WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, May 9th, I fished with a crew of three first time guests.

Coordinating the effort was Mark Foster, and joining him was his son, Landon Foster, and his son-in-law, Lucas Potter.

Mark just retired from the Union Pacific Railroad and recently moved to the Temple area from near Omaha, Landon works for Cummins in their power generation segment up in Minden, Nebraska, and Lucas is a construction superintendent for Stylecraft Builders here in Central Texas.

Here is how the fishing went …

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My next openings will be on June 29 and July 5. Weekday mornings are always best. Saturdays are available for on-the-water sonar training sessions (only) until after Labor Day when I’ll again offer Saturday morning fishing trips (until mid-March 2023).




PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Landon and Mark Foster and Lucas Potter. Mark caught this 4.75-pound hybrid striped bass in our final 30 minutes on the water. It slammed an MAL Dense with chartreuse tail as Mark worked it up off bottom in 40 feet of water.




PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Landon and Mark Foster and Lucas Potter with a few of the nice haul of quality fish we enjoyed catching this morning under ideal weather conditions — grey and breezy!



PHOTO CAPTION: The fast-sinking Mepps MAL Dense, with its lead body, did the majority of the catching today. Minimizing time spent waiting for the lure to return to the bottom is the key to this lure’s success.

The entire family of MAL Lures is found here: https://whitebasstools.com/

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday (AM), 09 May 2022

HOW WE FISHED:

The bite followed a normal, bell-shaped curve this morning with a ramp-up from our 6:45A start to a peak running from ~7:45A through about 9:50A, followed by a tapering off to a shutdown by 10:50A.

At this point in the season, with the water warm and the white bass done with spawning, I have nothing but MAL Lures now tied on my clients’ rods. I’ve got one set of rods with MAL Originals for topwater or shallow work over spawning shad, MAL Heavy Lures with barbless hooks for when it really breaks loose and the fish go crazy, and MAL Dense Lures for all other vertical work in deep water where a fast sink rate is desirable.

This morning, we used a “smoking” tactic from start to finish hitting the 100 fish mark by exactly 8:28AM, and the 200 fish mark at 10:05AM. We fished 5 areas, catching 13 fish at our first location, 163 fish at our second location, 11 fish at our third location, 27 fish at our fourth location, and 14 fish at our final location.

Our 228 fish catch included 221 white bass, 1 legal hybrid striped bass, and 6 sub-legal hybrid striped bass.

A complete description of this “smoking:” method is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE



TALLY: 228 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: The percentage of quality, legal sized fish was substantially greater today than I’ve seen thus far in the post-spawn period. Of the 228 fish we caught, fewer than a dozen were under 10″. The strong shad spawn continues.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:45A

End Time: 10:50A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Elevation: 3.82 feet low, 0.01’ rise in last 24 hours, 38 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 72.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE13 at trip’s start, SSE16 and gusting higher at trip’s end

Sky Condition: Moderately thick grey cloud cover at 100% coverage for the first 2 hours, then clearing to 40% white clouds on a very hazy sky thereafter.

Moon Phase: First quarter moon at 55% illumination.

GT = 45

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Areas 1933, vic 1012, vic 344, 835, vic 1555



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

Your report and video are money. Best advertising out there. Thanks for the share

Texas Fight, I really enjoy my work. I like to be out in God's creation 5 of 7 mornings each week. I enjoy the people I fish with -- many have become friends which I interact with away from the fishing. To be able to write a few lines about my adventures and have folks like yourself benefit from them is icing on the cake.

Thanks for your kind words!

--Bob