Texas fishing guide

WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT “ASSUME” – 101 FISH @ LAKE BELTON

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Thursday, July 13th, I fished with a crew of four returning guests, including Mr. Larry Brewer, his good friend, Blake Hoekstra, Larry’s son-in-law, Chris Zwern, and Larry‘s grandson, Eymon McCormick.

Larry is a living legend in the Austin area HVAC world, Blake retired from accounting, Chris works for a medical imaging company, and Eymon is employed at a video gaming company after recently graduating from high school.

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:  From the left, that’s Larry Brewer, Blake Hoekstra, Eymon McCormick, and Chris Zwern.  That white bass Chris is holding went 15 3/8″ and was in great shape.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 13 July 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

As I sat on the bow of my boat awaiting my crew’s arrival, I was elated that the 14 to 15 mph southwest wind forecast to blow all day today had not yet materialized.  Rather, the wind was only blowing at about 8 to 10. Assuming that the white bass we’re going to feed aggressively on topwater under low light conditions once again (at they did like clockwork for the last several days), I just knew that they would be much easier to spot than in yesterday’s wind-blown tempest.

Well, you know what they say about ass-u-me…

Despite ideal spotting conditions, there was very little topwater action this morning, and what action did materialize was both weak, and short-lived.

By 7:30 AM, when over the past few days we’d had 20 or 30 fish in the boat already, we had landed only five at that point this morning.

Around 7:45 AM, the situation began to improve. I spotted a handful of white bass feeding on the surface atop an underwater anomaly. I swung in for a better look, and sonar really lit up.

I positioned the boat so that Spot-Lock would hold us about a cast’s length away from, and parallel to, the fish I found. I then put everyone on the starboard side, equipped with MAL Heavy Lures with white tails, and had them cast long and work these baits back with a sawtooth method.

Whenever the fishing got slow, I would move us a cast’s length into the wind, thus allowing us to cover this underwater feature very thoroughly.

After this area slacked off, I went to another, similar area, found fish there, positioned the boat in similar fashion, and continued working MALs with a sawtooth tactic. By the time these fish quit our tally was up to 88 fish and the time was 9:45 AM.

Having observed over the last two days how the fishing really began to tail off around this time of the morning, I told my crew that if we were going to hit 100 fish around the 4-hour mark, I felt we would need to downrig for them. Downrigging allows for a lot of ground to be covered very efficiently, thus weeding out the few still active fish amongst a majority of inactive fish.

We got both downriggers working, both equipped with three armed umbrella rigs. I ran #12 Pet Spoons with silver bodies and white feather tails on one downrigger, and #13 Pet Spoons with silver prismatic bodies and yellow feather tails on the other.

We scoured an area which sonar showed had quite a number of both suspended and bottom-oriented white bass present. After several rounds of singles and doubles, fish numbers 100 and 101 came aboard as a double which Eymon reeled in to close out this successful trip at exactly 10:25 AM.

Of the 101 fish landed today, we had 1 legal hybrid, 6 short hybrid, 4 freshwater drum, 1 smallmouth bass, and 89 white bass, of which only 2 were short.

TALLY: 101 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:  Here was the water temperature taken the morning of  12 July:

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: 6:25A

End Time: 10:35A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F

Elevation: 14.22 feet low, 56 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 84.3F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW9-10 thru 8:30, then slowing tapering up to SSW13

Sky Condition: <10% white cloud cover

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 17% illumination.

GT = 50

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Area vic 1937 – very light topwater activity through 7:30 – 5 fish

Area vic 1591 – consistent action on sawtoothed MALs

Area vic B0030G – consistent action on sawtoothed MAL’s, with ‘rigging to “mop up” as fish got reluctant

 

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

PLEASE BRING THE LIMO AROUND — 100 FISH

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, July 3, I fished with returning guests Larry Miller, his grandson, Cameron (Cam) Miller, and two grandsons of Larry’s brother-in-law, Don Bousquet — Hudson and Townes Slimp. Cam and his grandfather traveled in from Louisiana, and the Slimp boys reside in Salado.

This entire crew has fished with me previously, but this was the first hot weather trip we’ve done together.

I tried to keep this crew posted on our progress by announcing every tenth fish we landed.  As an incentive, Larry told the boys that if they hit a certain number, and if he hit the lottery, he’d get them whatever car they wanted.  Well, Hudson wanted a Corvette, and then a Lamborghini was mentioned, but, when it came to little Townes, he said he wanted a limo.  I told him that was very good “out of the box” thinking  — whereas the older boys wanted fancy cars they’d have to drive and fuel up themselves, he requested a car which would come with a driver to do all the work for him!!!

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 July 24 & 31 (AM)

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Hudson Slimp, Cam Miller, Townes Slimp, and Larry Miller.  This crew landed exactly 100 fish during their 4-hour morning trip on Stillhouse Hollow.

