Fishing Report | Holding The Line Guide Service

Time to “Rest & Digest” – 103 Fish @ Belton

August 28th, 2020August 28th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Friday, August 28th, I fished with Nathan and Trisha Ratliff and their four kids, Amelia (11), Hannah (10), Hunter (7), and Clara (4), of Harker Heights, TX, on a Kids Fish, Too! adventure on Lake Belton.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: Back row: Nathan and Trisha; front row, from left: Amelia, Hunter, Clara, and Hannah.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

HOW WE FISHED: The Ratliffs arrived with no prior fishing experience and no prior boating experience, so, I planned ahead to have them show up a bit earlier than normal so as to cover things more thoroughly than I might with a family that had prior experience.

Trips like this, with quite an age spread over several kids, can be a bit tough as what it takes to interest and engage an 11-year-old is quite different from what it takes to interest and engage a 4-year-old. My plan was to seek after quantity, and let quality fall where it may so as to keep fish coming over the side of the boat and maintain the kids’ interest over the 3 1/2 hours these kid-specific trips last for.

We started out looking for topwater action which did not materialize thanks to the heavy chop on the water, but, that kept the traffic light and allowed us to get onto fish without company nearby until right as the fish were winding down their low-light feed. We had the fish to ourselves for about 40 minutes, during which time we put singles and doubles in the boat on downriggers equipped with 3-armed umbrella rigs; only once did we stop to fish MAL Lures, primarily because in the time it would take to make everyone proficient, we’d miss a lot of opportunity for fish on the downriggers which everyone was already now familiar with.

By the time the low-light feed was over, we’d landed 28 white bass. We gave the white bass time time to ‘rest and digest’ (Amelia really like that term) from their early morning binge by heading up shallow to do some sunfishing with plans to save our final hour to pursue additional white bass out in deeper water. The shallow sunfishing went well. We landed 40 sunfish (bluegill, greens, and longears). By around 8:45 AM I was hoping to get back in open water to start hunting white bass again, and, by this time, the kids had landed 30 sunfish. Amelia asked if she could catch ‘just one more’ about 10 times! Yep — she’s hooked! Anyway, we sunfished another 15 minutes and put 10 more fish in the boat for a total of 40 sunfish, then, around 9AM we headed back out for a final hour’s worth of white bass fishing.

We hit two areas, finding fish suspended at 25-27′ deep at the first and finding fish on bottom in 25′ at the second. In our final hour or so, we landed 3 sets of triples, about as many doubles, and plenty of singles, all in the 0, 1, and 2 year class. By 10AM, the time we’d all hoped all four kids would be able to make it through, we had 94 fish in the boat. This time it was dad urging the kids to push on ’til we’d reached 100 fish for the morning. That took all of about 12 minutes as we landed our final triple, four singles, and one double in that span of time.

It’s always nice to be able to “finish strong”, especially with kids on board.

TALLY: 103 fish caught and released (62 white bass, 1 hybrid striper, 40 sunfish)

OBSERVATIONS: ~12 mph chop put would-be surface feeders down this morning, so there was no topwater action where we were. Sonar lit up and provided ample downrigging opportunities.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 10:15A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F

Elevation: 2.70′ low, -0.06′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 83.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: Light winds under 3mph from the ENE due to counter-clockwise rotation of the atmosphere impacted by Hurricane Laura Sky Condition: Hazy blue skies

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous with 78% illumination

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 903 – combination of downrigging and working MAL Lures vertically for low-light fish away from the crowd; lasted until ~7:40

**Area B0163C – 40 sunfish

**Area vic 684 – downrigging for whites (+ 1 hybrid); fish at 25-27′ suspended, balls at 23′

**Area B0021G through B0030G – downrigging for whites; fish at 25′ on bottom, balls @22′

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

FROM ROOKIE TO AMATEUR IN 4 HOURS FLAT – 101 FISH @ BELTON

August 25th, 2020August 25th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, August 25th, I fished with Shane Stovall and his sons, 14-year-old Connor, and 10-year-old Cooper, all of Salado, TX.

Shane works as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) for a local hospital, and was referred to me by Clint Tippett, who makes his living as an anesthesiologist, and also brought his sons, Carson and Carter, out with me back in July.

