WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Friday morning I fished Lake Belton with returning guest Brian Pennington. On this trip Brian brought his wife, Tracy, and his brother-in-law, Trent.
Brian is a retired U.S. Army logistics officer now working at the Operational Test Command at Fort Hood, Tracy is a unit clerk at Seton Hospital in Harker Heights, and Trent, visiting from Pueblo, CO, works for the U.S. Patent Office as a patent investigator, specializing in bio-chem technologies.
From left: Tracy (the Unabomber) Pennington, her brother, Trent, and Tracy’s husband, Brian, each with a pair of Belton Lake white bass taken via a combination of snap-jigging and deadsticking on this cold, clear, post-frontal late December day.
Trent took this solid smallmouth buffalo on a light spinning rod. The buffalo slurped Trent’s slab as we jigged near bottom for white bass. The fish was bulky enough and heavy enough that Trent needed to hand on with both hands. This fish maxed out my 15 pound Boga-Grip scale; we estimated its weight just under 20 pounds.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip focused on white bass.
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: Friday, December 28, 2018
HOW WE FISHED: Bottom line: we moved around a lot today. That is not to say we covered a lot of ground, rather, once we found fish, we caught them until they stopped biting, then moved a few boat lengths, caught a few more, then moved a few boat lengths, caught a few more, and so on. The fish were just tight-lipped and stuck to the bottom today thanks to post-frontal high pressure, so, we had to go to them. You’ll see the list of areas we fished with success (shown below) is longer than usual.
We employed a combination of snap-jigging with 3/8 oz. slabs with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks attached, and deadsticking using jigheads with Gulp! as the attractor.
We fished 4 general areas and landed 77 fish including largemouth bass, crappie, drum, hybrid striped bass, white bass, and smallmouth buffalo.
TALLY: 77 fish caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:15 a
End Time: 11:45 a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 37F
Water Surface Temp: 53.7F
Wind Speed & Direction: WInds blew at 10-11 all day with slightly higher gusts between noon and 3:30pm.
Sky Conditions: Cloudless, post-frontal blue skies
Water Level: 3.62′ high with an overnite rise of 1.22 feet and a flow of 1612 cfs
GT = 75
#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS FRIDAY:
**Area vic 826
**Area vic 691
**Area vic 2037
**Area vic B0054C
**Area 692
**Area vic B0050C
**Area vic 968
Bob Maindelle, Belton Lake Fishing Guide
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