Fishing Report | Holding The Line Guide Service

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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GRINDING IN THE FOG — 30 FISH @ BELTON

May 15th, 2023May 15th, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, May 15, I fished with David Hermann, David’s uncle Matt Bierwirth, and David’s grandfather, Bob Shull.

Bob recently attended the Public Arts League of Salado‘s (PALS) fundraiser and bid on a fishing trip I had donated to the cause. Bob is not much of a fisherman, but knew Matt and David were, and so he bid on this, intending to gift it to David in celebration of his graduation from the civil engineering program at Texas A&M.

Bob is a retired OB/GYN physician, Matt is a practicing pediatric physician, and David has been employed with a Waco-based engineering firm since before his graduation.

Here’s how the fishing went…

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Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 21, 22, 27, & 28 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Matt Bierwirth, Bob Shull, and David Hermann with a few of the fish they labored for on a very tough morning with calm winds and 3 hours of fog.

PHOTO CAPTION: If you look past the fish (and brand-spanking new Aggie ring!!) and note the sky conditions, the fish fired up for about 25 minutes just as the fog was lifting, but before the direct sun began to shine. Once the sun shone, it was over. This Lake Belton hybrid fell for a downrigged Pet Spoon and went 4.25 pounds on a certified scale.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 15 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

In a word, this morning’s fishing was … tough!

After this weekend’s rains, we experienced calm and foggy conditions for three of the four-plus hours on the water.

Neither the calm winds nor the fog were forecast as I closed out the day on Sunday, so they caught me a bit off guard as I was prepping for the trip this morning. We were initially due to have winds from the south around six, and the ambient temperature and dewpoint showed at least a bit of separation which is necessary to avoid fog. Neither of those materialized.

We had a brief spurt of activity with the typical low-light bite that is still taking place in conjunction with the threadfin shad spawn, but after that ended, both finding and catching fish became a real chore. I never once found any schools of white bass of any significance on side-imaging, and what we drove directly over top of, typically on drop-off areas, showed as just handfuls of individual fish on down-imaging and colored sonar.

After giving up on trying to find enough fish to present to vertically, I shifted to downrigging. For about a 25 minute span, just as the fog was burning off, but before the direct sun shone brightly, we more than doubled our catch from 11 fish up to 24 fish in a quick spurt. But, once the sun burned the fog off completely just a few minutes afterwards, it became calm and bright, and the fishing tanked once again.

Having fished Lake Belton for 30 years with the last 18 of them fishing professionally, I recognize the boats of most of our regular retirees out on the water on the weekdays. I noted that we were all doing exactly the same thing this morning with very limited success.

I found it interesting while comparing notes at the end of my trip with a bass angler, that the five smallmouth he managed today all came right at the transition as the fog burned off. So, to summarize, we caught 11 fish early with MAL Heavy Lures fished vertically in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope, and then our remaining 19 fish came as singles, doubles, and one triple taken on three armed umbrella rigs fished behind downriggers.

,Of the 30 fish landed, two were legal hybrid striped bass, and the remainder were legal white bass.

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 30 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS: One BIG observation: I spotted the first “offshore” schools of nomadic white bass feeding on the tiny young-of-the-year shad which were the earliest spawned this year. Shad were still spawning on windblown shorelines this morning. Here is the water temperature profile:

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7A

End Time: 11:35A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 66F

Elevation: 13.50 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.03′ rise over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 70.9F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: Calm all morning

Sky Condition: Moderate density fog through 10A, clearing to 50% white cloud cover on a blue sky with calm winds

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 19% illumination.

GT = 20

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area B0022C – 11

Area vic 835 – 19 fish on downrigged Pet Spoons

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

WE SAW THE LIGHT!! – 101 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

May 11th, 2023May 11th, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Thursday, May 11, I fished with longtime clients Tommy and Sylvia Maedgen from Troy, Texas.

Both are now retired, both enjoy the outdoors, and both are very good at the various fishing tactics we needed to employ today mainly because they have fished with me in all weather, and in all seasons and so they already had familiarity with the methods required to consistently catch white bass here in the late spring. Hence, there was really no learning curve for them.

