STABLE WEATHER, STABLE FISHING — 150 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, November 6, I fished with first time guests Dennis Graham, and his neighbor and friend, Vicky Clark.

Dennis is a U.S. Air Force veteran/retiree, and Vicky retired from the U.S. Postal Service where she enjoyed being a rural route letter carrier.

I first got to know Dennis when I presented a sonar seminar at Marine Outlet in Temple, TX, then reconnected more recently through the very well run Texas Fishing Forum, and specifically through the sub-forum dedicated to white bass, hybrid stripers, and striped bass.

Here’s how our morning 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 Nov. 14, 15

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  Vicky Clark and Dennis Graham caught and released 150 fish on 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs on Lake Belton this morning using the smoking tactic described in the link below.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  Vicky just about held her own as far as the $1 bet on who could catch the most was concerned, but when it came to who caught the biggest, it was an open-and-shut case!

 

PHOTO CAPTION: Dennis closed the trip out in style.  We agreed we’d stay until we hit 150 fish.  With 148 in the boat, Dennis landed this double, with one white bass hooked on the treble and another on the stinger hook of the same slab!

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  From left to right are the 3/4 oz, 5/8 oz., and 3/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs.  These combine the fish-attracting spinning blade feature of the MAL Lure with the cool-water effectiveness of a slab.  All 150 fish were taken on these slabs today.

 

Find the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab here: https://whitebasstools.com/

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED:  Monday, 06 November 2023

HOW WE FISHED: 

With the time change taking place over the weekend, we began right at 7 AM today and fished through around 11:30.

I found a few fish up shallow, in about 23 feet of water, just as the sun was rising, but these fish were less than enthusiastic, so we left them behind.

As I was getting the boat prepared to motor to our next area, I did a little glassing and found the season’s first active group of gulls feeding over top of gamefish pushing bait to the surface. I got pretty excited as we ran to them, but enthusiasm waned when I saw how fast these birds were moving.

As it turned out, there was a small, but very aggressive, school of hybrid chasing subsurface bait at very high speed, headed down wind. We simply could not stop and fish for these fish because they were moving so fast. Because it was fairly windy, and because Vicky expressed that she might need to brush up on her casting a bit before we did any casting, I left these fish behind and went to find more heavily congregated, and more sedentary, bottom-oriented, white bass.

This turned out to be a good choice both because we found plenty of fish to catch, and because that bird activity dissipated rather quickly. Still, it was good to see that bird activity begin.

After we found schooled fish on bottom, we stuck with fishing that pattern from that point until our wrap-up around 11:30. We put the entire trip together on just three stops. The second of these three yielded the lion’s share of our fish (111 of 150 fish).

We fished each of these three distinct groups of fish the same way. I Spot-Locked on top of them after finding them with down-imaging and/or side-imaging, we then dropped white, 5/8 ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs down to them, and smoked the slabs in a manner described in the video link below…

Smoking Tutorial

Although the fishing followed a bell-shaped curve with low energy at low light, a peak bite between 9 and 10AM, and then a slow decay from 10:00 to 11:30, the fish never quit biting during this entire run.

One bit of an improvement today was in the area of legal sized fish versus shorts. Although we did not catch any 14 or 15 inch jumbos, the number of two and three year old fish roughly matched the number of yearlings we landed.

I anticipate this fishing will stay solid right on through the next cold front’s arrival on Thursday (9 Nov.), then, because Thursday’s front is forecast to be mild, the fishing should continue to be just as sound thereafter. If history is any teacher, this wonderfully productive autumn bite will continue right on through about mid-December.

Our tally today was exactly 150 fish including 1 keeper hybrid striped bass, 1 short hybrid striper, 9 freshwater drum, and 139 white bass.

TALLY: 150 fish caught and released.

 

OBSERVATIONS:  The first helpful bird activity I’ve spotted thus far this fall occurred this morning.

 

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:00A

End Time: 11:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 59F

Elevation: 15.14 feet low, 47 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 65.2F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: S8 at trip’s start, building to S13 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: 100% light grey skies through mid-morning, then clearing and brightening to 80% white cloud cover on a blue sky

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 39% illumination.

GT = 35

Wx SNAPSHOT:    

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Areas:

Area B0005C – 20 fish smoking Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs

Area 446 – 111 fish smoking Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs

Area B0155G – 19 fish smoking Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs

 

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

207 FISH LANDED ON STILLHOUSE / BELTON COMBO TRIP

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This past Friday I fished a full-day trip with Mike and Laurie Tomberlin from the north Austin area.  Both are high school teachers in separate school districts and took the day off to spend outdoors with one another.  The family owns a deckboat and Mike has his own fishing kayak.  One of the main reasons Mike wanted to book the trip was to experience “off shore” fishing for freshwater pelagics wherein electronics must be relied upon for success.  Mike grew up trout fishing in the West, and then became familiar with sight casting to shallow, visible cover, but knew there was another world of fishing in deeper water that he’d yet to tap into.

