CLIENTS: This morning, Tuesday, March 25, I fished with Jason Anderson from near Thorndale, Texas. Most of Jason‘s prior fishing experience has been for largemouth bass, but he is contemplating shifting his focus to pursuing locally available members of the temperate bass family, including whites, hybrid, and stripers. So, his reservation with me was both in hopes of catching fish, but also to make steps towards understanding the process of finding fish to catch.
Jason is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades with skills in construction, material hauling, contracting, and hay baling.
DATE: Tuesday, 25 March 2025 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR FISHING: 04, 08, 10 April (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 05 April (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: Jason “made hay while the sun shone” today, taking advantage of a breeze-fueled feeding spree to put 115 fish in the boat during his solo 4-hour trip on Lake Belton.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
Jason arrived early, and I pointed out to him that that was not necessarily a good thing where white bass are concerned, as in this season, as in fall and winter, white bass rarely get going before the sun rises. There is a definite exception to this in the summer months, but right now, not much takes place until the sun is physically visible on the horizon.
When the sun rose, it was accompanied by a total lack of wind for about 90 minutes. During that time, finding fish was tough and getting them to bite even tougher, but, I located a stationary school of fish in about 24 feet of water and we stuck with them as long as the calm conditions persisted and fish continued to repopulate this area.
We wound up picking up 36 fish there before a slight breeze began to blow, and I decided to immediately head for open water where that little bit of wind would be amplified. Up until this point we caught the majority of our fish working slabs vertically with a slow-smoking tactic , and added a few fish by casting MAL Original lures to pods of fish which occasionally presented themselves on side-imaging while we sat in one spot on Spot Lock.
Once the wind started blowing, and we hit deeper, open water, and the rest of our catch was made on 5/8 and 3/4 ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs.
I defaulted to the white, 5/8 ounce version first, but noted large, adult threadfin shad in the gullet of one of the first fish we caught in open water, thus prompting me to bump our size up to three-quarter ounce instead.
When all was said and done, we had boated a total of 115 fish, including 114 white bass and one blue catfish.
While in open water, we had one brief spurt of bird activity by just four ringbill gulls. That was enough to get us in the right place at the right time, and produced our fastest fishing of the morning. I shared with Jason that on a tough day with such bright skies and light winds, it was important to make hay while the sun shown, meaning it is important to catch as many fish as possible while they are presenting aggressively — not the time to take photos, take a leak, or grab a snack.
Jason got an excellent example, courtesy of Garmin LiveScope, of how differently the fish behave when they go on a feeding spree. During this spree, the fish were much more likely to suspend, to chase our lures farther and faster, and to swim horizontally at a greater speed. During this spree, we experimented with smoking MAL Lures (MAL Dense with silver bodies and chartreuse tails) for the first time this year. They produced well, but only during that spurt — it is still just a bit too cool for them to pursue that MAL all the time.
RESULTS: 115 fish, all caught and released
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO DO “SLOW SMOKING”: Click here for tutorial
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO FISH AN MAL LURE USING THE SAWTOOTH METHOD: 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:
- One occurance of helpful bird activity this morning.
- Ratio of mature fish continues to rise with each passing day.
- I anticipate the annual threadfin shad spawn to begin within a few days
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
This is the most up-to-date water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:10AM on Friday, 21 March…
This was the previous water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 3:15PM on Wednesday, 12 March…
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:25A
End Time: 11:35
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 59F
Elevation: 2.96′ low
Water Surface Temp: 63.1F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: Winds were calm through 9:15A, then a slight S breeze began to ripple, increasing to S5-6 by trip’s end
Sky Condition: Wispy, high, white clouds at <5% on a blue sky
Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 19% illumination.
GT = 5
Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area vic 692 – 36 fish slow smoking Hazy Eye Slabs & sawtoothing MAL Originals
Area vic B0082G (2 hops) – 67 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs (5/8 & 3/4 oz. white) & MAL Originals
Area vic 1819 – 12 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs (5/8 oz. white)
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