The boys slowly but surely warmed up to white bass fishing after being sluggish early on. Their dad and I kidded them about getting lazy and too used to sleeping in over their 5-month-long Spring Break, courtesy of COVID-19!

Perhaps this morning was a good “dry run” for when Salado schools go back in session next week!?

Over the course of the morning, Cooper’s confidence level rose and, after my father-and-sons crew boated their 4th “triple” (three fish caught simultaneously on the 3-armed umbrella rig), he exclaimed, “I think I’ve gone from rookie to amateur.” He then double-checked that statement with his dad to make sure he’d indicated positive progress.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: Connor, Cooper, and Shane Stovall with a portion of their 101-fish catch on Lake Belton during the last week of their 5-month Spring Break. WHEN WE FISHED: 25 August, 2020, AM

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

HOW WE FISHED: I’ve been doing more sonar training than fishing lately, given the unstable weather we’ve been experiencing. Today was the “calm before the storm” in regards to weather in that the impacts of Hurricane Laura are due to be felt beginning tomorrow.

Although the winds were northeasterly today, this was not caused by frontal activity, and, as such, the fish fed well all morning, right up through around 10:50A. We began our day looking for low-light topwater action and found it. We were able to both downrig around the outskirts of the action for singles and doubles on white bass taken on my 3-armed umbrella rigs, as well as stop over top of several schools of white bass to work MAL Lures through them vertically. We wound up with 31 fish during this low-light bite before the sun got high enough to kill this bite.

We moved on and found fish the remainder of the morning at each of the 3 additional location we searched, but all locations held primarily small fish. After encountering our first batch of small fish (landing 5), we changed up and headed up shallow to fish for sunfish to give the boys some variety from what was fairly slow downrigging at that point. I used this time to give the white bass some time to get into more of a feeding mode, hoping either wind, cloud cover, or both might develop. The boys did great at sunfishing for first-timers. They wound up boating 40 sunfish, including a mix of bluegill, longears, redears, and greens.

Around 9:30AM, we broke from that and once again pursued white bass. By this time our fish count stood at 36 white bass and 40 sunfish.

We hit two more areas between 9:30 and 10:50AM, finding ample fish and bait at both. At both areas small white bass were seen routinely corralling fish to the surface and feeding on them briefly before continuing the pursuit underwater and out of sight. Also on the nearly calm surface we could see abundant shad feeding in pods right at the surface.

By the time the 4-hour mark rolled around, we’d landed 94 fish and were doing pretty good, albeit still on small fish. I asked the boys, who by now were sweating through their clothes, if they wanted to press on to try for a 100 fish morning. They never batted an eye and gave me the thumbs-up. In under 8 minutes we landed another 7 fish, putting our final tally at 101 fish for the morning.

TALLY: 101 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: An abundance of shad feeding on the surface under near-calm conditions from 9AM on were noted this morning.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40A

End Time: 10:55A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Elevation: 2.57′ low, -0.05′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 83.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: Light winds under 3mph from the ENE due to counter-clockwise rotation of the atmosphere impacted by Hurricane Laura

Sky Condition: Clear blue skies and low humidity

Moon Phase: First quarter with 47% illumination

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1781 – initial contact with low-light topwater fish

**Area vic 903 – combination of downrigging and working MAL Lures vertically for low-light fish away from the crowd

**Area vic B0040C – downrigging in ~22′ for smallish fish — moved on

**Area B0034G – 40 sunfish

**Area vic 1097 – downrigging for small whites

**Area 475-477 – downrigging for small whites

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) — 49 Fish

August 20th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: On Wednesday, August 19th, I conducted the season’s 9th Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (SKIFF) program trip with three young men from Killeen — 7-year-old Marcus Grady, 7-year-old Isaiah Davis, and 6-year-old Elijah Davis.

Their step-father, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Sylvester Grady is currently away from Ft. Hood, serving at Fort Benning, Georgia. He has been in the military for over 20 years.

ABOUT SKIFF: This fishing trip was provided to this military family at no charge. S.K.I.F.F. stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun. This program began in May of 2009. It is funded by the donations and fundraising efforts of the Austin Fly Fishers and other organizations they have partnered with. S.K.I.F.F. provides the children of military personnel separated from their families due to duty commitments with the opportunity to go fishing. SKIFF trips are also provided, free of charge, to Gold Star families who have lost their service member while he or she was on active duty. In mid-2019, SKIFF also began providing trips to dependents whose parents are bona fide disabled veterans. I coordinate and conduct these 3.5 to 4 hour adventures on Belton Lake and Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir, just outside the gates of Fort Hood in Bell County, TX, year ’round. Call or text 254.368.7411.