So as to do a “reality check” on both Belton and Stillhouse as potential kayak fishing destinations, I showed the couple, by land and by water, the majority of the kayak-friendly access points on both reservoirs.

We fished Stillhouse in the AM and Belton in the PM.

PHOTO CAPTION:    For the relatively infertile waters of Central Texas, these fat egg- and milt-laden white bass are hard to beat quality-wise on Stillhouse this season.  

 

PHOTO CAPTION:   Mike took this deep-water largemouth on a slab.  Like people when they spend time out of the sun for long periods of time, these fish get pale, and this fish was no exception.

WHEN WE FISHED:  Friday, 28 February 2020, AM & PM

HOW WE FISHED: We fished Stillhouse from 7AM to 12:15P and then fished Belton from 2:35PM to 6:50PM.

Stillhouse summary – Thanks to a north wind (at a higher velocity than forecast) and clear skies, the bird action was cranked up a notch this morning.  We found our first 3 groups of fish thanks to gull action, and found the white bass feeding in small packs up on mid-depth flats to be a bit more active than with winds from other directions.  By the time the birds quit, we’d already landed over 50 fish, whereas over the past 2.5 weeks, a tally from the mid-teens to the low 30’s was where we typically stood at this point.

After the birds quit, we shifted our focus from flats to the channel and found two distinct congregations of fish right on the channel lip ready to feed.  The first group yielded just shy of 30 fish, whereas the second congregation, which was deeper and much more densely packed together, gave up over 60 fish in our final 90 minutes on the water.

Every fish we landed, which included 1 largemouth and about a dozen drum in addition to all of the white bass, came on the 3/8 oz. white Hazy Eye Slab with Stinger Hook attached.  A very slow easing tactic was the go-to method save for when LiveScope revealed high, moving, suspended fish.  At such times a slow smoking tactic was employed.

We caught fish from 32 to 48 feet deep. We fished up the morning with 138 fish caught and released.

Belton summary – We faced tougher conditions on Belton in the afternoon in that the N wind had shifted to the SE and lightened up.  There was never a time all afternoon when there weren’t at least patches of calm water and just a very slight breeze rippling the remainder of the surface.  We also had minimal cloud cover until the last hour when a low bank of thin clouds in the west obscured the sunset.

Fish came in spurts this afternoon as we found small, tight groups of fish, caught them, and then had to move to find more fish.  Fish were considerably shallower than on Stillhouse, with most of our catch taken in 18-30 feet of water.  Tapering bottoms were the common denominator this evening, with little going on along the segments of river channel I searched.

One promising sign at the end of the evening came when Mike and I were able to do a short stint of sight-casting to shallow white bass chasing shad to the surface.  This was not wide-spread, and the fish did not remain on the surface, rather, only one or two would pop a shad now and then, but the fact that we found them in 2-6 feet of water and moving that quickly was a sign that winter is relenting.

Aside from this sightcasting with bladebaits for our final 10 or so fish, we landed all of our fish on the same 3/8 oz. white Hazy Eye Slab with Stinger Hook attached which served us so well on Stillhouse.  69 fish caught and released.

TALLY: 207 fish caught and released

 

OBSERVATIONS:   Shallow, aggressive fish taken on bladebaits at and just following sunset on Belton in 2-6′.

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

AM

Start Time:   7:00A

End Time:  Noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  38F

Elevation: 3.26 low, -0.01′ 24-hour change, 1 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:   51.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: N7 wind through 10A, then shifting quickly to the SE3, building to SE6, then tapering to SE2 with periods of calm through the midday period

Sky Conditions: No cloud cover

PM

Start Time:   2:35P

End Time:  7:50P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  62F

Elevation:1.55′ low, 0.03′ 24-hour change, 17 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp:   56.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: Calm to SE3 all afternoon

Sky Conditions: Clear until the last hour when a low bank of thin clouds in the west obscured the sunset.

GT = 0  (?!?)

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:   

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

STILLHOUSE

**Area 1512

**Area 1046/2013

**Area 339/1704

**Area 006/1715

**Area 1502

**Area SH0014G

BELTON

**Area 1077/1679

**Area B0003G

**Area vic 1882

**Area vic 1934

**Area 380/B0127C

**Area 172 – Blades 10-12′

**Area B0014G – Shallow blades

 

 

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