CLIENTS: This past Tuesday morning (and evening), I fished a full day trip with Justin Milam and Jason Hamilton. Justin recently bought a barge in the Northpoint Marine cove and wanted to see some different approaches to fishing for various species on Lake Belton. He and Jason work together “flipping” real estate. This morning we fished for white bass under birds early and then mixed in some live shad fishing targeting hybrid. In the evening, we fished artificials only and actually did better than in the morning, thanks to a consistent SSE wind.
DATE: Tuesday, 08 April 2025 (AM & PM)
NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: 30 May (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 31 May (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Justin Milam and Jason Hamilton with a few of the mature white bass taken on a combination of live bait and artificials from out of ~30′ this morning, the first day of returning south wind following an unseasonably cold cold front.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
I left things alone for three consecutive days as a major, wet cold front blew thru from late Friday through late Sunday, then leaving clear, calm, cold post-frontal conditions in its wake on Monday. I knew this would zap the shad spawn until at least Wednesday, so, I got back to fishing today as the south wind returned.
We enjoyed some early, low-light bird activity just after sunrise as ringbilled gulls and laughing gulls worked bait pushed to the surface in about 30-35 feet of water by aggressive white bass below. This lasted about 45 minutes then settled down before reigniting about 75 minutes later.
In the lull, I went out to even deeper water, searched for bait on certain bottom topographies, and fished live shad in an attempt to catch hybrid striped bass. I normally do not begin fishing for hybrid with live shad until April 14th, and I let Justin and Jason know we were a bit early, thus making them “guinea pigs” where this fishing was concerned. The livebait fishing went well — we caught fish very consistently, including white bass, short hybrids, largemouth bass, and some bonus bluecats 18-22 inches long. Still, we did not land any hybrid of legal size.
As we live bait fished, I kept an eye on the area where we’d found bird action earlier. Once it reignited, we returned to it and caught more white bass, all on a “smoked” silver, 3/4 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab used in conjunction with a splasher and Garmin LiveScope. This lasted about 35 minutes. When it ended, we fished live bait once again through 11:15, resulting in additional white bass, short hybrid, and bluecats. So ended our morning session with 79 fish landed.
The afternoon portion of this trip actually was more productive than the morning, greatly aided by a consistent south-southeast wind blowing at 5 to 9 mph all afternoon. At just about every location I checked, I was able to find large schools of white bass hugging the bottom which then responded well to a smoked Bladed Hazy Eye Slab cranked directly up off the bottom at a pretty good clip. We hit six areas and put a total of 112 additional fish in the boat, including white bass, hybrid striped bass, blue catfish, and largemouth bass, for a grand full-day total of 191 fish.
At the second to last area we fished we spotted some light, brief topwater action with 3-4 gulls briefly descending on it, but, this quickly dissipated. Regardless, it revealed fish location and allowed us to take 10 fish on MAL Heavy Lures worked with a sawtooth method.
RESULTS: 191 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, and MAL Heavies (w/ chartreuse tail), to catch our fish this trip. Find all MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS:
- Light but helpful bird action with ringbill gulls and terns in our first 45 minutes
- Threadfin shad spawn paused due to 3 days of cold front-impacted weather.
- No legal hybrid showing up in our catch yet; and white bass are definitely caught more efficiently with artificials than with bait right now.
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, then 3:30PM
End Time: 11:20A, then 740PM
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 40F AM, then 80F PM
Elevation: 2.98′ low
Water Surface Temp: 61.3F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE0-4 all morning, then SSE5-9 all afternoon with occasional light gusts
Sky Condition: Cloudless, light blue skies all AM and PM
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 84% illumination.
GT = 100
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
AM
Area vic B0026G – 17 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic 1205 – 21 fish on live shad
Area vic 1506 – 15 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic B0245G – 8 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic 081 – 18 fish on live shad
PM
Area vic 081 – 30 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic 1544 – 9 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic 1740 – 13 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic B0191C – 38 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic 1733 – 10 fish smoking Hazy Eye Slabs
Area 097 – 12 fish 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