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Isaiah Davis, Elijah Davis, and Marcus Grady landed 49 fish during their evening adventure on Lake Belton. This trip was provided free of charge courtesy of the Austin Fly Fishers and other SKIFF supporters.

WHEN WE FISHED: 19 August, 2020, PM

HOW WE FISHED: Since the boys were young, and none of the three of them had ever fished before, we kept it very basic this evening.

Since we were still under the influence of Monday’s cold front passage, I suspected the white bass would be catchable, but would still require more effort than during more ideal conditions, so, I save the white bass effort for just a short part of our time at the end of the trip as the sun was setting.

Prior to that, we hit two areas up shallow for sunfish, where the boys were able to hook and land 40 sunfish, including longear, bluegill, and green sunfish. We used long rods, balsa floats, and small hooks and split shot to present small live baits to these fish in under 4 feet of water.

Around 7:15P, the sun sank below a bank of grey clouds in the western sky, thus immediately dimming the ambient light level and making it cooler to the point of being pleasant, given the low humidity which the cold front brought with it.

From that point forward we began downrigging with two sets of 3-armed umbrella rigs. Each boy got to land 3 white bass over the course of the next hour. By about 8:15, the boys were ready to move on to supper. Hence, we finished up the trip with 49 fish caught and released.

TALLY: 49 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Thanks to N winds at ~9-10 and some building cloud cover, the fishing began to rebound from Tuesday’s bright, calm, post-frontal scenario. Fish were still a bit reluctant. I watched our downrigger ball present our 3-armed umbrella rigs right to numerous schools of white bass which failed to show any response at all. The shallower and more horizontally spread the pre-sunset white bass were, the more likely they were to strike.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 5:15P

End Time: 8:15P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 97F

Elevation: 2.31′ low, 0.04′ fall, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 86.8

Wind Speed & Direction: NNE11

Sky Conditions: 30% white cloud cover on a blue sky; around 7:15, the sun was obscured by a thick grey cloud bank in the west.

Moon: New Moon today

GT = NA

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area B0035G – sunfish

**Area 1583 – sunfish

**Area 085 – early evening white bass

**Area vic B0154C – late evening white bass

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)

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

Pre-frontal? Post-frontal? What’s it gonna be? 51 fish @ Belton

August 17th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, August 17th, I fished with Shane LaCanne and his 7-year-old son, Fisher, of Salado. This was a “Kids Fish, Too!” package trip, tailored just for elementary-aged kids. Such trips have a reduced duration and a reduced price tag versus adult trips.

Shane brought both of his boys out with me once before, but this trip was just for Fisher, in celebration of his birthday back in July.

Today’s big story was the weather. Last night, a cold front pushed through very suddenly with brief, strong winds and a bit of rain. As we were on the southernmost extreme of that system, no sooner did the front pass, than our winds, which blew NW from around 2:30A to 3:15A, turned right back around out of the south. It is really hard to classify this as pre-frontal, because it wasn’t until around 9:30AM that the winds finally changed to a northerly component for keeps. At that time the fishing, which was average this morning, began to sour quickly.

One thing is for sure, I will be doing sonar training on Tuesday and Wednesday to avoid the no-doubt tough fishing over the next 2 days with light northerly winds and bright, cloudless skies!

PHOTO CAPTION #1: 7-year-old Fisher LaCanne and his dad, Shane, with the two best fish Fisher landed on our 51-fish outing under “squirrely” wind and weather conditions.

WHEN WE FISHED: 17 August, 2020, AM

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

HOW WE FISHED: The crazy weather definitely impacted the early morning, low-light topwater bite, as it was essentially non-existent this morning. I spotted only 2 instances of topwater feeding whites all morning, both of which were witnessed after 8AM and only for a few seconds. So, we moved back out to mid-depths, found shad, and began to work near where bait was abundant, but not relaxed (meaning, it was balled up and in a defensive posture).

We downrigged for a solid hour, putting 17 white bass and 1 blue cat in the boat, all the while never finding a single scenario which convinced me to pull up the ‘riggers and go vertical with MAL Lures. Since most of these fish were on the small side anyway, we left these fish to look for greener pastures.

