallow water bite gets a bit longer each day.
Mulberry leaves sprouted; live oak catkins and old leaves are falling; turtles sightings are becoming more common.

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

This is the most up-to-date water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 3:15PM on Wednesday, 12 March. …

0 feet 60.3F

5 feet 59.6F

10 feet 59.0F

15 feet 58.6F

20 feet 57.4F

25 feet 56.9F

30 feet 56.5F

35 feet 55.6F

40 feet 54.9F

45 feet 54.7F

50 Feet 53.6F

55 feet 53.2F

This was the previous water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:00AM on Wednesday, 05 March. …

0 feet 55.3F

5 feet 55.6F

10 feet 55.6F

15 feet 55.6F

20 feet 55.6F

25 feet 55.6F

30 feet 55.6 F

35 feet 54.0F

40 feet 52.8F

45 feet 51.3F

50 feet 50.8F

55 feet 50.8F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 3:30P

End Time: 7:45P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Elevation: 2.63′ low

Water Surface Temp: 60.7F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: Winds were manageable all evening, SSW8-9

Sky Condition: Fully greyed skies existed for our first hour, then quickly cleared during the second hour to cloudless by the start of the third hour

Moon Phase: Full moon at 100% illumination.

GT = 55

Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic B0319G – 9 fish slow smoking slabs

Area vic 081- 3 fish slow smoking slabs

Area vic 346 – 15 fish slow smoking slabs

Area vic 1624/0154 – 6 fish slow smoking slabs

Area vic 1379 – 13 fish slow smoking slabs over suspended fish migrating in the Leon channel

Area vic 415 – 38 fish on MAL Originals worked with a sawtooth method

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

More Shallow MAL Lure Action as Water Continues to Warm – 123 Fish

March 16th, 2025 by Bob Maindelle

CLIENTS: This past Thursday morning, March 13, I fished with long-time clients and friends, Tommy and Sylvia Maedgen. Both are retired and fish several times per month. They are both fans of the MAL Lure and the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab, hence, there was no learning curve whatsoever as we got down to catching fish.

Sylvia is a master gardener and I like to fool with blackberries, so we got to kick that topic around a bit before Sylvia spent her forthcoming Saturday at the annual plant sale at the Bell County Expo Center.

DATE: Thursday, 13 March 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATES: 25, 26 March (AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: Tommy and Sylvia Maedgen cashed in on the longest shallow water bite I’ve experienced year-to-date. They cast MAL Originals in under 20 feet of water to take 100 of their 123 fish; the balance came out of deeper water on slabs where the water temperature is cooler and the tactics have to be slower to get bit.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

Thanks to the extended warming trend we have enjoyed this week, we experienced a two-hour-long shallow water bite this morning during which all but about 10 of the fish landed came on MAL Originals worked horizontally using the sawtooth method.

As I have noted previously this week, there was still a lot of small fish in the mix today, but the ratio of larger fish increased.

Once the shallow water bite shut down, we moved to deeper, clearer water and found additional fish in 36 to 38 feet of water.

For this situation, we geared up with the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab in white color and 5/8-ounce size. We worked these with a slow smoking tactic, aided greatly by the use of Garmin LiveScope.

The fish shut down very obviously right at noon today. By that time, Tommy and Silvia had landed 123 fish.

RESULTS: 123 fish, all caught and released