Here is how the fishing went…

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Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 21, 22, 27, & 28 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: Tommy and Sylvia Maedgen with a few of the quality white bass they took primarily fishing MAL Heavy Lures vertically this morning. The largest of the two fish Tommy is holding was just fractions of an inch shy of 16″!

PHOTO CAPTION: Triple! Sylvia landed this triple to close out the trip and put us over the 100 fish mark as we downrigged for white bass late in the morning. We used silver #13 Pet Spoons with silver prismatic tape on the bodies and yellow tails behind umbrella rigs.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 11 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

We are in a strange weather pattern with the jet stream way up north in the continental U.S., thus allowing for a counter-clockwise spin of Gulf moisture to stay in place over us for a number of days now, with at least three more days of the same forecast to follow.

This made for a very murky, dark gray sky this morning. Although the shad spawn was heavy, there was not as much shallow water gamefish action as there has been over the past several weeks. In fact, the fishing really didn’t get going until after 7:30 when the sun had risen a bit higher and begin to burn off some of the gray cloud cover.

Once we “saw the light” (as the light level reached “squinting brightness“), the fishing turned on and stayed on right up through about 10:20. Prior to 10:20 AM, we hit three distinct areas and found decreasingly aggressive white bass congregated at each location. We did not experience the two hour lull in the middle of the morning, which has been bothersome over the last week or so.

Once these fish were found, the catching was pretty straightforward. I Spot-Locked over top of the fish, got Garmin LiveScope adjusted so Tommy and Sylvia could see their lures ascend and descend very well, and then they began working their MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails vertically using a smoking tactic. The key, as always, with the smoking tactic is to get the blade spinning as close to bottom as possible, and to never change cadence while a fish is seen chasing after the lure on LiveScope.

In this manner, Tommy and Sylvia put 89 fish in the boat through 10:20. At this point, the fishing got increasingly difficult with each passing moment. Although we found groups of fish, they were very reluctant to chase. Although we picked up three more fish using the sawtooth method when I spotted large schools of fish out to the port side of the boat, it was the downriggers that helped us get our final count up over 100.

The downriggers allow for efficiently covering large tracts of the bottom when the fish are sluggish, thus weeding out the few remaining active fish from an increasingly inactive population. We ran twin downriggers with three-armed umbrella rigs each outfitted with three #13 Pet Spoons and trolled them using the bottom-tracking feature on the Cannon Optimum TS downriggers I retrofitted by guiding boat with for this 2023 season.

Our count of 101 fish included one freshwater drum, and exactly 100 white bass.

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 101 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS: I witnessed the second most intense shad spawn of this spring this morning with millions of fish really moving fast, churning the shallows, and actually often creating a wake as they moved parallel to the shoreline.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:40A

End Time: 11:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 13.57 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.11′ rise over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 70.9F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE4-6 all morning

Sky Condition: 100% moderate grey cloud cover all morning.

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 63% illumination.

GT = 25

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area 684 – 57 fish on smoked MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails

Area 355 – 15 fish on smoked MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails

Area 1483/B0031C – 17 fish on MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails

Area vic 835 – 13 fish on downrigged Pet Spoons (10) and sawtoothed MAL Dense Lures (3)

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

VISSEN MET VRIENDEN — 106 FISH @ BELTON

May 9th, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, May 9, I welcomed a crew of six first-time guests aboard for a morning of catch-and-release white bass fishing on Lake Belton.

Mr. Mark Ratcliffe put everything together and provided a great outing for his two adult sons, Justin and Jeremy, as well as three friends of theirs from the Netherlands. Sven Van Den Oever is Mark’s future son-in-law, and joining Sven were his dad, Antoon Van Den Oever, and Sven’s uncle, Johan Holland.

The Ratcliffes run Technique Flooring and Restoration in Killeen, Sven is pursuing his masters in business administration, while coaching soccer at a Christian college in Oklahoma, Antoon develops drawings for construction, and Johan is a welder.

If you are wondering about the title, ‘Vissen met Vrienden‘ means Fishing with Friends (or at least that is what Sven told me, but, if I get banned from Facebook overnight, you’ll know Sven did me wrong!).

