CLIENTS: Earlier this week I took an evening scouting trip on Lake Belton accompanied by my brother, Andy. I’d not fished an evening trip in over 10 days, and wanted to be sure I knew right where to take my young clients, Jackson (9) and Maverick (6) Pursell, accompanied by their dad, Steve. This evening, that scouting paid off as Steve helped me help his boys be successful as they caught fish using a variety of tactics right where Andy and I had found them the evening before.



DATE: Thursday, 29 August 2024 (PM)



NEXT OPEN DATES: 3-5, and 10-12 Sep.






PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Jackson, Maverick, and Steve Pursell with a sampling of the evening’s catch of white bass taken in the last 3.5 hours of light on Lake Belton.



WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton



SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

We began fishing downriggers equipped with #12 Pet Spoons just above the visible “band of life” down around 30′. This band shows clearly on sonar and is a concentration of life just above the level at which dissolved oxygen levels are too low to support fish life.

We put 30 fish in the boat, including singles, doubles, and triples. As has been the case all summer this year, these fish caught outside the “low light window” which exists from about 90 minutes prior to dark right up until dark, were mostly small fish.

We moved on around 5:30P and began looking for larger fish using the bottom in under 30 feet of water. Based on the prior evening’s scouting, we essentially drove right to these fish and proceeded to catch them consistently right until about 7:50. As the sun dropped into a cloud bank in the west, it got a bit too dark for the downriggers to be effective any longer, so, after finding a sizeable school of fish in about 24′ on bottom, we Spot-Locked on them and smoked MAL Originals to catch them.

Once it got too dark for the fish to feed any longer in that depth, we moved even shallower and fancast MAL Originals for our final few fish.

Here is a tutorial on vertically smoking the MAL Lure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

Here is a tutorial on horizontally “sawtoothing” with the MAL Lure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ



LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: We downrigged with #12 & #13 Pet Spoons. We smoked and sawtoothed with MAL Originals for heavily schooled and fairly stationary fish. Find all MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/



TALLY: 84 fish caught and released.



OBSERVATIONS:

1) No topwater action observed.

2) Best quality fish came in the last 75 minutes; mainly smaller fish before that.

3) Spotted the first flock of migratory teal of the fall on Lake Belton in the morning



LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Here was the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6:25 AM on Monday, August 26 …

0 feet 87.2F
5 feet 87.6F
10 feet 87.9F
15 feet 87.9F
20 feet 87.9F
25 feet 87.9F
30 feet 87.2F
35 feet 85.6F
40 feet 84.2F
45 feet 83.3F


WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 4:45P

End Time: 8:15P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 92F

Elevation: 0.68′ low and falling slowly with a 52 cfs flow; .04′ fall in last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 87.9F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SE12

Sky Condition: 35% white cloud cover.

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 19% illumination.

GT = 35



Wx SNAPSHOT:




AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area 1604 to 1404 – downrigging for mainly short fish
Area 1924 to 812 – downrigging for quality fish
Area vic B0197C – smoking MAL Originals
Area 1781 – 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

Yes Sir! Nice post and fish.

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