CLIENTS: This evening, Thursday, July 24, I fished a short “Kids, Fish, Too!“ trip with Mr. Doug Blackwell and his 10-year-old granddaughter Sofiya Freeman, who came to Texas to visit for a few days from Florida.
TODAY’S DATE: Thursday, 24 July 2025 (PM)
NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: Monday, 04 August (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 09 August (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: With our first of two downriggers deployed for, literally, under 60 seconds, 10-year-old Sofiya came up with her first hybrid striped bass ever, and, it turned out to be the biggest fish of the trip! Talk about beginner’s luck!
PHOTO CAPTION: Doug and Sofiya added 64 more fish to their tally on this short, 2.75-hour (and quite toasty) evening trip on Lake Belton during Sofiya’s visit from Florida to see her grandparents in Killeen, Texas.
FIND CORK RIGS & OTHER WHITE BASS/HYBRID LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
My Kids, Fish, Too! Trips are normally 3.5 hours in length, but kids Sofiya’s age with little prior fishing experience and in the hot weather, rarely last for that duration. For that reason, I suggested to Doug that we make the trip about three hours in length and hope that she’d make iit that long. We wound up fishing right at 2.75 hours, caught fish from start to finish, and wound up with a grand total of 65 fish including two hybrid striped bass and 63 white bass.
The fish we caught all came on downrigged Pet Spoons fished behind three-armed umbrella rigs on a pair of downriggers. Not until the sun had already set did I see enough fish arrayed along bottom and in shallow enough water to lead me to believe they could be caught with a sawtooth method and MAL Heavy Lures. We employed that sawtooth method for the last 20 minutes or so and did well right up until the fish quit at dark.
RESULTS: 65 fish, all caught and released
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW “SMOKE” AN MAL LURE VERTICALLY: Click here for tutorial
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO FISH AN MAL LURE HORIZONTALLY USING THE SAWTOOTH METHOD: Click here for tutorial
OBSERVATIONS: Lake Belton is now 5.94′ high with a 0.38′ fall in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 3037 CFS. No topwater action this evening.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE: Taken around 6:15AM, Monday, 21 July …
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6P
End Time: 8:45P
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 98F
Elevation: 5.94′ high with a 0.38′ fall in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 3037 CFS.
Water Surface Temp: 84.9F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: S6-8 all evening
Sky Condition: <5% white cloud cover on a hazy sky
Moon Phase: New moon at 0% illumination.
GT = 25
Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A
AREAS FISHED WITH MOST SUCCESS:
Area vic 1634 thru 499 thru 2037 – 65 fish downrigging twin umbrellas, each with three #12 Pet Spoons, for singles, doubles and triples with a bit of sawtooth action as the fish came shallow after sunset
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