fishing in Texas

AN EXTREME CASE OF BEGINNER’S LUCK — 44 FISH @ BELTON

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, July 17, I fished with mother-daughter team Julee and Claire Manley .

This trip was a Mother’s Day gift from Claire to her mom.
 
Both ladies are local folks, having grown up here in Central Texas. Claire recently began working in the medical field as a certified physician’s assistant after graduation from Texas A&M, and Julee, a University of Mary Hardin-Baylor grad, has been an educator for many years now, now serving as a public school principal
 
Neither lady had ever fished before nor had any prior experience with baitcasting gear nor spinning gear, so job number one was to get them trained up.
 
Here is how the fishing went…

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Next available dates are July 31 & August 21 (AM)

PHOTO CAPTION: That’s Julee Manley and her daughter, Claire Manley, cashing in Julee’s most recent Mother’s Day present — a fishing trip with her daughter the day before Julee heads back to work as a public school principal.

PHOTO CAPTION: Claire experienced an extreme case of beginner’s luck this morning landing three sets of triples — three fish at the same time on a single 3-armed umbrella rig!

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 17 July 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

Overall, the fishing this morning was a good bit tougher than that which I experienced on Belton last week. There was no lowlight/sunrise topwater action, and very little such action at any other point in the morning.

The topwater action, although inconsistent, sure does make things easier, as you know both exactly where the fish are, and that they are aggressively feeding.

Lacking that, we had to more slowly comb over areas using sonar. When I found fish, we either downrigged for them if they appeared scattered, or Spot-Locked and began using a sawtooth method with white-tailed MAL Heavy Lures if they were more tightly grouped and on or near bottom.

We managed to put together a fair catch by constantly alternating between the downrigging technique and the sawtooth method. By the time the fish began to shut down around 10:10, the ladies had landed a total of 44 fish, including 3 hybrid striped bass (all short), 2 freshwater drum, and 39 white bass, all of which were of legal size.

TALLY: 44 fish caught and released.

See a tutorial on the Smoking Method here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

Here is a tutorial on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

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

OBSERVATIONS: Much reduced topwater activity this morning, with next to no activity right at first light/sunrise, all in stark comparison with the first half of last week.

 

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:15A

End Time: 10:35A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Elevation: 14.45 feet low, 56 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 84.3F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW8-9 thru 9A, then bumping up to SSW11-13

Sky Condition: 0% cloud cover cover

Moon Phase: New moon at 0% illumination.

GT = 50

Wx SNAPSHOT:   That brown, flat line at 0% in the third segment down in the graph below is our chance of precipitation; unfortunately, it stays flat until midday Sunday.

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Area vic 814 – downrigging for scattered, small schools of white bass in low-light conditions with fish at 16′ deep and balls set at 10-13.

Area vic B0030G – downrigging w/5′ bottom tracking in 20-30′ leading to use of sawtooth method to capitalize on what we’d found

Area vic B0031G – downrigging w/5′ bottom tracking in 20-30′ leading to use of sawtooth method to capitalize on 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

PRE-FRONTAL WX SETUP YIELDS 106 FISH @ STILLHOUSE

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, March 2nd, 2020, I fished with returning guests Tommy and Sylvia Maedgen from near Troy, TX.  Tommy has fished with me twice before, both in pursuit of white bass on Stillhouse.  Sylvia joined him for one of those trips.  Then, just last month, they both returned in their own boat to do some sonar training with new Lowrance gear installed on both console and bow.  Our next trip will be after Belton hybrid in May, Lord willing.

I was excited about getting on the water this morning, as I am any time pre-frontal conditions are brewing.  Making this morning even sweeter was the fact that it came on the end of a 4-day warming spell.

 

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION:   Tommy and Sylvia Maedgen joined me for a nice Texas late winter morning of white bass fishing on Stillhouse.  The couple’s last trip with me yielded 53 fish; this morning, we persisted until we doubled that figure.  The grey skies and southwesterly breeze helped fire up the bite this morning until right around noon.

WHEN WE FISHED:  02 March, 2002, AM

HOW WE FISHED: As hard as it was to ignore bird activity this morning, that is exactly what it took to put fish in the boat.  The “resident” population of wintering gulls on Stillhouse have become conditioned to feed every morning in about 4 distinct locations, whether or not white bass are present.  Although there are a few white bass in these areas, this morning sonar quickly revealed they were few and far between.  Most folks fail to recognize the root cause of the gull action right now is loon activity, not white bass activity.  These loons kill and cripple sunfish which then float or linger near the surface and become easy targets for the gulls, which then draw anglers. A few anglers draw more anglers, and , before you know it, there’s a whole lot of boats and none of them catching anything. Thanks to a state holiday, a few areas with this gull/loon scenario looked like boat parking lots this morning, but few fish were taken in those areas.

Rather, the breakline dropping into the old Lampasas River channel continues to be a steady producer of not only quantities of fish, but quality fish, as well, especially in comparison to the unusually high number of smallish white bass Belton has been pumping out since September.

A few times we commented on how slowly the fish were swimming and reacting to our presentations, all because their surroundings are still in the low 50’s.  Indeed, one white bass I pulled up near trip’s end when the air was warmest felt like an ice pack when touched.

Accordingly, presentations were painfully slow this morning, but consistency in that regard was rewarded over and over again as we used an easing tactic in combination with “match-the-hatch” sized 3/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs with stinger hooks attached.  Garmin LiveScope was the ticket to knowing when to move the slab and when to lay off.

I’ve arrayed my infinitely-adjustable LiveScope transducer to view both downward and along the starboard gunwale of my boat.  I position as many clients on that side as possible.  I have two Garmin GPSMAP 1242xsv Touch units mounted on that gunwale so as many as 5 anglers can watch what is happening below them in real-time.  Although the same raw sonar data is being fed to both units from a single transducer, the displays are independently adjustable so those toward the bow can isolate their little “patch” of bottom, and those clients toward the stern can do likewise.  This way, everyone gets a zoomed view of just the vertical segment of water they are working.  It is a sweet setup.  It keeps everyone engaged, enhances their success, and makes us very efficient.

Every once in a while we encountered slightly more active fish up higher in the water column which required a “slow smoking” retrieve, but most fish were bottom-oriented this morning.

Our bite wound down to nothing by noon, with peak activity from 9:15 to 11AM.

 

TALLY: 106 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:  Spotted the first couple mosquito hawks of the year last night while working outdoors.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:   7:00A

End Time:  Noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 65F

Elevation: 3.27′ low, +0.01 24-hour change, 1 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:  54F

Wind Speed & Direction: SW8-12 the entire trip

Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover

 

GT = 15

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:   

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1512 – scattered fish under gulls with loon activity

**Area 988/2017- scattered fish under gulls with loon activity

**Area vic 1358 – channel breakline congregation of whites

**Area vic SH0001C  – channel breakline congregation of whites

**Area 103/746 – channel breakline congregation of whites

**Area vic SH0023C- scattered fish under gulls with loon activity

**Area vic SH0014G – channel breakline congregation of 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