The second area we fished was more productive, and was also later in time from the early morning’s frontal passage. Again, we found abundant bait and that bait was in balls, up off bottom. I intended to begin searching with ‘riggers down, but almost immediately came upon a sizeable school of bottom-hugging white bass which I felt certain would respond to a smoking tactic with MAL Lures. We got the boat in a hover over these fish, let the lures down, and the fish were all over them.

Over the next 90 minutes we alternated between downrigging to find schools of bottom-dwelling white bass and then fishing vertically for them as long as they would bite. We added another 33 white bass to our catch. The catch rate began to slow rapidly around 9:30 when the winds finally took on a northerly direction after swinging from S, through W in the time between pre-dawn and 9:30.

In our final 45 minutes on the water, we caught only 6 fish, and all of them came on the downrigger as we had to get our baits in front of a mess of disinterested fish in order to strain out a few still willing to bite.

TALLY: 51 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 10:15A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Elevation: 2.19′ low, -0.01′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 84.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: S12 before sunrise, calming to S6 shortly thereafter, then slowly shifting SSW, SW, W, then WNW by 9:30A Sky Condition: ~15% white cloud cover with light blue skies and low humidity

Moon Phase: Waning crescent with 3% illumination; 2 days ’til new moon

GT = 25

Wx SNAPSHOT: Two wx snapshots I took today; one taken at 4AM, the other at 6AM, as the wind forecast direction changed drastically:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic B0133C to B0024G – 18 fish via downrigging with many small fish in the mix

**Area vic 788 – 2+ hours of catching, tapering sharply around 9:30A with a windshift to the NW

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

PLANS TO MAKE THAT FIRST BILLION — 40 FISH @ STILLHOUSE

August 16th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning, 15 August 2020, I fished with Cullen Mills and his 10-year-old son, Noah, on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.

Cullen makes a living running the family business, Modern TV and Appliance, in Killeen. This business has been in the family for several generations and was at one time run by T.J. Mills, after whom T.J. Mills Boulevard on Fort Hood is named.

Of the two, Noah is the more “hardcore” angler and was just thirsty for knowledge about fish and fishing.

I was impressed at how well-spoken Noah was, and the sort of pretty insightful questions he asked.

Somewhere in our conversation Noah spoke of having big dreams, including becoming a billionaire. When I asked if he had a plan to help achieve that dream, he told me of his plans to develop a jet-powered automobile — kinda’ George Jetson-style. How many 10-year-olds (or 30-year-olds, for that matter) have a goal for their lives?

PHOTO CAPTION #1: Cullen and Noah Mills with a sampling of Stillhouse Hollow’s quality white bass. The two plump specimens Noah displays each exceeded 14″ in length.

WHEN WE FISHED: 16 August, 2020, AM

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

HOW WE FISHED: As we met at the courtesy dock around 6:30, I went over the morning’s game plan. We would employ two tactics for white bass: downrigging and “smoking” vertically with MAL Lures. We’d also save time at the end of the trip to introduce Noah to fishing for shallow water sunfish so that either on foot or on his grandpa’s boat, he could be sure to catch fish during the warm-water season.

This game plan worked out well for us. The fish were a bit “reserved” in the first 90 minutes of the morning as the winds were barely moving the water’s surface. We graphed a lot more fish than we had bite, but kept a steady feed of singles and doubles coming in the boat, and, every one of them were in great shape, length-wise and girth-wise. We even managed one triple! All of these fish were suspended in small “wolfpacks” of 6-20 fish, holding at 28-35 feet down.

We ran our downrigger balls at 28 and 30 feet with a silver/white trio of #12 Pet Spoons on one ‘rigger and a silver/yellow trio of #13 Pets on the other. The smaller white/silver did seem to do a bit better, albeit barely.

As the winds came up and shifted from S to SSW, I began looking in shallower areas where the bottom was located shallower than the thermocline. Two of the areas we checked held fish in the lower 3 feet of the water column, thus allowing us to fish MAL Lures vertically to catch a number of fish quickly while sitting atop these fish in a hover.

