Hazy Eye Slab

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING – 100 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, Wednesday, July 12th, I fished with first time guests Jon and Jayden Stilley from Belton, Texas.

This father and son team had been anticipating this fishing trip since last October when Jayden received a fishing gift certificate from his parents for his 14th birthday.

Although wind and white bass fishing typically go hand-in-hand, this morning, we had a little too much of a good thing (and it wasn’t the white bass!).

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 July 31 & August 2 (AM)

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  Despite wind and whitecaps, father and son team Jayden and Jon Stilley stuck with it for a full four hours and landed exactly 100 fish this morning using a combination of sight-casting, downrigging, and horizontal casting tactics.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday, 12 July 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

We got going at 6:15 AM, and, after explaining our approach for the morning, we began closely studying the lake’s windblown surface for any evidence of topwater feeding. To see white bass as they feed on the young of the year shad in a strong wind is difficult, at best. Even with a trained eye, I struggled to see what I was looking for. Although we found fish on topwater, I’m sure there was much more out there that went undetected as the winds were right at 13 mph with small whitecaps making the task of spotting fish that much more difficult.

We encountered two distinct groups of topwater feeding fish both within about a half mile of each other, and, by 7:30 when the topwater feed in this area quit, Jon and Jayden had landed 27 fish.

Although mature shad could be seen leaping from the water on occasion, the vast majority of these white basses’ diet was much smaller, young of the year shad. We verified this by observing what the fish we landed were regurgitating. Although the MAL Mini would have been my first choice for both fellows this morning, the wind made this light lure very difficult to throw.

John stuck with the MAL Mini a majority of the time, while Jayden used the MAL Heavy with white tail to gain the distance he needed to get to the white bass as they showed themselves on the surface.

After this area settled down, I spotted white bass relating solely to shad in deep, open water (60+ feet”. This particular group was feeding on larger shad, roughly 2.25 inches in length. This made our job of fooling these fish much simpler. Both Jon and Jayden took fish consistently on the MAL Heavy with white tail until these fish gave up at around 8:37 AM. Our count now stood at 64 fish.

For the final leg of the trip, with topwater action now completely done, I began using downriggers to find fish, either suspended or near bottom, with the intention of smoking for them, and\or using a sawtooth method for them, if they showed in great enough numbers, and were aggressive toward the downrigged baits.

This approach actually worked out perfectly. After two consecutive, successful passes over an area about 24 feet deep, the white bass numbers and activity level convinced me these could be caught more efficiently with a sawtooth method.

We quickly retooled, and with the boat now on Spot-Lock, I had Jon and Jayden cast perpendicular to the starboard side and work their lures back to the boat using a sawtooth method. They ran our tally up to 97 fish by 9:55 AM. With plans to wrap up around the four-hour mark, I told them that if we did not hit 100 fish by 10:05 AM, we would begin downrigging once again until we’d hit 100 fish.

10:05 AM came and went with no more fish landed, so, we put the downriggers back out and came up with a single for Jayden, then a single for Jon, followed by a final single for Jon. We put the 100th fish in the boat right at 10:19 AM and called it a great morning right then.

Of our 100 fish catch, 5 were undersized hybrid striper, 3 were just-legal largemouth bass, and the remaining 92 fish were all white bass with just a handful of those being short.

TALLY: 100 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:  Topwater action ended at 8:37AM.  Here was the water temperature profile this morning:

0 feet, 84.5F
5 feet, 85.5F
10 feet, 85.5F
15 feet, 85.6F
20 feet, 85.5F
25 feet, 83.8F
30 feet, 76.1F
35 feet, 72.1F
40 feet, 68.8F
45 feet, 66.3F
50 feet, 65.0F
55 feet, 64.3F
60 feet, 63.1F

 

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:15A

End Time: 10:20A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F

Elevation: 14.16 feet low, 56 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 84.5F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW12-14 all morning

Sky Condition: <10% white cloud cover

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 25% illumination.

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Area vic B0153G – topwater sightcasting for 1.25 hours to very finnicky, fast-moving fish — covered 1/2 mile during this time. 27 fish

Area vic B0206G – open water sightcasting to white feeding on mature shad. 33 fish

Area vic 1974 – downrigging leading to sawtoothing with MAL Heavies, then back to downrigging. 40 fish

 

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

MULTI-TACTICS, MULTI-SPECIES – 83 FISH @ BELTON

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, 08 Dec., I was joined by returning guest Gary Davidson of Kerrville, TX.