 

PHOTO CAPTION: Cam Miller qualified for a TPWD “Big Fish” Award by landing this white bass which exceeded 15″ in length.  The actual measurement on this fish was 16.75″ and it was in great shape with a very girthy body.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 03 July 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

This morning, I chose to move things over to Stillhouse, anticipating a real holiday zoo over on Lake Belton. Although there were plenty of anglers out on the water, the vast majority were after largemouth bass up shallow, so, I was still able to get to the areas I wanted to get to with my clients.

We used downrigging as a tool to find fish, catch them, and gauge their activity level, then when we found abundant, aggressive fish, we switched over and used vertical (“smoking”) tactics and horizontal (“sawtooth”) MAL Lure tactics to take advantage of what we’d found.

As the morning moved on, everyone got better at transitioning from one tactic to the other and back again so we had very little downtime between discovering active fish with a downriggers and presenting to them with a MAL Lures.

On the downriggers, I was running three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with #12 Pet Spoons. The MAL Lures I chose today were MAL Heavies with white tails now that the spawn is over and threadfin shad coloration is beginning to fade.

I had told the Slimp’s dad, Guy, that we would be back between 10:30 and 10:45. At exactly 10:20 AM, we had 90 fish landed. I told everyone we would give it until 10:30 or 100 fish which ever came first.

With a little time pressure now on them, the boys buckled down and really paid attention to their technique and to the sonar screens. At exactly 10:30 AM, our 100th fish came over the gunwale. Of those 100 fish landed, 99 were white bass, all of which were legal, in addition to one largemouth bass.

Two of the fish landed today earned the boys TPWD Big Fish certificates which will count toward Elite Angler status in the future. Cam took a 16.75 inch white bass, and Townes caught a 16.125 inch white bass. These were very impressive and healthy looking magnum whites.

TALLY: 100 fish caught and released.

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

OBSERVATIONS:  Next to no schooling largemouth bass activity observed.  Here is the temperature profile measured on Stillhouse on 03 July:

0 feet, 85.9F
5 feet, 86.2F
10 feet, 86.4F
15 feet, 86.4F
20 feet, 86.4F
25 feet, 85.9F
30 feet, 79.4F
35 feet, 72.7F
40 feet, 69.0F
45 feet, 66.3F
50 feet, 64.7F
55 feet, 62.9F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:25A

End Time: 10:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Elevation: 14.19 feet low, 1 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 85.9F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction:  S6-8 all morning

Sky Condition: Light blue skies with 30% white cloud cover

Moon Phase: Full moon at 100% illumination.

GT = 105

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Downrigging from vic 1423 thru SH0033G with stops atop concentrations of fish mixed in

Areas vic 1423, SH0031G, 889, vic 867, & vic SH0033G – Smoked for whites w/ MAL Heavy w/ white tails

 

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

DAD, I KNOW WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS!! — 126 FISH

by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, Wednesday, Dec. 2nd, I fished with Brian Linford of El Paso, TX, and his “homeless” father, Larry Linford, who is weighing his options after selling his home in Idaho Falls, ID, and is considering becoming at least a winter-Texas given that his adult kids all live down this way.

The two were visiting relatives in the Belton area and decided to give Lake Belton a try.  Larry hadn’t done much white bass fishing before, and Brian was eager to see how I put sonar, in particular the GARMIN LiveScope, into practice in a “real-world” fish-finding scenario.

After seeing what he saw, but knowing his wife would not be wild about the possibility of another sonar purchase, Brian considered his alternatives and informed Larry, “Dad, I know what I want for Christmas.”   Larry just laughed.

 

PHOTO CAPTION #1:   From right: Larry and Brian Linford with a few of the 3-year class fish from our haul of 126 fish taken from Lake Belton on MAL Lures this morning in advance of a dry cold front which came in around 1PM.

 

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday (AM), 02 December 2020

HOW WE FISHED:

It was a pretty crazy weather day today which resulting in me having to postpone my afternoon outing due to forecast high winds.

We had a mild, dry cold front approaching from the NW, but this morning’s trip did not coincide with the pre-frontal wind shift in advance of that front, so, we had enjoyable conditions, but pretty average fishing.  We were aided by light, grey cloud cover, but hindered by a lack of wind.

When the wind blew, the activity level of the fish rose noticeably, but, the opposite was also true.

We put our 100th fish in the boat today right at 11:20, the, because I had already made a call to postpone the afternoon trip and was under no time constraints, we hit an area I haven’t fished in a while to scout it out a bit.  I found fish in about 35′ on bottom, and we fished them until they quit, putting a “bonus” 26 fish in the boat and taking our final tally to 126 fish.

In that mix was 1 freshwater drum, 2 smallmouth bass, 8 largemouth bass, and 115 white bass.  No hybrid striped bass in the mix this morning.

See the MAL Lure 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: 126 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:   No gull activity today after a 4-day run of solid bird action.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  7:30A

End Time: 11:50A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 45F

Elevation:  0.87 low with a 0.01’ 24-hour drop and 34 CFS flow thru the dam

Water Surface Temp: 60.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Light SE breeze at trip’s start, then just short stints of light breezes from the SW thereafter in the hours immediately preceding the arrival of yet another mild, dry cold front which started with a northerly wind around 1P, and which led to the postponement of this afternoon’s trip due to high forecast winds (18, gusting 25)

Sky Condition: Grey skies all morning with occasional mist, as well as occasional, brief breaks of sun through the clouds.

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 96% illumination

GT = 60

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1483; 15 fish on MAL Lures (SP)

**Area vic 1489; 21 fish on MAL Lures (SP)

**Area vic 354; 34 on MAL Lures (SP)

**Area vic B0051G; 31 fish on MAL Lures (SP)

**Area vic 579; 25 fish on MAL Lures (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

CAT HERDING — 70 FISH @ STILLHOUSE

by Bob Maindelle
WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning, August 1st, I fished with a boatload of boys from Georgetown, TX.  Joining me were Luke and Liam Shinners (twin 9-year-olds), and Cooper Wankerl.  Luke and Liam were chaperoned by their dad, Brian, and Cooper was joined by his grandfather, Steve Murphy, who first fished with me last fall when treating an old high school buddy to some time in the outdoors. Steve and Brian are neighbors, and since the boys are all about the same age, they thought a fishing trip might be fun while Cooper was in town visiting for the summer. With the boys all being the same age, and all being buddies, plus the novelty of a boat ride and the anticipation of catching fish, the boys had a bit of sensory overload going on.  To say they were distracted from time to time would be an understatement.  A couple times I looked up at Steve who was smiling and shaking his head, silently wondering how I was maintaining sanity enough to actually help these three young guys consistently put fish in the boat.  The old cliche about herding cats was definitely appropriate here. Nonetheless, all turned out well!
PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: Cooper Wankerl, Liam Shinner, and Luke Shinner with a trio of the 45 white bass we took through 9AM via downrigging and vertical work with MAL Lures on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. PHOTO CAPTION #2: Cooper Wankerl with a nice 2.25-pound largemouth taken from 34′ of water in over 50 feet of water.  It was found near a large school of threadfin shad nearly 4″ in length. WHEN WE FISHED: 01 August, 2020, AM WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir HOW WE FISHED: This trip broke down neatly into three parts.  Part one was early morning downrigging for white bass holding between 30-35 feet down over a deeper bottom.  This yielded 21 fish in the form of singles and doubles over the first hour-plus on the water, including 19 white bass, 1 drum, and 1 largemouth.  As this action died down, some very light schooling action broke out on the surface, fueled by schoolie-sized largemouth forcing shad to the top.  I moved to the action and found white bass feeding on the same forage fish, only down deeper in the water column.  Steve, Brian and I worked hastily to get my MAL Lure-equipped spinning rods in the boys’ hands and get the lures headed beneath the boat to where the fish were showing to be holding on sonar.  We used a smoking tactic to work these fish, doing three “short hops” with the jog function of the Ulterra trolling motor to keep up with these fish as they slowly moved about. Over the next hour, the boys put another 26 white bass in the boat before the action began to wane around 9:10AM.  If I had adult anglers aboard, we would have certainly stuck with these fish longer and pulled more out, but, the boys were accustomed to the fast and furious fishing, so, when several minutes passed between bites as the feed was winding down, I sensed them losing interest quickly, so we left the white bass while they were still biting and made a shift to sunfishing at that time to finish out the trip. We hit 3 distinct areas, all up in shallow cover, for our sunfish using floats with live bait suspended beneath.  The boys wound up with 23 sunfish, including a mix of bluegill and longears.  Right around 10:30, as Cooper landed the 70th fish of the trip, we decided to wrap it up and head back in. TALLY: 70 fish caught and released OBSERVATIONS:   Albeit light, this morning’s topwater feeding by largemouth was the first I’ve seen on Stillhouse since the last full moon. TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES: Start Time:  6:30A End Time: 10:30A Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F Elevation:  1.44′ low, 0.05′ 24-hour change, 1 CFS flow Water Surface Temp:  84.3F Wind Speed & Direction: NNE breeze the entire trip, starting pre-dawn at ~6mph, and slowly tapering to NNE4 by trip’s end Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon w/ 2 days until full moon GT = 20 Wx SNAPSHOT:  
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS: **Area vic 040 early downrigging **Area vic 070 to 866 – whites under topwater largemouth using MAL Lures **Areas 203, BOW004S cove, and 1948 for shallow 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) #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