CLIENTS:  On Friday morning, May 16, I hosted my most frequent clients in my 19 years in the fishing guide business –  joining me this morning from the Oliver Family was Mr. Jack Oliver, accompanied by his three sons, Asa, Isaac, and Eli, and Joseph Jarosek, Jack’s son-in-law.

DATE: Friday, 16 May 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING:  12 June (AM) 

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

 

PHOTO CAPTION:   From left: Jack and Isaac Oliver did all the heavy lifting today as we used live shad to tempt exactly 100 fish of 5 different species on this Friday morning Lake Belton fishing trip.

FIND LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

Although hybrid striped bass have been a bit of a letdown this season, I stocked up on live bait and we gave it another shot on Lake Belton. I let Jack know in advance that the hybrid would be few in number, so much so, that I’ve opted not to offer any more hybrid-specific trips for this season (and perhaps beyond that).

Regardless, we got out there, found fish with sonar, got healthy baits down among them, and we pulled up exactly 100 fish this morning, including hybrid striped bass, white bass, largemouth bass, freshwater drum, and blue catfish.

The fish location today seemed to be either boom or bust. We found it necessary to fish only two locations, but looked over about five times that many locations which were completely devoid of fish, including bait fish.

The fish we did land we landed using tightlines with three-quarter ounce egg sinkers holding a 36“ leader terminated with a 1/0 Kahle hook to present the threadfin shad to the fish within 1 to 6 feet of bottom.

Birds, despite helping us find our best concentration of fish yesterday, were not a factor whatsoever this morning. The bite we experienced went from about 7:50 AM through 10:44 AM and then shut down hard thereafter.

Because this crew had multiple, successful, prior experiences aboard with me while fishing bait, I experimented with having them hold their rods instead of using rod holders, as they already understood the purpose the rod holders served.

After four hours of doing this, there was unanimous agreement that they liked holding the rod better because they felt they could be more responsive in setting the hook when necessary. I took note of that and will likely experiment a bit more with that going forward.

What all was said and done, we landed exactly 100 fish – 66 at our first stop and 34 at the second.

 

OBSERVATIONS:

1. Threadfin shad spawn appears to be weakening.
2. We are in Day 4 of a forecast 8 day heat wave bringing record heat to the area for the month of May

 

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:45A

End Time: 11:10A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Elevation: 2.39′ low with a 0.03′ rise in the last 24 hours (thanks to water being released from Lake Proctor)

Water Surface Temp: 75.6F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE9 at trip’s start, gradually increasing to SSE11 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: 100% thin grey cloud cover

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 85% illumination.

GT = 25

 

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