Here is how the fishing went…

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Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 21, 22, 27, & 28 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Mark Ratcliffe, Antoon Van Den Oever, Jeremy and Justin Ratcliffe, Johan Holland, and Antoon Van Den Oever with some of the white bass they caught and released using a combination of smoked MAL Lures and downrigged Pet Spoons.

PHOTO CAPTION: Triple! Antoon landed both of our two sets of triples as we downrigged for white bass late in the trip. We used silver #13 Pet Spoons with silver prismatic tape on the bodies and yellow tails behind umbrella rigs.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 09 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

In what has become the norm of late, we had a great low light bite from about 6:50 to around 8:10AM. During this time, the fish were as active as they would be over our entire trip, with fish pursuing our smoked MAL Lures aggressively, and for long distances up off the bottom. The fish themselves were often positioned several feet up off the bottom, and they were seen moving quickly as they swam horizontally passing under the boat.

Around 8:10, the bite began to cool off rapidly, and we had to work for our fish from that point until around 10:10 AM. During this time I moved from group of fish to group of fish as seen (typically) on side imaging, I then Spot-Locked us atop these fish and, with the assistance of Garmin LiveScope, we fished them only until the initial surge of interest waned, and then we moved on. To stay any longer just saw the law of diminishing returns kick in and the fish & fishing get slower and slower with time.

For our final hour, I planned ahead to downrig as both a means to catch our final fish of the morning, and to offer some variety.

Earlier in the trip I asked Mark, of the six people in his party, which would he identify as the two most mechanically inclined. He said his sons and Johan, the welder, would be his picks. I went with the English-speaking brothers and recruited them to be the ones working the downriggers so I would be free to watch sonar and pilot the boat from group of fish to group of fish as they appeared on sonar.

Justin and Jeremy did a great job keeping baits in the water and fishing effectively. In our final 50 minutes on the water, we boated 31 more fish, taking our count from 75 up to 106. This included two sets of triples, both landed by Antoon, as well as a numerous doubles and singles. These all came on three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with # 13 Pet Spoons.

Our 106-fish catch this morning consisted of 104 white bass and 2 short hybrid stripers.

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 106 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS: The migration of Franklin’s gulls looks like it is all but over now with but a handful of these very helpful birds witnessed this morning, for the second day in a row. A few small flocks of Forster’s terns still remain, and ample white and blue herons are still signaling where the threadfin shad spawn is strong each morning.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:45A

End Time: 12 Noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Elevation: 13.71 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.01′ rise over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 70.2F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8-9 all morning

Sky Condition: 100% moderate grey cloud cover all morning.

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 91% illumination.

GT = 45

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area 473 – 15 fish on smoked MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails

Area 1975 – 36 fish on smoked MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails (2 hops)

Area vic B0041G – 20 fish on smoked MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails (3 hops)

Area vic 187 to B0041G – 31 fish on downrigged Pet Spoons

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

STRONG START, STRONG FINISH, BUT THAT MIDDLE WAS TOUGH — 101 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

May 8th, 2023May 8th, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, May 8, I fished with returning guests – – the father and son team of Frank and Marcos Sumner.

Frank, a US Army veteran who worked in the military healthcare field, now continues in that same field as a civilian. Marcos and his family reside south of Austin where Marcos works in the banking industry.

Here is how the fishing went…
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Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 21, 22, 27, & 28 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Marcos Sumner and his dad, Frank, with a few of the 101 fish we caught. Fishing was strong at both the start of the trip and again at the end, with two tough hours in between.

PHOTO CAPTION: Triple! Frank landed both of our two sets of triples as we downrigged for disinterested fish. We used #13 Pet Spoons behind umbrella rigs.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 08 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

I encouraged Frank and Marcos to be punctual for our 6:40 AM start time suspecting that we would have an opportunity to sight-cast to white bass and hybrid striper feeding in shallow water on spawning shad.

That shallow action did materialize, and thanks to thin, but complete, gray cloud cover, that early morning feed lasted for a full 70 minutes and allowed us a take of 51 fish all on MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails, counted down to either a four-, six-, or eight-count depending on the light level and what I was seeing on sonar.

As this fairly easy and productive fishing tapered off sharply as the sun began to burn through the clouds, I told Frank and Marcos that it was now time to go to work. Thing was … I didn’t know just how much work it was going to be this morning. Over the next 2 1/4 hours we were only able to put six more fish in the boat as I found it difficult to locate large groups of fish, and also found that those fish I did find were quite reluctant to chase and strike our presentations.