I noted a tendency in these fish which I also noted this past Friday on Lake Belton … that was for these fish to move on pretty quickly. Even though we were catching fish, and even though I beat the surface to create commotion to imitate surface feeding to draw fish in, we would only pick up a few fish at a time before having to “jog” one way or another to reconnect with the fish.

By the time 10:15 rolled around, the white bass were beginning to get really sluggish and unresponsive, so, we closed out that portion of our trip and headed up shallow to introduce Noah to sunfishing.

The dropping water level hindered the sunfishing a bit, as the coves where these fish tend to locate are somewhat clogged with hydrilla now left matted over on the surface, which makes presentation of baits much more challenging, especially for kids not accustomed to using the poles I incorporate into this technique. Regardless, Noah yanked 5 sunfish in 8 strikes and, when asked by his dad, “Are you having fun?”, Noah replied, “Too much fun!!”.

TALLY: 40 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: As they did at Belton on Friday, the white bass seemed reluctant to “stay put” once located this morning, forcing us to move and make “short hops” when fishing vertically with MAL Lures.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 10:55A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Elevation: 2.13′ low, -0.05′ 24-hour change, 1 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: S13-14 before sunrise, dropping off to S11 right around sunrise.

Sky Condition: ~15% white cloud cover with light blue skies and low humidity

Moon Phase: Waning crescent with 16% illumination

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic SH0030G – low light downrigging for suspended wolfpacks of white bass

**Area vic 197 – vertical work with MAL Lures for fish holding on bottom, shallower than the thermocline

**Area vic SH0052 – downrigged here briefly and moved on after seeing only a few, widely spread schools of suspended white bass

**Area vic SH0122C/662 – vertical work with MAL Lures for fish holding on bottom, shallower than the thermocline

**Area SH0132C – sunfish

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

WHAT’S THE GOOD WORD?? — 108 FISH @ BELTON

August 14th, 2020August 14th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Friday, August 14th, I fished with Bob “Paw Paw” Word, and his three grandsons, Justin Word, Jordan Word, and Travis Scott.

Bob retired from civil service as a welder and resides south of Killeen.

Justin and Jordan are brothers, and Travis married their sister.

All of the grandsons live around Austin where Jordan works as a building inspector, Justin works for the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), and Travis is a K-9 police officer.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: Travis Scott, and Jordan, Bob, and Justin Word, all with 2-year old white bass taken with a combination of downrigging and vertical work with MAL Lures.

WHEN WE FISHED: 14 August, 2020, AM

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

HOW WE FISHED: We looked for “easy” topwater action this morning but found none, thanks to the heavy chop on the surface. So, we downrigged for the fish that were still there and feeding, but not showing themselves on the surface. We wound up with 8 fish and moved on just as the sun rose.

I spotted multiple occasions of “popcorn” schooling as I surveyed calmer waters, but these fish did not stay up long, so, we passed on them.

We eventually found fish in 25-29 feet of water, and they “carpeted” the bottom, a good sign of their willingness to strike lures presented vertically. Indeed, the fish were willing to strike, but, they were also very prone to moving.

Seeing this, we simply bounced back and forth for the remainder of the morning between downrigging to both find and catch fish, and then stopping on top of any large (100+ fish) schools we found in order to work MAL Lures vertically. We’d catch a few before the school moved on using the MAL Lures, then, it was back to downrigging to repeat the process.

A mixed presentation of white/silver #12 Pet Spoons on one 3-armed umbrella rig and yellow/silver #13 Pet Spoons on the other 3-armed rig worked equally well.

We wound up with 108 fish landed in right at 4 hours. This included fish in the 0, 1, and 2 year classes. Looks like a great crop of white bass was spawned this year based on the size of fish I’m seeing from this spring’s spawn (we caught ~10-12 of them, all right about the same size and looking plump).

TALLY: 108 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Low-light topwater fish were definitely “off” this morning, thanks to a heavy chop created by the 13+ mph wind we experienced. Fish were present, but did not pop up on top for an extended period of time. After sunrise, “popcorn” schooling took place briefly through about 8AM, then the fish went down for good.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 10:45A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Elevation: 2.09′ low, -0.12′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 83.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: S13-14 before sunrise, dropping off to S11 right around sunrise. Sky Condition: No cloud cover, with light blue skies and low humidity

Moon Phase: Waning crescent with 24% illumination

GT = 50

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 813 – downrigging in under 20′ on wind-impacted shoreline for low-light white bass action hindered by strong wave action.

