WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, 24 Oct., I dodged (most of) the raindrops to get in a full 4-hour trip with my brother, Andy Maindelle, and his recently retired boss of many years, Tony Johnson.

The men’s work at the Blizzard Entertainment offices in Austin brought them together more than a decade ago. Blizzard is the creator of popular video games like World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, StarCraft, and Diablo.

As I got to know Tony a bit better, we spoke of his several months-long decompression process he is now in the midst of after leaving the world of corporate leadership behind. Somewhere in there he shared about his wife providing care and therapy to others, in part relying on Tibetan bowl therapy — something I’d never heard of before.

If the meteorologists were to be believed, we’d all still be sitting indoors waiting for a deluge of rain and high winds, but, as is too often the case, they guessed wrong. We wound up encountering multiple short bouts of light rain and winds which never even resulted in whitecapping.

Here is how the fishing went …

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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Andy Maindelle and Tony Johnson with a few of the 100 fish they boated in just under 4 hours’ time on a damp Monday morning in advance of a significant change of weather due in overnight.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 24 October 2022 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

As the days get shorter and the water gets cooler, the fishing is getting simpler and more predictable as the fish continue to bunch together in much greater numbers than we witnessed over the summer.

Fishing was very straightforward today … we simply dropped MAL Original Lures with white tails to the bottom and cranked them straight up through the fish using a “smoking” tactic which I describe in detail in the YouTube video linked below.

Fishing was actually tough in the first 90 minutes due to the dim light level brought on by thick, grey clouds. Once the fish turned on, the activity rose to a peak in the 9:45 to 10:45 timeframe, then began to taper back off. We hit the 100 fish mark at exactly 11:15, but, we put in significantly more effort in catching our final 10 fish than we did in catching the rest of the fish we landed this morning.

Of note was the fact that the USACE significantly reduced the flow of water through the dam over the weekend. We dropped from several weeks of releasing 385 cubic feet per second (which caused a ~0.12′ fall each day) to a 34 CFS flow, which drains the lake ~0.03 to 0.04 feet per day.

For our efforts, we wound up boating exactly 100 fish including 4 freshwater drum, 4 short hybrid striped bass, and 92 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: 100 fish caught and released

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

OBSERVATIONS: We dropped from several weeks of releasing 385 cubic feet per second to a 34 CFS flow. We fished on a SSE wind in advance of a forthcoming windshift with a series of two cold fronts following it. The cold front is due in around 10P tonight.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:40A

End Time: 11:15A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Elevation: 13.07 feet low, 0.03′ fall in last 24 hours, 30 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 71.8F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE12 most of the morning

Sky Condition: Heavy grey cloud cover at 100% all morning w/ occasional light rain

Moon Phase: Last quarter moon at 1% illumination.

GT = N/A

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Areas B0157G (15 fish), 678 (8 fish) , B0158G (77 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