WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, August 9th, I fished with long-time client Steve Niemeier who rarely steps aboard without at least one grandchild in tow. As we recollected today, we figured we’d shared at least 13 years’ worth of trips together, beginning with his grandson, Caleb, who began fishing with me at age 4, and will graduate high school at the end of the upcoming school year.

Today, Steve brought along two other grandsons, Oliver (age 10) and Henry (age 13), along with their dad, Andrew. Andrew and family were down for just shy of a week’s visit from the suburbs of Chicago.

My next open date will be on August 23rd.

Here is how the fishing went …

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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Henry, Steve, Oliver, and Andrew Niemeier with the results of the one and only “quadruple” we landed today when everyone landed a fish at the same time on the MAL Dense Lures. With the water being so hot and the fish so deep, they simply will not survive more than ~2 minutes in the livewell, so, I don’t hold fish for photos from June until after turnover.





PHOTO CAPTION: Henry took the big fish prize for the morning. This 4.25-pound largemouth hit Henry’s MAL Dense Lure worked vertically. It chased the lure up off bottom in 42 feet of water.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 09 August 2022

HOW WE FISHED:

About the only change in variables today versus Monday was wind — we had at least a 6-8 mph wind right up until ~10:15 this morning and encountered biting fish as a result. Now, mind you, it is still summertime and the fish were far from “on fire”, but most every time I saw a fair number of fish congregated together on sonar and stopped on them, we caught at least a few.

One very common element the past 10 days or so has been for these fish we find to get really fired up as we make our initial 5-10 drops of the MAL Lure, but the “simmer down” very quickly thereafter. Anticipating this now, I adjusted my approach and simply stopped fishing and moved once this decline in interest kicked in. This meant we moved a lot today. Sometimes, it meant simply moving a few boat-lengths with the trolling motor only; other times we packed up and ran.

Our best “window” came between 9:30 and 10:20 during which time my four anglers landed 45 of their 83 fish, all in one location, and just before the wind died right about 10:30.

Once the wind died, the bite died with it, allowing us only 9 more fish at our final 2 areas fished.

Fishing the MAL Dense with chartreuse tail has been hard to beat, although I’ve found that when we’re on flatter bottom terrain and the side-imaging shows fish to the port or starboard, the fish seem more likely to strike on a sawtooth method than with a vertical presentation. Several times we fished vertically until that initial display of interest ran its course, then switched over to fishing horizontally, thus allowing us to catch fish even after the vertical presentations quit producing.

The smoking tactic we used is demonstrated here (skip to 2:26): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

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

TALLY: 82 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Temperature profile as measured with a Fish Hawk TD:

0 feet 85.9F
5 feet 86.8F
10 feet 86.8F
15 feet 86.8F
20 feet 86.5F
25 feet 85.1F
30 feet 84.8F
35 feet 84.8F
40 feet 78.9F
45 feet 73.3F
50 feet 67.9F
55 feet 63.9F
60 feet 61.4F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:50A

End Time: 11:10A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Elevation: 8.06 feet low, 0.06′ fall in last 24 hours, 1 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 85.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: S6-8 for 3.25 hours, then going slack for balance of trip

Sky Condition: Cloudless, pale blue skies

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 90% illumination.

GT = 35

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area SH0207G – MAL Dense Lures smoked for 8 fish

Area SH0218G – MAL Dense Lures smoked for 2 fish

Area SH0209G – MAL Dense Lures smoked for 3 fish

Area SH0124CG – MAL Dense Lures smoked for 15 fish (w/2 short hops)

Area 889/867 – MAL Dense Lures smoked for 45 fish

Area SH0219G – MAL Dense Lures smoked for 9 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

interesting observation, are you talking about 20-30ft to the side or less?

TreeBass, side-imaging typically gives me horizontal coverage equal to roughly 3-4 times the depth of water I'm in. In 45 feet of water, I'm typically seeing out to ~the 150' range mark. Subtracting the depth (the black strip down the middle of the SI screen) give me a view of ~105 feet to the left and another ~105 feet to the right. Whenever I see schools of white bass moving on the port or starboard side as I am otherwise fishing vertically on Spot-Lock, I will cast beyond those fish and work the bait back with a sawtooth tactic.

So, to directly answer your question, these fish can be 20-30 feet to the side, or less, but I do often catch fish on my first set of ~8-9 cranks at the end of as long of a cast as I can make.

As always. Solid post. Good job.