CLIENTS: This morning, Thursday, August 7, I fished a “Kids Fish, Too! “ trip just for the grandchildren of Mr. Doug Streater. Manning the rods and reels this morning were brother and sister team Colby and Camryn Anthony, ages 16 and 13 respectively. The kids’ summer is winding down, with most local school districts going back in session early next week.
ABOUT “KIDS FISH, TOO!” TRIPS: Kids Fish, Too! trips are intended just for the kids. They are considerably less expensive than standard trips ($195 for up to 2 kids vs. $295 for up to 2 adults; and more can be added), and typically go a maximum of 3.5 hours versus 4-plus hours for standard trips. On these trips, licensed adults who desire to do so often help me help the kids be successful by baiting hooks, untangling lines, resetting our downrigger spreads, etc. so the kids’ efforts are maximized, but, the adults do not fish themselves.
TODAY’S DATE: Thursday, 07 August 2025 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: Thursday, 21 Aug. (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 30 August (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Colby Anthony, Doug Streater, and Camryn Anthony with a few of the quality white bass the kids landed this morning in an intense, but brief, feeding window.
PHOTO CAPTION: Well, you can’t do much better than that. Three fish — one on each of the three Pet Spoons trailing behind the three-armed umbrella rig we downrigged through aggressively feeding white bass and hybrid striped bass just before sunrise.
PHOTO CAPTION: During the same feeding spree which produced the triple for his sister, Colby landed our largest fish of the trip — this well-proportioned hybrid striped bass. It, too, fell for a downrigged Pet Spoon.
FIND WHITE BASS/HYBRID LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
We started the morning off anticipating a white bass/hybrid striped bass bite by bottom oriented fish in 20 to 30 feet of water behaving just as they did the day before.
That bite did come to fruition, but only lasted about 40 minutes. I expanded my search Into adjacent waters once the initial feed seemed to be tapering down, with no results. I then checked two other areas which had routinely been holding fish recently, again, without result. At this point, we changed over to fishing in shallow cover for abundant sunfish.
The kids really got the hang of this quickly and, given their age, manual dexterity, and prior fishing experience, had little trouble keeping their baits close to fish holding cover without getting snagged excessively. By the time 3 1/2 hours had lapsed, we’d seen 104 panfish come over the side of the boat.
With Lake Belton now under 2 feet high, the remaining high water is right up into the base of a lot of shoreline terrestrial vegetation, thus really concentrating the sunfish well right now.
We wrapped up the trip with exactly 121 fish caught and released.
RESULTS: 121 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 1.34′ high with a 0.20′ fall in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 1,393 CFS. What topwater white bass action we saw was scattered and quite brief.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE: Taken around 6:15AM, Tuesday, 05 August …
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6:40A
End Time: 10:30A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F
Elevation: 1.34′ high with a 0.20′ fall in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 1,393 CFS
Water Surface Temp: 86.7F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: S3-5 all morning
Sky Condition: 0% cloud cover on a hazy blue sky
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 97% illumination.
GT = 105
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH MOST SUCCESS:
Area vic 1070 to 1657 – 17 white bass/hybrids downrigging Pet Spoons
Area B0168C – 32 panfish on bait
Area 1753 – 72 panfish on bait
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