Last week, when the fishing got tough, downrigging was the cure, but, that was when there were ample fish present and after those abundant fish had turned off after feeding pretty well prior to.

This morning, those large groups of fish I’d hoped to downrigger over were in short supply. I hit one open water area which the wind was impacting pretty substantially, and we were able to pick up seven fish on the downriggers.

Seeing the effectiveness of this approach, I backtracked to one of the areas where we found fish earlier in the morning, but could not get them to fire up.

Fortunately, the fish were still there and this time, they went for the horizontal movement of the downriggers. We spent the remaining 75 minutes of the trip at that location, catching singles, doubles, and two sets of triples as the wind reached peak speed, and the skies began to clear.

To best imitate spawning shad, I chose a number 13 Pet Spoon with silver prismatic tape, and a yellow feather for the tail. I placed three of these behind the three-armed umbrella rig on 22-inch leaders and that combination was simply deadly. I tried to keep the downrigger balls about 4 feet off the bottom so these lazy fish did not have to travel very far if they were interested. We landed 37 more white bass in this area.

We wrapped up this morning’s trip with exactly 101 fish, including 43 hybrid, all of which were short, and all of which were taken while we were sight-casting during the first 70 minutes of the trip

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 101 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS: The migration of Franklin’s gulls looks like it is all but over now with but a handful of these very helpful birds witnessed this morning.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:40A

End Time: 12 Noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Elevation: 13.72 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.02′ rise over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 70.0F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE11 at trip’s start, building slowly to an end-of-trip peak of SSE13

Sky Condition: 100% moderate grey cloud cover with brief spurts of direct sun breaking thru in the final 90 minutes

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 91% illumination.

GT = 25

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 1562 – 51 fish on sight-cast MAL Heavies counted down to 4, 6, or 8

Area 098 – 6 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area vic B0023C thru 1556 – 7 fish on downrigged Pet Spoons

Area vic B0041G – 37 fish on downrigged Pet Spoons

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

THEY GOT “BUS”TED — 131 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

May 5th, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Friday, May 5, I fished with returning guests — the father and son team of Kelvin Gladden, and one of his sons, Tevin.

I Kelvin is a US Army veteran and Tevin works in the computer industry over in Temple.

Here is how the fishing went.…

Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 21, 22, 27, & 28 (all AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Kelvin and Tevin Gladden with some mature Lake Belton white bass which came on MAL Heavy Lures worked vertically and on downrigged Pet Spoons when the fish were less aggressive.

PHOTO CAPTION: Triple! Tevin landed five sets of triples as we downrigged for increasingly disinterested fish after the winds reached a peak and then began falling off. We used #13 Pet Spoons behind twin umbrella rigs behind two downriggers.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Friday, 05 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

Due to high wind speeds forecast toward the end of our trip, I had to launch at a more distant ramp this morning than usual, and although I got there with no problem before 6:15A, the Gladdens got stuck behind a school bus and arrived a bit late, which cost us an opportunity at sight-casting to white bass forcing shad to the surface in shallow water under low light conditions.

Although this action was still going on as we got underway, we only managed three fish in the few minutes which remained of that action before the skies brightened, the shad moved out, the birds quit, and the white bass crept downward and outwards away from the shoreline.

We moved away from the shoreline out to the first breakline and were able to catch abundant, active white bass, just as we did under similar weather conditions yesterday. We took these fish with a vertical tactic using MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails. After nearly an hour on these fish, found on two distinct areas along this first breakline, the bite began to wane.

Next, I spotted about three dozen Franklins gulls working over open water, got to them, saw abundant, but very scattered fish, and after making a quick attempt to see if we could draw fish to us with the splasher, I instead changed over to downrigging. This allowed us to cover water quickly, spot fish on side-imaging, then turn to port or starboard, and troll directly over top of them. This accounted for six fish very quickly before the birds quit flying and resumed resting on the water, and the fish dispersed.

With the southerly wind now picking up to right at 13 mph, I felt that some of the deeper topographies might begin producing, and this suspicion turned out to be right. We made three stops in about 32 feet of water and continued using the smoking tactic.