**Area vic 1024 – back and forth between downrigging to catch and find fish, and then dropping MAL Lures on active fish to take advantage of what we’d found.

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) – 60 Fish

August 13th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: On Wednesday, August 12th, I conducted the season’s 8th Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (SKIFF) program trip with Victoria (age 8) and Derrick (age 6) Rosado, accompanied by their mother, Valerie Gonzalez.

Neither child had ever been on a boat, nor landed a fish before this evening.

U.S. Army Specialist Christian Rosado is currently deployed to Poland. Shortly after his return, he will leave once again for training at Fort Irwin, California.

PHOTO CAPTION: Derrick and Victoria Rosado landed 60 fish tonight on Lake Belton. This was their first fishing trip ever! You can see little Derrick was still not real sure about those fish coming too close to him!

WHEN WE FISHED: 12 August, 2020, PM

HOW WE FISHED: Just as the last hour (which is typically the hottest and brightest) of a summer morning trip is often the least productive, so the first hour (also typically the hottest and brightest) of a summer evening trip is often the least productive.

Understanding this, we focused on fishing for sunfish up shallow on a (shaded) west shoreline until around 6:45PM, when I felt the first of the evening’s white bass feed would begin in open water.

Derrick took a long time to warm up to the idea of fishing. While Victoria jumped right in there and landed sunfish after sunfish, including longears, bluegill, redears, and greens, Derrick landed his first and then retreated to the safety of mom as his sister amassed a handsome catch of 30 fish.

By around the 1 hour mark, the novelty of sunfishing had begun to wear thin, and Victoria expressed an interest in doing something different.

We began pursuing white bass with downriggers in open water and this kept the kids’ attention right up until the close of our trip at sunset. We added 29 white bass to the 31 sunfish they’d landed, for a total of 60 fish for the night.

We caught fish equally well on silver/white #12 Pets and silver/yellow #13 Pets. We set the ‘rigger balls at ~22’ and never moved them. We landed singles, doubles, and one triple (way to go Derrick!!).

TALLY: 60 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Too windy for topwater action tonight.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 5:15P

End Time: 8:45P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 100F

Elevation: 1.98′ low, 0.05′ fall, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 87.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: S8-9

Sky Conditions: 75% white cloud cover on a blue sky

Moon: Waning crescent with 42% illumination

GT = NA

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area B0163C – 31 sunfish

**Area vic 085 – 29 white bass all via downrigging

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)

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

WE QUIT AT 100 – LAKE BELTON FATHER & SON TRIP

August 11th, 2020August 11th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, August 11th, I fished with father-and-son team Kyle and Luke Halfmann of Rosebud, TX. This trip was a gift from Luke’s grandparents, Grammy and Papa, from this past Christmas.

Luke will turn 8 in September and had done a bit of fishing previously, primarily for small bass in a stock tank using closed-faced gear.

Kyle is a construction superintendent in the family’s building/real estate business.

Our first order of business was to get Luke up to speed on casting with spinning gear so he could fling his lures far enough to tempt the white bass feeding on topwater which we were anticipating. After 4-5 tries he got the hang of this, so, we headed out just before sunrise to hunt fish.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: Kyle Halfmann and his son, Luke, caught and released 100 fish on Lake Belton during their 4-hour morning trip today.

WHEN WE FISHED: 11 August, 2020, AM

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

HOW WE FISHED: We began our day looking intently at the choppy water for telltale signs of white bass forcing shad to the surface. Although hard to see, they were present. We sight-cast to these fish before they left the surface about 15 minutes before the sun’s direct rays struck the water (a bit earlier than has been the case lately). During this feed, we landed 18 white bass.

Next, we moved to an area where white bass had begun “popcorn” schooling a bit earlier than usual. These fish would herd shad to the surface, feed there for just a few seconds, then sound. We made one attempt at getting to these and sight-casting, but quickly realized we’d seen multiple briefly-appearing schools from a distance, not just one school feeding at length. Understanding this situation, we went with a downrigging approach and put a steady stream of fish in the boat until the topwater action subsided and we moved on.

