WHO I FISHED WITH: On Thursday afternoon, October 13th, I fished with a great crew of young men from Belton. This trip was organized by Mr. Grant Yawn in celebration of the birthday of his son, Camden. Joining Camden was his older brother, Mason, and Camden’s buddy, Grant Kennedy.

This was a 3.5-hour “Kids Fish, Too!’ package trip wherein only the kids do the fishing, so, Mr. Yawn came as a chaperone to help me help the boys be successful and he did a great job of that, especially in the downrigging department!

Here is how the fishing went …

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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Mr. Grant Yawn, Camden and Mason Yawn, and Grant Kennedy with a few of the 81 fish they caught and released on their after-school trip on Thursday.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 13 October 2022 (PM)

HOW WE FISHED: The hot bite we had experienced in the morning as a dry, mild cold front entered Central Texas airspace simmered down a bit this afternoon after the winds peaked around 10:30AM, plateaued in the early afternoon, and then began falling off by late afternoon.

Still, we found plenty of fish, but we had to work a good bit harder to catch them.

As we arrived at our first location, I got the boat set up atop a nice bunch of fish in right around 20 feet of water, got the boys all coached up on what to do, and then dropped baits down to the fish. As I observed fish response on Garmin LiveScope, I watched with some concern as the fish barely budged. As the boys got through the learning curve involving the right combination of retrieve speed, smoothness of retrieve, etc. we were able to put a few fish in the boat per kid, but it was clear these fish were not enthusiastic.

To spice things up a bit, I enlisted Mr. Yawn’s help, showed him how to set up the downriggers so I could concentrate on driving the boat while watching sonar, thus keeping us “in the fish”. This worked very well, as it allow us to cover a lot of water and get our baits in front of the few active fish amongst a generally inactive population.

We caught a total 53 fish by way of downrigging, with an unheard of 9 sets of triples (three fish landed on one rod at the same time).

By around 6P, these fish were beginning to fade even on the downrigging approach, so we moved on and made one final stop before sunset (when the white bass quit biting for good).

We landed a total of 22 fish by fishing MAL Dense Lures vertically at this location. Once the sun dropped below the horizon, it was over.

We landed exactly 81 fish, including 4 short hybrid striped bass and 77 white bass.

TUTORIAL SMOKING VIDEO (Vertical): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
TUTORIAL SAWTOOTH VIDEO (Horizontal): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

TALLY: 81 fish caught and released

Find MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS: The aggressive bite which typically accompanied incoming fall and winter cold front was definitely in play this morning – the most dramatic uptick I’ve seen so far this autumn. Once the wind levelled off and then began to slow down, the bite slowed back to average.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 4P

End Time: 7:15P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 83F

Elevation: 12.23 feet low, 0.13′ fall in last 24 hours, 384 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 77.1F

Wind Speed & Direction: N11 at trip’s start, tapering down to N5 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: Cloudless blue sky

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 86% illumination.

GT = 20

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic B0153G – 6 fish on smoked MAL Dense Lures; 53 fish via downrigging

Area vic B0155G – 22 pre-sunset fish on smoked MAL Dense Lures



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

Nice post and fish. Good job.

Those are excellent size fish. I bet they had a blast pulling them in to the boat.