CLIENTS: This morning I fished with the Lee family for the first time.  These folks had the patience of Job trying to get out fishing with me.  Cold, windy weather foiled their springtime plans, then lake closure due to flooding forced yet another reschedule. Finally, on this, the last day of the kids’ summer vacation, it all came together for Dianne, Maggie (17), Cam (14), and Caden (11).

DATE: Monday, 12 August 2024 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATES:  14 & 15 Aug. (AM & PM)

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:  There were four “chapters” in this morning’s story.  First, we downrigged up shallow under low-light conditions.  I didn’t find just a whole lot of fish, but the ones we found were eager to bite.  We ended up with seven fish before the sun rose.

Chapter two: we went to an area I baited before sunrise and fished it with prepared baits under slipfloats.  We gave it about 35 minutes and had only 1 channel cat caught, and 1 missed strike.

Chapter three: By 8:35, the sun was heating up the surface, algae was blooming, and shad were on the surface feeding, with white bass starting their “popcorn” feeding routine out in open water.  I picked an area, downrigged it thoroughly and put another 16 fish in the boat until seeing even better, more consistent popcorn feeding about a half-mile away.

Chapter four: we headed to the vicinity of the topwater action, put the splasher to work, and were able to draw fish up under the boat for quite some time, allowing for a final 93 additional fish to be caught for a morning total of 117 fish landed in 3.75 hours by my 4-angler crew.

LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP:  We downrigged with 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with #12 & 13 Pet Spoons for white bass, we “smoked” MAL Minis vertically, and we used prepared baits under floats for catfish.  Find three-armed umbrella rigs and MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 117 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:

1) The steady S7 wind made the morning quite bearable.  Topwater “popcorn” action began to crop up around 8:30AM and helped me to know where to focus our open water downrigging and vertical fishing efforts.

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Here was the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 5:50 AM on Friday, August 9 …

0 feet 87.6F

5 feet 88.2F

10 feet 88.5F

15 feet 87.2F

20 feet 86.2F

25 feet 85.6F

30 feet 85.3F

35 feet 85.0F

40 feet 84.5F

45 feet 83.7F

50 feet 81.9F

55 feet 80.7F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 10:20A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Elevation: 0.09′ low and falling slowly with a 33 cfs flow

Water Surface Temp: 87.2F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: S6-8 all morning

Sky Condition: Cloudless blue sky thru 9:15, then steadily increasing light grey cloud cover

Moon Phase: First quarter moon at 29% illumination.

GT = 20

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:  

Area B0279G – downrigging for white bass w/ #12 Pet Spoons under low-light conditions  – 7 white bass 

Area B0295G – slipfloat fishing w/ prepared baits yielded only 1 channel cat

Area B0030G thru 676 – 15 white bass and 1 largemouth bass downrigging w/ #12 Pet Spoons

Area vic 1081 – smoking MAL Mini Lures for 93 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)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle