WHO I FISHED WITH: On Monday morning, Jan. 2nd, I fished my first guided trip of the new year with with the Friedman family of Cedar Park, TX.

Michael Friedman contacted me early in the holiday season and wanted to do some fishing with is wife and son while their son, Cole, was home from Texas A&M on the Christmas break.

Michael works in the banking field, Kathleen is a microbiologist, and Cole is in his junior year at TAMU, where he is a part of the Corp of Cadets.

As we were waiting for the trolling motor to get us properly positioned at one of the areas we fished, I asked Michael and Kathleen how they met. Long story short, the answer to that question was ‘Bass Pro Shop’. I just grinned and told them I thought you have a pretty good shot at marriage if you met your spouse at either church or Bass Pro Shops!

My next weekday openings are on 9 and 12 Jan. My next weekend opening is Sat., 18 February 2023.

Here is how the fishing went …

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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Michael, Cole, and Kathleen Friedman with a portion of their 77-fish catch taken under breezy, grey conditions with slowly warming water temperatures.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 02 January 2023 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

With a returning south wind as of this past Saturday and a continuing warming trend, the fishing continues to improve following the slowdown caused by the recent 22-25 Dec. arctic blast.

We enjoyed steady catching today from start to finish. Garmin LiveScope revealed there were far more fish present at any given area than the number which perked up and paid attention to our presentations, but that low percentage which did give chase was sufficient to bring our tally to 77 fish after four hours of effort.

I kind of chuckled because Michael, after reading my report from Saturday about my clients being both willingly coached and having no bad habits to overcome, emailed me and stated, “We are all seasoned anglers with bad habits in place.”

Hey, at least he was honest!! The “bad habits” as I often call them, are mainly the tendency to set the hook instantly upon feeling a fish on the other end of the line while working slabs with a slow-smoking tactic. For white bass fishing with braid (a zero-stretch product) using a zero-slack technique, this kind of hooksetting is actually counterproductive. Michael did his best to overcome that bass-anglers habit and definitely did better in the second half of the trip as he got more practice under his belt.

Once again, we had no birds to guide us, so, all of the fish-finding was done via sonar, and primarily with well-tuned side-imaging.

100% of our fish came on the white, 3/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab, used with a slow-smoking tactic 100% of the time.

Our tally of 77 fish consisted of 5 freshwater drum and 72 white bass.

TALLY: 77 fish caught and released

Find Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs with Stinger Hook here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS: 1) No helpful bird activity for 6th consecutive trip. 2) On 21 Dec. the temperature profile to 55′ was a constant 58.2F; temperature fell as low as 51.7, then rebounded late this week. This morning we had 55.6 on the surface.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:45A

End Time: 11:55A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 13.36 feet low, 0.0′ change in last 24 hours, 24 CFS flow.

Water Surface Temp: 55.6F on the surface

Wind Speed & Direction: S winds were already blowing at sunrise around 9mph and steadily increased to S16 by 10:30, plateaued there through ~2:30, and then fell off steadily to SW7 by sunset.

Sky Condition: 100% light grey cloud cover all day.

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 83% illumination.

GT = 65

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area 971 – 4 fish

Area B0096C – 4 fish

Area 150 – 8 fish

Area vic 714 – 10 fish

Area vic 1482 – 6 fish

Area B0078C – 13 fish

Area B0187C – 20 fish

Area B0186G – 4 fish

Area B0184G – 8 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

Nice post and fish. Good job as always.