Gary fished with me back on Oct. 9th this year, scoring high numbers of white bass, accompanied by his wife, Rachel, when the water temperature was still in the high 70’s.

One of Gary’s goals during that trip was to work through the maze of options on sonar and trolling motors out there to best equip a new deep-vee aluminum fishing boat he has on order.

As a semi-retired CPA, things get quiet around the office in December, so, he sent me a note to put him on the standby list in case someone cancelled on a last-minute basis.  Gary wanted to come back out, not so much to catch fish, but to iron out a few loose ends on sonar, and to understand additional white bass tactics as we head into cooler months.

With a sonar training postponement today due to COVID, I was able to customize a trip for Gary which included use of three different techniques for white bass, plenty of real-world sonar interpretation, and some blue catfish fishing, all finished up with the shore-based portion of my sonar training done in the parking lot.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: Our multi-species efforts today included laying about 40 minutes aside to focus on blue catfish.

PHOTO CAPTION #2: As we used three tactics for freshwater pelagics (smoking, easing, and snap-jigging), we pulled dozens of white bass and 2 hybrid in for a real close look!

 

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday (AM), 08 December 2020

HOW WE FISHED:

If you’ve followed my reports for any length of time, you’ll know I try to be an “honest broker”.  If I have a great day, I’ll call it what it was; likewise, if I have a tough day, you’ll know it, too.  I don’t just report on the highlights; I report on every trip I make.

All that said, today, for the first time since bringing my MAL Lure to market, I noted a decreased interest in that lure versus a slower tactic.  I felt certain this time would come, but I did not know at just what water temperature this slowdown would occur.  I am putting the “nail in the floor” at between 58 and 59F surface temperature.

I am definitely not mothballing the MAL Lure  — we actually caught at or above half of our catch on it, but, those fish we caught were active fish — they were either feeding under birds, or up high in the water column patrolling.

The fish we encountered in the first hour on the water did not fall into either one of these categories  — they were holding tight to the bottom and were not chasing shad, thus, they were not attracting birds.

When the fish were in such a mood, the easing tactic I’ve written much about produced fish steadily.  We used my 3/4 oz. white Hazy Eye Slab with Stinger Hook attached and slowly raised the slab upwards while observing fish behavior on Garmin LiveScope.  When we found the speed they liked, we just kept replicating that and observed how the bite slowly got more aggressive as the fish moved faster and farther from bottom, and as they followed the lure in greater numbers as compared to when we began.

Eventually, the activity level rose to the point where the fish were hitting the MAL Lure and, at the same time, drawing in birds.  Even when the birds settled, the MAL Lure attracted the remaining suspended fish still patrolling at a steady clip.

We stopped fishing for white bass at the 3 hour mark with 78 white bass, 1 largemouth, and 1 short hybrid tallied in order to spend some time on blue catfish.

We used some favorite doughbait of mine on my Catfish Plumbs to present our baits to fish in ~44 feet of water after getting their attention with range cubes.  We fished one area with no success, then moved and fairly quickly observed a fish creeping in along bottom toward Gary’s Catfish Plumb.  He had his finger on the braid so as to feel a bite and immediately set the hook well.  When the fish came to net we had a 6.75 pound bluecat on deck.  After a few photos, we decided, based on sonar returns showing white bass all around us, to invest our last few minutes into white bass.  We landed 1 more white and 1 keeper hybrid and called it a great morning before the fish gave up for the morning.

See the MAL Lure, Hazy Eye Slabs, and Catfish Plumbs here: https://whitebasstools.com/

See tutorial video on how to work the MAL Lure here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE&t=239s

TALLY: 83 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:   There were 3 episodes of gull activity this morning.  #1 was birds on shad (no gamefish) in deep, open water right before and during sunrise; #2 was birds and fish on shad over ~40-45′ which lasted ~20 minutes from 9:20 to 9:40; #3 was birds and fish on shad over 40-45′ which lasted ~30 minutes from 10:10 to 10:40.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  7:45A

End Time: 12:45P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 37F

Elevation:  0.97 low with a 0.00’ 24-hour change and 34 CFS flow thru the dam

Water Surface Temp: 58.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  WNW6-7 all morning

Sky Condition: Bluebird skies

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 45% illumination

GT = 64

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 086; all fish on 3/4 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs (SP)

**Area vic 966-B0013G; fish split 50/50 on MAL Lures and 3/4 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs (SP)

**Area vic 1209; 1 blue catfish fish on dough bait (SP)

**Area vic 1277; all fish on 3/4 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs (SP)

 

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