WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, March 12, I fished with returning guest, Anthony Carlucci, and his son, Bentlee. The two attended a winter SKIFF trip with me, enjoyed their time on the water, and this time brought with them little brother, Coco, as well as Mom (Kristina Carlucci) and grandma (Laura Riley, who is Anthony’s mom). Laura came in from Florida to visit while the boys were on spring break.

Here is how the fishing went.

Next available dates are 28 Mar., 2 & 4 Apr. (AMs)




PHOTO CAPTION: From left, Anthony, Bentlee (age 8), Kristina, and Coco (age 5) Carlucci, and Laura Riley on a Spring Break family outing for three generations.


Find the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab here: https://whitebasstools.com/

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 12 Mar. 2024 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: I feel like we are on the cusp of seeing that fantastic spring fishing kick in, but it has definitely not happened yet. I am still having to work to find fish and continue to work even once they’ve been found to get them to chase and bite. I think a few warm nights with the air temperature higher than the water temperature will do the trick. Perhaps after this weekend’s cold front passes we’ll make some ground up.

My five person crew this morning had pretty limited experience so I had to keep us in fairly open, snag-free water, and employ straightforward tactics that would give everyone a shot at fish over the course of the morning.

For starters, we headed up shallow and cast MAL Original Lures using a sawtooth method for fish hunting shad under low light conditions. By the time it got too bright for fish to stay shallow any longer, we’d put a total of 13 fish in the boat this way.

From this point on, we focused on finding bottom-oriented fish, which I could park the boat atop of and have my crew use white, 5/8 ounce, Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs to fish vertically for these fish using a slow-smoking tactic. We added another nine fish to our count in the middle portion of our trip using this method.

In the final hour, I spotted some persistent bird activity . These gulls were working adjacent to the channel and on the windblown side of it. As I slowly motored around to try to get a feel for what was happening, I saw there was an abundance of shad in the area and white bass were suspended and working these baitfish over.

Initially, we stopped and relied on the thumper to draw these fish in as we used a smoking tactic to catch them while they swam beneath the boat. As I continued to observe the birds, I’ve felt that counting down MAL Lures might be a better approach, and we verified that was the case in just a few casts. In our final hour on the water, we quickly took our tally up to 42 fish which included 1 largemouth bass, 2 hybrid striper, and 39 white bass.

Here is a tutorial on the slow-smoking tactic we used… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIPopSLUYoQ

TALLY: 42 fish caught and released



OBSERVATIONS: This was the first trip this spring where a countdown method was useful because suspended fish were aggressive enough to chase horizontally.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:40A

End Time: 12:20P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Elevation: 12.20 feet low, 33 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 60.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE all morning 6-11mph

Sky Condition: Light grey cloud cover at 100% gradually clearing to 80% white cloud cover with occasional breaks of sun

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 7% illumination.

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Areas 171 (8 fish), 380 (4 fish), 2032 (2 fish), B0070 (9 fish), B0077C/B2063 (3 fish), B0267G (16 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

Good times. Nice post.