Belton Lake Fishing Report by Lake Belton Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fish two half-day trips today. The report for each is listed separately.

Evening trip conditions:

Trip duration: 4:00p to 8:20p

Air temp: 88F at launch time

Surface temp: 79F

Wind: East breeze at 7-9 for a majority of the this evening’s trip. Fair skies, becoming lightly overcast with high thin clouds by day’s end. At and after sunset, some thunderstorms developed in Coryell and Burnett Counties with the grey skies, light sprinkles, and lightning reaching Belton Lake.

Fished this evening with Craig M. of Salado and Jay S. of Harker Heights. This was a “farewell” trip of sorts as Jay heads to the Mid-West to take on an ROTC cadre assignment at a university there.

After getting settled and going over the plan for the evening, we headed to the S. of Area 165 and set up dual downriggers mainly in order to keep baits in the water as I scanned the entire area with sonar. We made 4 passes parallel to the breakline in this area with the balls set at 21-25 feet, and each time came up with 1-2 smallish white bass. I decided to search further to the NW of Area 165, and as we made our way through Area 164 and to Area 163, the sonar just lit up and stayed lit up with white bass blanketing the bottom over this entire stretch. Around 5p, we buoyed and dropped the slabs and caught fish until the fellows were tired of catching them, about 2 ½ hours later. These fish were nearly 100% white bass and averaged 12″ with many going 13.5+. This was the best quality of fish in that quantity I’ve taken on Belton in quite some time. With 108 fish boated, we shifted gears, put on topwater gear and took advantage of the scattered pods of fish feeding on topwater. We put a quick additional 7 fish in the boat this way, and then took a snack break.

I had hoped that the topwater would increase toward sunset, but nature threw a curve when the dark grey cloud bank began to move in from the SW and the winds went flat in advance of the thunderstorms that affected several towns in the region later in the evening. So, after the snack break, and with no topwater showing, we put on bladebaits and worked them horizontally up shallow and added a final 9 fish to the tally before the distant rumble of thunder to the SW sent us back to the ramp about 20-25 minutes early.

TALLY = 124 FISH, all caught and released.

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing