Day: April 21, 2025

The Bait Made it Great — 134 Fish

by Bob Maindelle

CLIENTS:  This morning, Monday, April 21. I fished with a crew of six with five returning adult guests and one young newbie.

Rejoining me were brothers Joe, Jack, Jeff, and Jamie Oliver, as well as Joe‘s adult son, Thomas Oliver, as well as Jeff‘s grandson, Ember, age 10 (the new guy).

DATE: Monday, 21 April 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING:  12 June (AM) 

NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 21 June (AM)

 

PHOTO CAPTION: From left:  Thomas, Jamie, Ember, Jeffrey, Joe, and Jack with just a few of the 134 fish they landed under clear, bright, cool, nearly calm conditions.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  A few of the hybrid we encountered today, along with white bass, blue catfish, and smallmouth bass.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

A cold front moved through on Easter Sunday with thunder, lightning, rain, and a wind shift to the north beginning just before sunrise. That left cooler, dryer, brighter, calmer conditions in its wake today. This post-frontal weather negatively impacted the fishery, but, thankfully, we had already planned to use live bait , which certainly gave us an edge on this tougher set of weather conditions.

I went prepared with approximately 300 shad and intended to fish those on tight, down lines.

We met up at 7:15 AM and had lines in the water by around 7:30 AM.

I chose to start at a cove into which the north winds were blowing overnight and in which I saw shad spawning around first light. That turned out to be a good choice as it yielded our first 28 fish, including white bass, hybrid striped bass, blue catfish, and six smallmouth bass.

We went on to fish five additional areas — the first two of which, and the last of which we fished with bait. The other two we stopped briefly after I saw small segments of the bottom carpeted with white bass. Not wanting to burn through a lot of good bait on smaller fish, I had my crew drop Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs down. The fish got very excited, but only for a short period of time and then lost enthusiasm – something not uncommon when they are in a neutral or negative mood associated with post frontal weather.

The other three area we fished with bait, and those areas accounted for the majority of our fish caught this morning.
When all was said and done, we wrapped up around 11:45 AM with exactly 134 fish landed for our efforts.

RESULTS:  134 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:  Silver, 3/4 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs. Find all MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/

 

OBSERVATIONS:

  1. Threadfin shad spawn continues.
  2. No helpful bird activity.
  3. Caught 6 smallmouth on live bait today — the greatest number of smallmouth I’ve encountered while not targeting them.

 

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: 7:15A

End Time: 11:45A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 52F

Elevation: 3.31′ low

Water Surface Temp: 65.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction:  NW3-8 all morning

Sky Condition: Clear blue, bright, cloudless skies

Moon Phase: Last quarter moon at 43% illumination.

GT = 105

 

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 008 – 28 fish on live shad

Area vic B0100G – 27 fish on live shad

Area vic 187 – 6 fish on smoked slabs
Area vic 1012 – 4 fish on smoked slabs
Area vic B0299G – 23 fish on live shad
Area vic 1012 (2nd visit) – 46 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