CLIENTS: This morning, Thursday, April 17, I fished with returning guests, Dr. Jim Wood and his friend and former coworker, Sky Sparks. Jim is a retired surgeon and wound care specialist now residing near McGregor, Texas, and Sky drove in for this morning‘s trip from the Killeen, Texas, area.

I was concerned about wind velocity this morning and actually changed our meeting location because after I got up this morning and did a physical weather check outdoors, I noted the winds were stronger than were forecast. In hindsight, we could have stuck with our original plan, but better safe than sorry.

DATE: Thursday, 17 April 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: 02 June (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 21 June (AM)







PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Sky Sparks and Dr. Jim Wood with a few of the white bass they caught using a variety of tactics as the warming spring weather has fish metabolism on the rise creating an aggressive bite.






PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Sky Sparks displays a hybrid striped bass, a largemouth bass, a blue catfish, and another hybrid striper — all caught on live shad fished near bottom under very windy conditions.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

We mixed it up a little bit this morning given that shad are fairly easy to catch here in the midst of their spawning season, and given that we did well on bait and artificial lures earlier this week, we put both to use this morning and put together a 90 fish catch.

I started the trip off fishing out from a south-facing bank, which was pounded overnight by the wind, and which shad were spawning on. Both white bass and hybrid striped bass were patrolling this area . We used silver, three-quarter ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs with a “smoking” tactic until the sun got high enough to brighten the skies through the gray layer of cloud cover.

This brightening triggered some scattered topwater action, although the heavy wave action served to hinder it. At this point, I moved us to an area where topwater action took place in abundance yesterday, and although we did catch fish there, the topwater action did not really materialize, and it was clear that the number of fish in that area was not near what it was yesterday. From there, we took one more stab at working slabs vertically, picking up a few more fish before spending the remainder of the trip trying to tempt some legal hybrid (18 inches or larger) into biting shad fished on downlines.

The live bait produced exactly 50 additional fish, including three legal hybrid striped bass, several short hybrid, a single largemout bass, four blue catfish, and an abundance of white bass 90% of which were legal.

Although the fish were still hitting at the time I’d normally be wrapping up, and while I never stop a trip by the clock, but rather based on fish activity, I felt it was prudent to leave the exposed area we were in while the winds were still tame enough to do so without giving my clients a rough and or wet ride back in.

RESULTS: 90 fish, all caught and released



TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO DO “SLOW SMOKING”: Click here for tutorial

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO FISH AN MAL LURE USING THE SAWTOOTH METHOD: Click here for tutorial



LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: Silver, 3/4 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs and MAL Heavy Lures with chartreuse tails. Find all MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/



OBSERVATIONS:

Threadfin shad spawn continues.
No helpful bird activity.


LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

This is the most up-to-date water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6:55AM on Tuesday, 15 April…

0 feet 68.4F
5 feet 68.4F
10 feet 67.4F
15 feet 65.9F
20 feet 65.1F
25 feet 64.3F
30 feet 63.5F
35 feet 62.6F
40 feet 61.9F
45 feet 60.0F
50 feet 59.2F
55 feet 58.2F
60 feet 58.0F

This was the previous water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:20AM on Thursday, 10 April…

0 feet 62.9F
5 feet 63.1F
10 feet 62.9F
15 feet 62.9F
20 feet 62.9F
25 feet 68.2F
30 feet 62.6F
35 feet 61.4F
40 feet 60.6F
45 feet 59.4F
50 feet 59.4F
55 feet 59.0F
60 feet 58.0 F


WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:05A

End Time: 11:35A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 63F

Elevation: 3.24′ low

Water Surface Temp: 68.6F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE13-16 all morning

Sky Condition: 100% thin, grey cloud cover all morning

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 81% illumination.

GT = 65



Wx SNAPSHOT:








AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 0363 – 8 fish on Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic B0391G – 23 fish on MAL Heavy Lures
Area vic B0191C – 9 fish on Hazy Eye Slabs
Area vic 150 (2 hops) – 50 fish on live shad


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

Good times, and some nice fish. Good job as always.

...

"Shad Lives Matter".

Great report Bob!

Nice haul and a great report.