We hit a new patch of water this morning and, upon arrival, found fish holding in abundance on bottom in 26 to 30 feet of water. We evidently arrived just as the fish were beginning to feed here, as our first couple of attempts at Spot-Locking on the fish and working MAL Lures for them vertically got a so-so reception. As we stuck with it, the feeding intensity grew greater and greater, then peaked, then, around 9:55, began to fall off. By this time our tally stood at 70 fish, including 69 white bass and 1 largemouth. Both Kyle and Luke got the hang of using Garmin LiveScope in conjunction with their MAL Lures.

At seven years of age, Luke had hung in there longer than I though he would, but, he was definitely ready for a change of pace, so, we finished off the trip up in shallow water with some fast-paced sunfish action. Luke went through exactly 30 sunfish in as many minutes. We stopped fishing as the 100th fish was swung aboard.

TALLY: 100 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Low-light topwater fish were tough to see this morning due to the chop on the water. As occurred under similar conditions one day last week, the high winds correlated with a much shorter topwater bite, ending 12-15 minutes before the direct sun struck the water’s surface.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 10:45A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Elevation: 1.92′ low, -0.06′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 82.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: S12 before sunrise, increasing slowly to S14

Moon Phase: Last quarter with 52% illumination

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 010 to 1656 – drifting with the wind and sight-casting to low-light, topwater whites with MAL Lures; 18 fish

**Area vic B0030G – some sight-casting leading to downrigging; 8 fish

**Area vic B0172C through 691 through B0040C; 44 fish; most on MAL, then downrigger for mop up after the fish got finicky

**Area B0033G – 30 sunfish

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

TURKEY SHOOT!! – 232 FISH @ BELTON

August 10th, 2020August 10th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, August 10th, I fished with Pastor Robert Butts, his 17-year-old son, Jack, and long-time client Marcus Mitchell, all of Georgetown. Robert leads the Union Hall Baptist Church, located in Liberty Hill, TX. Marcus works for a company which produces products to track down “bugs” in complex computer server systems, and Jack is entering his senior year of high school.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: Marcus Mitchell, Robert Butts, and Jack Butts with a sampling of their 232-fish haul from Lake Belton, taken on the new MAL Lures.

PHOTO CAPTION #2: Although I don’t like to target them in the summer due to poor survivability and concerns about delayed mortality, hybrid still show up in the mix with white bass routinely.

WHEN WE FISHED: 10 August, 2020, AM

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

HOW WE FISHED: I panicked a bit this morning when, at 6:19AM (with a planned trip start time of 6:30AM), Marcus let me know his party would be delayed due to a car fire on U.S. Hwy. 190 which had morning traffic backed up.

As it was, this delay only cost them about 10 minutes, but, when low-light topwater action lasts only for a brief 40-50 minute window, I was concerned that the nice catch and fast action which normally accompany that would be jeopardized this morning. When everyone arrived, they hustled to the boat. I postponed my safety briefing, but not my prayer, and then we took off for the fishing grounds.

Over the next 50 minutes, we enjoyed non-stop catching to the tune of exactly 40 white bass landed, all on my new MAL Lures (found: here). When the sun hit the water, the fish hit the road and shut down in this locale. We went searching for fish away from the crowd and found good results in two distinct locations. My plan was to cover water with the downriggers to find active fish and then fish for them vertically with MAL Lures. However, sonar revealed fish ready to feed before we even got ‘riggers in the water. I Spot-Locked on these fish, initially in 28 feet of water, and we went to work with the MAL Lures simply dropping and reeling them up, expecting strikes as the lures rose off bottom. When the fish slowed a bit, I jogged us 2 or 3 boat lengths deeper to ~32 feet and we kept right on nailing fish. I had Garmin LiveScope playing so the fellows could know when to crank their lures up as fish passed by. As one particularly large, suspended school of fish passed beneath the boat, Marcus exclaimed, “Oh, man, it’s a turkey shoot!”. It was a pretty wild morning.

By the time the fish slacked off in this area, we’d taken exactly 119 more fish for a tally of 159 fish by 9:30AM. A thorough sonar scrub of the area revealed that the fish departed this area very shortly following a wind shift from S to SW.

We moved on to one final location where I’d been finding some fish suspended in over 40 feet of water in the late morning last week. Again, my intent was to downrig to find fish and then work MAL Lures through them to capitalize on what we’d found. As we downrigged, I noted a large shoal of fish off to our left with my side-imaging manually set to 130 feet to the left and right. I set a waypoint on the center of mass of these fish, then used the i-Pilot Link system to send the trolling motor to the waypoint with GPS precision. As the boat moved, we cleared the two white bass which struck the downriggers as we made our way to the fish, stowed the trolling gear, and got ready to work the MAL Lures vertically.