As the wind velocity built to a peak, the fish feeding activity also built to a peak. We were able to take our fish count up to 102 while the wind remained strong by fishing these three fairly similar areas. The first gave up 13 fish, the second gave up 9 fish, and the third gave up 30 fish.

The NOAA forecast called for the winds to peak late morning, and then begin falling off toward noon, and that is exactly what happened this morning. As soon as the winds slacked off, the bite begin to decline, as well.

With 102 fish in the boat at this point, I asked Kelvin and Tevom if they would prefer to move to a number of spots in rapid succession and try to pull a few fish at each, or would prefer to put the downriggers back down. They asked me which I thought would produce more fish. I told them I thought the downrigging would put a few more fish in the boat, so they went for that option. We wound up with 29 additional fish landed, including 5 sets of triples all landed by Tevin, over the final 40 minutes of our trip. We concluded with 131 fish all of which were white bass, except for a single short hybrid.

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 131 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS:

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:50A

End Time: 11A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Elevation: 13.80 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.02′ fall over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 67.8F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE7 at trip’s start, peaking around 10A at SSE13, then dropping back to SSE6-7

Sky Condition: 90% moderate grey cloud cover with brief spurts of direct sun breaking thru

Moon Phase: Full moon at 100% illumination.

GT = 5

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area B0196C – 44 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area B0171G – 6 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area 0008 – 10 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area B0023C thru 1556 – 20 fish on downrigged Pet Spoons

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

I’LL BET YOU A MATCHBOX YOU CAN’T … — 80 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

May 4th, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Thursday, May 4, I fished with two of Wayne Winekauf’s grandkids — cousins Jude Masoner and Noah Thomas.

Wayne, originally from Iowa and now residing in Morgan’s Point, fished with me for the first time earlier this spring, while entertaining a friend of his who had come in for a visit from Iowa for a few days.

This morning’s trip was specifically for the boys, so, Wayne came in the role of helping me help the boys be successful, but didn’t fish.

Jude is 11 and Noah is 8, so my “Kids Fish, Too!“ package was a very good fit for these young men. These kid–specific packages last a maximum of 3.5 hours versus 4+ hours for adult trips, and they cost about $100 less than a comparable trip for adults.

Although the kids did a great job and their results showed it, one thing we never could get ironed out was their tendency to reel a fish up so far that the swivel on the leader hit the tip of the rod. At one point Wayne told them he’d take them to Walmart and let each one pick out a Matchbox car if they could avoid slamming the swivel into the rod tip any longer. Suffice it to say that Walmart is still well stocked with Matchboxes.

Here is how the fishing went…

Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 6 and 21 (AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Jude Masoner, Wayne Winekauf, and Noah Thomas with a portion of the boys’ 80 fish catch taken on a combination of vertical tactics using MAL Lures and horizontal tactics using downrigged Pet Spoons.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday, 03 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

Weather conditions were much improved today fishing–wise, as we had light gray, but complete cloud cover and enough wind to ripple the surface prior to sunrise. That wind would continue all morning and be of a great help.

We fished three areas this morning using a smoking tactic in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope for which I rigged the boys up with light spinning rods terminated with MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails. The boys landed 44 fish at our first stop, 6 fish at our second stop, and 10 fish at our third stop.

By 9:15 AM the boys had landed 60 fish, but the bite was beginning to wane. I could see it by gauging the swimming speed and reaction of the fish we found, as well as by observing multiple small flocks of Franklin’s gulls, which, at this time, were beginning to settle on the water, no longer scouting for, finding, nor eating shad.

After seeing how well a downrigging approach worked while the fish were uncooperative yesterday, and for variety sake, we retooled with twin downriggers each equipped with a three arm umbrella rig terminated with number 13 Pet Spoons. I fished a windward, underwater ledge which side-imaging revealed white bass were using.

We kept the downrigger balls ~3′ off bottom and our rigs about 20′ behind the ball.

In our final 90 minutes, the boys landed an additional 20 fish, including singles, doubles, and a pair of triples.

We wrapped up right at 11 AM with 80 fish landed, including 2 freshwater drum, 4 short hybrid striped bass, and 74 white bass.

Going back to my first sentence in this section, “Weather conditions were much improved today fishing–wise…”, consider this … this morning, with grey skies and wind, two inexperienced boys landed 80 fish in 3.5 hours, whereas yesterday, under calm, bright skies, and while fishing the same areas, two very experienced men struggled mightily to land 74 fish in over 5 hours. Weather matters!!

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 80 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS:

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:30A

End Time: 11A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 66F

Elevation: 13.78 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.02′ fall over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 67.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE7-9 all morning

Sky Condition: 100% moderate grey cloud cover all morning

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 98% illumination.

GT = 45

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area B0196C – 44 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area B0171G – 6 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area 0008 – 10 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area B0023C thru 1556 – 20 fish on downrigged Pet Spoons

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

YOU NEED MORE TEETH IN YOUR SAW — 74 FISH @ BELTON

May 3rd, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, May 3, I fished with first time guests Bill Bebee and John Pickens. The men were offered this trip when a friend, Mr. Reid Funderburk, as unable to attend following recent knee surgery.

Both men work in real estate, thus making their schedules flexible and allowing for a weekday fishing trip.

Here is how the fishing went…

Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 6 and 21 (AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: John Pickens and Bill Bebee with a few of the 74 fish we REALLY had to work for today when the skies went clear and the winds went slack.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday, 03 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

We faced what is, in my opinion, the toughest of fishing conditions this morning with bright skies and calm winds for 3 1/2 of our planned four hours on the water. When the conditions are like this, the fish just turn off and become very lethargic.

Our only saving grace today was that the temperature of the water is still climbing, thus increasing the fishes’ metabolism, goading them into feeding at least a bit. Right at around 7 AM, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, a few dozen Franklins gulls begin to dive on shad being forced to the surface by white bass beneath. What, on a normal day, would produce 30 to 40 fish or so, this morning only rendered 16 as the fish flared up, ate for just a few moments, and then settled right back down. The popped up briefly here and there over about an eighth of a mile of shoreline for about 40 minutes until, finally, the brightening sky drove them down and out away from shore.

When that ended, the hard work of convincing disinterested fish in biting began.

We spent most of our time working MAL Heavies with chartreuse tails vertically, using a smoking tactic for bottom-hugging fish found on side-imaging and down-imaging. At one of these locations, a solid group of fish appeared out to the starboard side of the boat and allowed for some horizontal work using the MAL Dense Lures with a sawtooth tactic.

I observed that Bill was casting a good bit further than John, and was catching fish with regularity on the sawtooth tactic, whereas John’s shorter casts we’re landing shy of where the fish were. I suggested to John that he lengthen his cast so he could get in more diagonal retrieve iterations and bring his lure past the fish more consistently. Bill chimed in, “You need more teeth in your saw!“.

As soon as John increased his cast length, he joined in on the fish-catching, as well.

So it went, catching just a few fish here in there at each of the stops we made until finally, around 10:20, a southeast wind began to kick in and began to blow at around 12 mph. I asked the fellows if they would be able to stay longer as I suspected that the fishing would pick up substantially once the wind had a chance to work on the water. It was now about 10:50. We stayed until 12:10 and during that final hour and 20 minutes, we added 30 fish to our then current count of 44 fish. After seeing the fish getting more active, I went after them with downriggers so we could cover as much bottom as possible to strain out the active fish amongst a still relatively inactive population.

We pulled a single rod with a single, three-armed umbrella rig equipped with number 13 Pet Spoons through increasingly aggressive schools of fish for this result. In the catch were three sets of triples (one fish on each of the three Pet Spoons landed simultaneously).

When all was said and done, Bill and John landed 74 fish, including 1 freshwater drum, 6 short, hybrid striped bass, and 67 white bass.

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 74 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS:

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:50A

End Time: 12:10P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Elevation: 13.76 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.00′ rise over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 67.5F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: Calm thru 10:20, the ramping up quickly to SE12

Sky Condition: A thin white haze on a cloudless blue sky is the only cover we had today thru 10:20, then white cloud cover begin to build to ~30% by trip’s end

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 94% illumination.

GT = 60

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area 008 thru 562 – 16 fish on smoked MAL Heavies sightcast under Franklins gulls

Area B0201G – 9 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area 098 – 13 fish on smoked MAL Heavies and sawtoothed MAL Dense Lures

Area B0173G – 6 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area vic 2059 – 30 fish on downrigged Pet Spoons

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

MAKING MOUNTAINS OUT OF MOLEHILLS — 89 FISH @ BELTON

May 1st, 2023 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, May 1, I fished with brothers Corbin and Matt Seliga. Corbin is a pharmaceutical salesman in the Georgetown area, and Matt is a physical therapist working in the Fort Worth area. The brothers were offered this trip when a friend of Corbin‘s from church, Mr. Reid Funderburk, as unable to attend following recent knee surgery.

Both Matt and Corbin had prior fishing experience and arrived with the ability to handle a spinning outfit already under their belt.

Here is how the fishing went…

Here’s an up-to-date calendar so you can check availability: https://holdingthelineguideservice.com/available-dates.php

Next available dates are June 6 and 21 (AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Corbin and Matt Seliga each with a pair of the white bass we teased up from between 30-35 feet this morning using a “smoking tactic” with MAL Heavy Lures in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 01 May 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

About five minutes before the Seliga‘s arrival, a flock of terns begin to work a distance away on a wind blown shoreline, and I assumed they were on shad being driven to the surface and the shoreline by hungry white bass.

By the time Matt and Corbin arrived and we hustled over to the scene of the crime, whatever was there had dissipated, so we spent a few more minutes on this cloudless morning looking for shoreline action, but found none.

This left us fishing the entire trip in deeper, open water primarily using sonar to find the fish we caught.

The water was a little turbid, there was small flotsam everywhere, and, according to the USACE, the lake rose over a half-foot thanks to Friday night’s hard rains, which dropped 1.5 to 2.5 inches area wide.

The fishing was just average this morning. We had no problem finding fish, but the fish never really got fired up at any of the locations we caught them at. Although we did give the sawtooth method a try here and there, we only landed two fish with that method. The other 87 fish put in the boat this morning came using the MAL Heavy Lure with chartreuse tail worked vertically using a smoking tactic in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope.

We had birds get fidgety twice this morning, but both times they worked for just a few minutes and over a large span of water. I ran to both episodes and still had to use side-imaging extensively to find a nearby concentration of fish worth stopping for. I believe (mainly) small hybrid are very aggressively chasing shad to the surface in small pods. Anything that breaks the surface will immediately draw a “dogpile” response from dozens of these hungry Franklin’s gulls, thus sort of making a mountain out of a molehill.

Although by the end of the trip, we were able to laugh about it, Matt had a very reflexive, hard hookset built into his “muscle memory”, which he found hard to overcome. This cost him quite a few fish this morning. The reason why hooksetting is undesirable using the smoking tactic is because that tactic is a zero-slack tactic using braided line, which is a zero-stretch product. When you couple these things together, and understand the white bass’ habit of swiping at a bait then turning away, you begin to understand why hooksetting is not only a necessary, but counterproductive.

Additionally, the white bass (and any other object moving through the water) push a pressure wave ahead of themselves as they swim toward and overtake the bait. This causes an interruption in the spinner blade’s action, and this happens a split second before the fish actually closes its mouth over the hook. Setting the hook the instant this sensation is felt results in a premature hookset and missed or lightly hooked (and then lost) fish.

I know there are a lot of MAL Lure users out there who struggle with this, so I mention it in hope you can understand not just the “what”, but the “why” behind it.

Our catch of 89 fish consisted of 3 freshwater drum, 3 short, hybrid striper, 1 blue catfish, and 82 white bass

Here is a video I put together on the Smoking Tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

And, here is a video I put together on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 89 fish caught and released

Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS:

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:50A

End Time: 12:10P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 55F

Elevation: 13.77 feet low, 24 CFS flow, 0.50′ rise over the last 72 hrs. thanks to heavy rains Fri. night

Water Surface Temp: 66.5F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: E4-5, building to E13 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: A thin white haze on a cloudless blue sky is the only cover we had today.

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 82% illumination.

GT = 40

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area 1749 – 28 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area 083 – 17 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area B0063G – 11 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area B0169G – 2 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area vic B0173G – 10 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

Area 1402 -21 fish on smoked MAL Heavies

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)

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com