Day: April 15, 2025

The Hunt for Hybrid Continues … 111 Fish

by Bob Maindelle

CLIENTS: This morning, Tuesday, April 15, I fished with a crew of five targeting hybrid striped bass with live shad on Lake Belton.  Joining me was a crew of five including Harris Young, Craig Hunter, Tim Long, Austin Long, and Joey Sapien.

A mild, dry cold front pushed in overnight resulting in more comfortable temperatures, some high, thin, but complete gray cloud cover by mid-moring, and north-north east winds straight line at 13 to 15 with higher gusts.

DATE: Tuesday, 15 April 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING:  02 June (AM) 

NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 14 June (AM)

 

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Harris Young, Craig Hunter, Tim Long, Austin Long, and Joey Sapien each with a nice Lake Belton hybrid striped bass landed on live shad fished on downlines during the annual threadfin shad spawn.

 

PHOTO CAPTION: Joey Sapien landed our heaviest hybrid of the trip in the final fifteen minutes before the fish quit feeding.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  Tim demonstrating to his son, Austin, “how it’s done”.

 

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

This wind shift shifted the location of spawning shad, and the fish chasing after them and consuming them.
When I located fish today (between 25 and 41 feet), we fished with tight down-lines rigged up with a trolling sinker to which a leader with kahle hook with mono tag were attached. I nostril-hooked all of the shad, and the mono tag prevented them from slipping too far up the hook shank .
We caught a wide variety of fish, including smallmouth bass, freshwater drum, blue catfish, yellow catfish, white bass, and hybrid striped bass.
We fished five areas today, finding fish at four of them. The first and the last both gave up legal hybrid , whereas the other two produced only white bass, albeit well-proportioned, mature fish with many exceeding 13 inches.
By 11:35 the bite had run its course and my crew had landed 111 fish, including 17 legal hybrid striped bass.

RESULTS:  111 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 only live bait today. Find all MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/

 

 

OBSERVATIONS:

  1. Threadfin shad spawn continues.
  2. Helpful bird activity witnessed in the first 45 minutes as laughing gulls pointed the way to spawning shad with white bass and hybrids in pursuit.

 

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

This is the most up-to-date water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6:55AM on Tuesday, 15 April…

0 feet 68.4F
5 feet 68.4F
10 feet 67.4F
15 feet 65.9F
20 feet 65.1F
25 feet 64.3F
30 feet 63.5F
35 feet 62.6F
40 feet 61.9F
45 feet 60.0F
50 feet 59.2F
55 feet 58.2F
60 feet 58.0F

This was the previous water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:20AM on Thursday, 10 April…

0 feet 62.9F
5 feet 63.1F
10 feet 62.9F
15 feet 62.9F
20 feet 62.9F
25 feet 68.2F
30 feet 62.6F
35 feet 61.4F
40 feet 60.6F
45 feet 59.4F
50 feet 59.4F
55 feet 59.0F
60 feet 58.0 F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:25A

End Time: 11:45A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 62F

Elevation: 3.17′ low

Water Surface Temp: 68.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction:  NNE13-16 all morning

Sky Condition: Increasing thin, grey cloud cover all AM going from 30% to 100%

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 94% illumination.

GT = 175

 

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 008 (2 hops) – 36 fish on live shad

Area vic 1013/1552 – 29 fish fish on live shad

Area vic 187 – 35 fish fish on live shad

Area vic B0308G – 43 fish on live shad
Area vic B0299G – 11 fish on live shad

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