CLIENTS: On the evening of July 28th, I welcomed back three youth anglers, Hudson & Townes Slimp of Salado, and their cousin, Cam Miller, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Only the boys fish on the “Kids Fish, Too!” package trip as Cam’s grandfather, Larry Miller came along for crowd control. Everything was arranged for in advance by Don Bousquet of “Ragin’ Cajun” boat storage fame located just uphill from Temple Lake Park.


DATE: 28 July 2024 (PM)



NEXT OPEN DATES: Thursday, 01 Aug. (PM), 07 Aug. (AM & PM)






PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Larry & Cam Miller, and Hudson and Townes (front) Slimp with a few of the Lake Belton white bass they landed in the last 2.5 hours of light.






PHOTO CAPTION: Cam Miller landed his “PB” smallmouth bass. This 2.25 pound smallie fell for an MAL Lure



WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton



SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED: This 3.5 hour trip ran from 5:15 PM through 8:45 PM. There was a noticeable uptick in fish activity beginning right around 6:10 PM. At this time, schools of bottom oriented white bass, which had previously been present but expressed little interest in chasing, either vertically or horizontally, began to do both. This action continued to build right up until the fish quit at dark. Over this 2 1/2 hours worth of activity, the fish moved slowly shallower and moved higher up off of the bottom into the water column. The initial approach I took with the boys was to fish MAL Originals with chartreuse tails vertically while observing Garmin LiveScope for actively chasing fish. With Townes having somewhat limited experience in working with spinning gear, I felt that was going to diminish our overall chances, and so I decided we would strictly downrig from that point forward. The boys all enjoyed the downrigging, and it offered us a shot at doubles and triples. With three boys on the boat and two downriggers, I had one boy reeling in fish, one in the batters’ box, and the other rigging whichever rod most recently caught a fish, getting it set out and ready to catch another. All of our downrigged fish were caught on #12 pet spoons, as I have observed that young of the year shad have now grown out sufficiently to be best imitated by this size of spoon.



LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: The white bass we landed on downriggers all struck #13 Pet Spoons attached to 3-armed umbrella rigs fished precisely with downriggers to control the depth they were presented at. Fish taken horizontally with a sawtooth method and fish taken vertically with a smoking method all came on the MAL Original with chartreuse tail. Find umbrella rigs and MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/



TALLY: 86 fish caught and released, including 2 drum, 1 largemouth bass, 1 smallmouth bass, 1 bluegill, 4 short white bass, 77 legal white bass



OBSERVATIONS:

1) No evening topwater due to high winds (~12-13 mph)

2) Young-of-the-year shad have grown sufficiently to use #13 Pet Spoons now.

3) USACE stopped running water through the dam for the first time since May’s flooding last Friday.



LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Here was the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6:15AM on July 25 …

0 feet 86.2F
5 feet 86.7F
10 feet 86.7F
15 feet 86.1F
20 feet 85.9F
25 feet 85.9F
30 feet 85.9F
35 feet 85.3F
40 feet 84.5F
45 feet 82.9F
50 feet 81.5F
55 feet 80.7F
60 feet 79.6F


WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 5:15P

End Time: 8:45P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 86F

Elevation: 0.55 feet high and falling slowly with a 33cfs flow, resulting in a 0.03′ fall over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 84.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: S15 at trip’s start, reducing to S12-13 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: Partly cloudy with 40% white cloud cover on a blue sky after a much cloudier morning and early afternoon

Moon Phase: Last quarter moon at 46% illumination.

GT = 760



Wx SNAPSHOT:







AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic B0292G (100 yds up and down wind) – 6 fish
Area 1635/B0183C – 25 fish smoking MAL Originals
Area 1657 – 7 fish smoking MAL Originals
Area 1788 thru 012 – 46 fish downrigging #13 Pet Spoons and sawtoothing MAL Originals
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 as always. Also congratulations Cam Miller on your PB Small Mouth Bass.

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