WHO I FISHED WITH:

This morning, Thursday, May 2, I fished with returning guest Ray Andrews, accompanied by his father, Raymond, and his brother-in-law, Will, both first-time guests.



Raymond and Will were invited down from West Texas to celebrate Raymond‘s retirement after 20 years in the trucking industry, which followed 30 years in the roofing business.



Today’s results were spectacular!



Here is how the fishing went…






PHOTO CAPTION:   From left, Ray Andrews, Ray's dad, Raymond Andrews, and Ray's brother-in-law, Will with a portion of their 363 fish catch made on MAL Heavy Lures and Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs.

Find MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: White Bass Tools

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 02 May 2024 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

We met up at 7:30 AM after hard rains passed through in the early morning hours, dropping roughly an inch of rain area wide. We sat on the boat ramp for about 30 minutes waiting for showers which had redeveloped briefly to come to an end. We launched and ran to our first fishing area with a light sprinkle still falling, then did not have another drop of rain fall on us for the following four hours through noon.



I was encouraged at finding fairly heavily schooled white bass on bottom in what looked like a feeding mode while the skies were still quite dark thanks to cloud cover at both high and low levels following the rain cells’ passage.



I Spot Locked on these fish and all three fellows got their first crack at using the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab in conjunction with LiveScope. They worked through all the normal learning curve issues and caught a few fish at this location before those fish lost interest fairly quickly.



As I cranked up to begin searching for a second group of fish to fish for, I spotted four laughing gulls off in the distance. I just kept an eye on them because they seemed reluctant to leave the area I’d spotted them in. Soon, one of them, then another, then all four begin to tighten their flight pattern over this particular area, then, another dozen birds join them, and before long it was “game on”. The entire flock was routinely diving and plucking shad off the surface. Those shad were being driven there by white bass below them in about 30 feet of water.



From that time until we wrapped up at noon with the fish still biting, we were able to catch aggressive white bass continuously under birds in three distinct areas.



My crew landed their 100th fish at exactly 9:30, their 200th fish at 10:22, their 300th fish at 11:23, and finished up at noon with 363 fish grand total.



Ray, the only one of the three who had fished with me previously, had prior experience using an MAL Lure. As soon as I saw how aggressive the fish were, I got him changed over to the MAL Heavy with chartreuse tail and then, as time allowed, I got Will transitioned over, as well. Raymond was just fine continuing to fish vertically with his slab which he was enjoying consistent success on, so, for the last 3/4 of the trip we fished two anglers with the MAL Heavy and Raymond between the two of them with the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab.



Arranged this way, I was able to assess how these lures fished against one another, and I am certain that the MAL drew a greater percentage of better quality white bass, which stands to reason, as its profile is almost twice that of the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab. It also has a #4 treble vs. the smaller #5 treble on the slab, so, some small fish strike and cannot get their mouths around the hook.



We wrapped up this trip with 363 fish landed, including four freshwater drum, one short hybrid striper, and 358 white bass.



TALLY: 363 fish caught and released



OBSERVATIONS:

I saw abundant open water topwater action this morning for the first time. There has been some here and there, but this morning, it was consistent, and widespread. Here was the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured before sunrise on April 30th …

0 feet 73.4F
5 feet 72.0F
10 feet 71.3F
15 feet 70.7F
20 feet 70.0F
25 feet 70.0F
30 feet 69.9F
35 feet 68.6F
40 feet 67.6F
45 feet 66.8F
50 feet 64.3F




WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 8A

End Time: 12:00P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 5.74 feet low, 33 CFS flow (an 8.16″ rise overnight)

Water Surface Temp: 70.5F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: NE9 at trip’s start in the wake of passing rain cells, then slowly shifting E, then ESE11-12

Sky Condition: 100% grey skies all morning following early morning heavy rains which cleared the area by 8A

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 39% illumination.

GT = 113




AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area B0160G – 5 fish

Area 958 – 66 fish

Area 098 – 235 fish

Area 150 – 57 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

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Nice haul Bob!!

What boat ramp do you recommend using? We will be coming from the Waco area. With Waco and Whitney flooding right now, I’d like to try my hand at fishing Belton.

As always. Nice post and fish. Good job.