CLIENTS: This morning, Friday, May 2, I fished with husband-and-wife team Kevin and Cherry David for what was an early Fathers’ Day gift from Cherry and her son and daughter to Kevin. The pair recently retired from public education and moved from the Houston area to near Lake Belton.
Cherry saw my truck parked at the boat ramp area at Temple’s Lake Park at Lake Belton recently, took a photo, gave me a call, and bought a gift certificate.
Due to a full spring schedule, we planned on an October trip, but, an unexpected cancellation allowed us to get this trip in earlier, and with good results!!
DATE: Friday, 02 May 2025 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: 23 May (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 24 May (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: Husband-and-wife team Kevin and Cherry David joined me for the first time this morning as we pursued white bass on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.
PHOTO CAPTION: Cherry pulled up an eleventh-hour catch taking this nice largemouth from out of 33 feet of water as we spent the last portion of our trip fishing live shad after the white bass bite shut down around 10:25AM.
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
We fished a lull between storms today, threading the eye of the needle after violent thunderstorms, wind, hail, and at least two tornados hit Bell County last night, and before another round of severe thunderstorms were due to hit around 2PM today.
The morning dawned calm and overcast with an air temperature around 62F. As the sun rose a bit higher, the clouds (around 80% coverage at this point) thinned and a light SW breeze just rippled the water. A solid shad spawn event took place on the north shoreline this morning, and the white bass were keyed in on this shallow bait.
Kevin and Cherry cast MAL Heavy Lures (silver blade, chartreuse tail) in 12-14 feet of water in an area where we could see small pods of white bass occasionally pin shad against the surface. This action was near the surface, so, the simply cast, closed their bails by hand as soon as the lure hit the water, and began retrieving.
This lasted about an hour and accounted for 68 fish. The last fifteen minutes or so of this bite required a “sawtooth” retrieve as the fish pushed down closer to bottom with the calming winds and brightening sky.
When the winds went slack, the bite died. Fortunately, the wind picked up again about 20 minutes later, this time from just north of east at about 5 mph, then built over the next two hours to ENE12 as the cloud cover increased to 100% and thickened.
We went on to fish three additional areas with action slowly decreasing and the duration of the bite shortening with each stop we made. The first two of these three stops allowed for 38 additional fish to be caught using the vertical “smoking” tactic with the same MAL Heavy Lures. We had a little chuckle as Cherry was getting used to visually tracking the rise and fall of her lure on Garmin LiveScope. At one point, she opened the bail of her reel and the lure dropped downward and at an angle back toward the stern as she faced out the starboard side. The lure disappeared from the LiveScope screen and Cherry said, “Oh, no! I’m off the chart!!”.
At the last stop (and our deepest), the fish barely reacted to the MAL, so, with some live bait on board for just such a possibility, we put two downlines down with live shad as bait and enjoyed variety and slower, but steady, action right up until 11AM when we called it a great morning as Cherry connected with our largest fish of the trip — a healthy, hungry 4.25-pound largemouth bass.
RESULTS: 110 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
OBSERVATIONS:
- Threadfin shad spawn continues.
- No helpful bird activity.
- Fish enthusiastically pursued MAL Lures both vertically and horizontally; live bait put fish in the boat in the final hour as the bite got tough.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
This was the previous water temperature profile for Stillhouse Hollow measured with a FishHawk TD device around 11:15AM, Friday, 02 May…
This is the most up-to-date water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6:40AM on Thursday, 24 April
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:00A
End Time: 11:00A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 62F
Elevation: 3.52′ low (a 0.74′ rise in 24 hours)
Water Surface Temp: 75.3F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: Variable, from SW2-3 to calm to ENE6-12
Sky Condition: 80% cloud cover on a hazy sky for ~90 minutes, then clouding up to 100% grey thereafter
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 30% illumination.
GT = 40
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
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