WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, August 29th, I fished with first time guests — the father-and-son team of Jeff and Tyler Coad.

Tyler, his wife, Sophia, and their baby live in Harker Heights, TX, where Jeff came in from the State of Washington to visit and see his grandchild in person for the first time.

Once the visit date was set, Sophia went about coordinating the trip and, fortunately, the weather and the fish cooperated.

My next open date will be on the morning of September 6th.

Here is how the fishing went …

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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Jeff and Tyler Coad with a few of the fish we took mainly on topwater this morning, and mainly when the sun shone directly on the water through the heavy cloud cover in the latter half of our trip.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 29 August 2022

HOW WE FISHED:

Since last Friday (26 Aug.), when a southerly wind returned following a mild cold front’s passage on 21-22 Aug., a moderate topwater bite has been going on at Lake Belton.

Any time I feel confident I can put clients in a sight-fishing scenario, I will normally do so, and this morning was one of those times.

We got going at 6:35A, but, the fishing didn’t kick in right away thanks to some pretty thick, grey cloud cover which kept the skies from brightening quickly.

We took a few fish here and there via downrigging, but did not see or hear anything promising above the waterline, nor on sonar.

As the morning moved along, the sun brightened the sky through the grey cloud cover in spurts (although it did not shine directly during this time). During these spurts, the white bass rose to the surface and trapped shad there over large expanses of open water. When the clouds thickened, the fish quit, and so on.

Finally, around 9:10 or so, the sun’s rays began to consistently keep the skies “squinting bright” and then finally broke through and shone directly on the water. This “window” was the best of the best.

For the topwater action, we threw modified MAL Originals with 1 bend of the hook snipped off.

After the topwater action subsided, around 10:10, we hit one final area — a sort of underwater draw. We found fish scattered about, and were able to consolidate them with the commotion we created by fishing atop one area on Spot-Lock. We managed a final 7 fish here with MAL Dense Lures fished vertically in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope.

Our tally of 70 fish consisted of 66 legal white bass, 3 short hybrid, and 1 just-legal largemouth bass.

TALLY: 70 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: The correlation between direct sun shining on the water and the likelihood of white bass feeding on the surface was strikingly consistent today.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:35A

End Time: 10:50A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Elevation: 8.96 feet low, 0.04′ fall in last 24 hours, 58 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 82.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8-9 at trip’s start, tapering back to SSE4-6 for the last 3 hours

Sky Condition: Fully greyed skies until 9:10A, then slowly clearing to 50% white cloud coverage on blue skies thereafter

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 5% illumination.

GT = 60

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic B0207G – majority of our fish taken here on topwater working MAL Original Lures

Area B0201G – our last 7 fish taken here working MAL Dense Lures vertically



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

Solid post and fish. Good job.

I fished Belton close to the area where Bob was working. I fished with Aohi Trader using Chug Bug top water lures and followed the schooling fish on the surface all morning. We caught 187 fish including 8 short hybrids, 1 legal black bass, and 178 white bass. It was a fun day with light wind and moderate temperature. We kept a handful of the bigger fish to fry. it was a good day to be on the water. It was over by 10:15 and we headed in to clean a few fish.

I enjoy reading these, thank you.