Long story short, in our final 40 minutes on the water Robert, Jack, and Marcus bagged another 73 fish, including 2 hybrid stripers and 71 white bass, to end the 4-hour trip with a take of 232 fish, every last one of which were released.

TALLY: 232 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Temperature profile from surface to 60′:

0 feet 84F

5 feet 84.8F

10 feet 85F

15 feet 85F

20 feet 85F

25 feet 84.7F

30 feet 83.7F

35 feet 81.2F

45 feet 76.4F

45 feet 72.1F

50 feet 69.1F

55 feet 67.4F

60 feet 66.6F

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:40A

End Time: 10:40A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Elevation: 1.86′ low, -0.04′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 82.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: S11 before sunrise, increasing slowly to S13, the shifting and increasing to SW13-14 around 9AM

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous with 61% illumination

GT = 75

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 813 to B0018G- aggressive low-light topwater action — 40 fish in ~50 minutes

**Area vic 788 – 2 short hops; vertical work with MAL Lures — 119 fish in ~90 minutes **Area vic 1411 – one Spot-Lock; vertical work with MAP Lures — 73 fish in ~40 minutes

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

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide

#BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing

#bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport

#fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday

#Fitec

FROM VERY DIFFERENT WALKS OF LIFE — 79 FISH @ BELTON

August 7th, 2020August 7th, 2020 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Friday, August 7th, I fished with a group of 4. Mr. Mike Monk of Salado, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who went on to work in both the oil industry and for the State of Louisiana as an auditor, kindly sponsored a trip for two young men. Those young men were Alex Angulo, accompanied by his youth pastor, Louis Crooks, both of Killeen, and Gary Yoder. Gary is a U.S. Army Gold Star family member from Belton, and Alex’s dad is currently overseas where he serves as a government contractor. Everyone had limited prior fishing experience, so, I tried to keep it simple yet effective for our 3.5 hours on the water.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: Gary Yoder, Louis Crooks, Alex Angulo, and Mike Monk.

WHEN WE FISHED: 07 August, 2020, AM

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

HOW WE FISHED: This morning, we started off in search of some “easy” topwater fishing for white bass pushing shad to the surface. Unfortunately, due mainly to a stiff SSE breeze, the bite did not last all that long, allowing us a total of 14 fish before the action was over as the sun’s rays struck the water. Next, we headed to a slightly more steeply sloped area and did a lot of looking with sonar as we put twin downriggers in equipped with both #12 and #13 Pet Spoons. We got right into fish as we downrigged and then found a school of “bottom-huggers” in about 24 feet of water. I quickly got us Spot-Locked on these fish and transitioned everyone over to fishing MAL Lures vertically. We landed another 4 fish this way before the school dissipated. We continued downrigging, picking up a single and a triple. I decided to move because, 1) the fish were smallish, and 2) I did not see any surface action in the area leading me to believe there was an abundance of active fish in this area. It was now about 8:15. I chose to take the boys up shallow to gun for sunfish to give them a very different experience than the open-water angling we’d been doing thus far.

As we began our sunfishing effort, we had 22 fish in the boat. By the time we left the sunfish grounds a short 45 minutes later, we had added another 48 fish to our tally, including longear, green, and bluegill sunfish. The boys thought it pretty cool when we spotted a 2.5′ longnose gar up in shallow water which showed some interest in swiping at one of the hooked sunfish we tried tempting it with. In our last hour, I headed us back to deep, open water once again in pursuit of larger fish.

We downrigged to find fish while catching them as we looked. We landed several fish and then witnessed a large school of white bass herd shad to the surface. We scurried to that location with downriggers still down, caught several and then set up in this area to work MAL Lures vertically for another 4 white bass. Once these fish slacked off after just a few minutes, we wrapped it up right at 10AM.

TALLY: 79 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Stiff breezes and a plethora of boat kept topwater action to a minimum this morning.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 10:00A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Elevation: 1.71′ low, -0.04′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 83.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: S12 before sunrise, scaling back to S7-8 thereafter

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous

GT = N/A

Wx SNAPSHOT: