CLIENTS: This morning, Thursday, April 3, I welcomed three brothers aboard – – Steve, Dave, and Tim Wise – – they called themselves The Three Wisemen (I kid you not)!
These brothers have fished their whole lives from the salt waters of Florida to the tannic waters of Minnesota. They all recounted fond memories of the outdoors and of their dad, who is now in his 90s. Dad sends the boys an “I’m Still Alive” text each day. Today’s, shown below, was quite appropriate.
DATE: Thursday, 03 April 2025 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR FISHING: 12, 14 May (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 17 May (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: The Three Wise Men, from left: Steve, Dave, and Tim holding a few of the 152 fish they landed on a balmy, overcast spring morning on Lake Belton.
PHOTO CAPTION: The “Three Wise Men’s” dad sent them this daily “I’m Still Alive” text.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
Dave and Steve have fished with me on a number of occasions in the past, and this was Tim‘s first time to join us. When I asked how come Tim had never joined his brothers aboard my boat previously, he admitted that he really just likes to sleep in.
We had calm, humid, cloudy, springtime conditions today, and although we lacked a bit in the wind department, the gray cloud cover did help keep a bite going from start to finish today.
We started the trip in about 20 feet of water fishing for white bass, which had pushed spawning shad up against a windblown bank. Because the shallows are so full of sticks and other debris which grew up on the land during the past several years of drought, casting into water much shallower than 6 or 7 feet is pretty fruitless due to snagging.
For this reason, I moved us out into slightly deeper water so we could use vertical tactics instead. I equipped everyone with a silver, three-quarter ounce Bladed Hazy Eye slabs, got everyone familiarized with how to follow the rise and fall of their bait and fish response to it on Garmin LiveScope , and we were off to the races. We fished two areas over the span of our first two hours and put a total of 50 fish in the boat.
Right
around 9:15 AM, the very light southeast breeze stopped and a breeze just slightly east of north began to ripple the surface. The skies grew darker, the air felt heavier, and the light of misty drizzle began to fall. This little tweak in the weather spurred what would be an hour and 30 minutes of near constant topwater action (the first of the year)!
White bass were driving adult shad to the surface in between 16 and 20 feet of water. As the action was getting started, the visible surface feeding was sporadic, so I put MAL Heavies with chartreuse tails on for everyone and the fish just started flying in the boat. Once the schooling got heavier and more consistent, I put clear Spook Juniors on for everyone and we had a sight-fishing fiesta for a solid hour. Once the action went past peak and I could see more fish in the lower half of the water column than in the upper half as I viewed sonar, we went back with the MAL Heavies and fancast.
When this began to wrap up, we had put 151 fish in the boat. Within 20 minutes of wrapping up I offered we could continue casting and catching fish that way, or roll the dice, leave fish to find fish, hoping for some really big post-spawn fish in deep water. The fellows, whose wrists were hurting at this point, decided the change of pace would be nice, so we made that gamble, went to deep water, but only picked up one more fish as the winds went flat calm once again and the morning bite died for good.
RESULTS: 152 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 silver 3/4 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs, MAL Heavies (w/ chartreuse tail), and Spook Juniors to catch our fish this trip. Find all MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS:
- First bird action with laughing gulls involved YTD.
- Threadfin shad spawn continues.
- First topwater action YTD.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
This is the most up-to-date water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:00AM on Wednesday, 02 April…
0 feet 65.6F
5 feet 65.6F
10 feet65.6F
15 feet 65.5F
20 feet 65.1F
25 feet 64.9F
30 feet 64.4F
35 feet 63.1F
40 feet 62.0F
45 feet 60.9F
50 feet 57.8F
55 feet 57.6F
60 feet 57.4F
This was the previous water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:10 AM on Wednesday, 26 March…
0 feet 67.2F
5 feet 67.2F
10 feet 66.3F
15 feet 63.1F
20 feet 61.2F
25 feet 60.1F
30 feet 59.4F
35 feet 58.9F
40 feet 58.6F
45 feet 57.8F
50 feet 57.4F
55 feet 57.2F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:15A
End Time: 11:30A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F
Elevation: 2.91′ low
Water Surface Temp: 64.6F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: SE7 at trip’s start, dying to calm at 2-hour mark, then picking up ENE3 before going calm again by 10:50.
Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover for the entire trip.
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 35% illumination.
GT = 85
Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area vic B0194C – 29 fish slow smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic 363- 4 fish slow smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic 097 – 8 fish slow smoking Hazy Eye Slabs (2 hops)
Area vic 031/B0074G – 110 fish sawtoothing MAL Heavies and working Spook Juniors on topwater
Area vic 150 – 1 fish slow smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
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
