Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle
Fished a half-day evening trip today with Dan and Hilary P. of Castro Valley, California. Both were above-average anglers with some multi-species experience, but with a heavy concentration on black bass.
Conditions:
Start Time: 1:30p
End Time: 9:00p
Air Temp: 95F at trip’s start, warming to 102F by mid afternoon
Water Temp: 86.5F
Wind: SE at 7 by sunrise, increasing to 12-14 by afternoon, and tapering back to 10 by sunset and thereafter.
Skies: Skies were clear and bright all day under the influence of building high pressure.
After dropping off my guests from this morning’s trip, I freshened up, ate lunch, and headed back out on the water to do a little pre-trip scouting hoping to find a few additional concentrations of bait and gamefish for my afternoon guests.
While on this scouting run, from approx. 1:45p to 2:45p there was a heavy topwater feed by multiple large schools of white bass over open water bounded by Area 212 to the E and Area 213 to the W. After schools sounded, sonar revealed them traveling at or shallower than 22-24 feet over much deeper water. The forage size was ~1.25 inches in length. I managed 38 fish in less than an hour’s time. A small flock of ~8 Artic terns (2 white, 6 grey) helped keep track of surfacing schools at a distance when close by schools disappeared. As fate would have it, by about 3pm the action had died, just prior to the arrival of my clients.
After I picked up my guests we headed back out to the Area 212 location and searched with sonar, but the feasting fish were gone. We scored 1 quick white bass on a downrigger and that was it.
Realizing we were now going to have to grind it out waiting for the fish activity level to pick up again, we went to slabbing around Area 155. I explained both lift-dropping and smoking, and we managed 6 fish here at our first stop, but without seeing any schooled fish or any aggressive fish.
We headed to Area 214 and encountered some really positive sonar returns from loosely congregated white bass and abundant small, tightly grouped pods of shad. This demanded a downrigging approach, which paid off handsomely, and got us the majority of the fish we were to catch this trip with a total of 24 fish coming over the side at this location on twin Lunker Lickers.
After we had run the balls and cables through the fish for a number of passes, they dispersed, and we again went hunting. We looked hard at Areas 212 to 213, but the wind was up at its peak and the fish and birds just weren’t there.
We again vertical jigged at Area 216 and picked up 3 dink white bass and 1 drum by lift dropping off bottom in 22 feet of water
We headed over to Area 210 and found fish beginning to push bait toward shore here, but they were very reluctant to hit. We did downrig for one white bass here. When the sun disappeared behind the horizon here and no topwater appeared, we made a final run to Area 147 / Area 27 in hopes of finding some low-light topwater there. We gambled right and did find abundant fish, including some on topwater, but the fish were very reluctant to strike despite clouding sonar from 17 to 12 feet deep along the slow taper here. Hilary had the right touch on a slowly, steadily retrieved blade bait, and managed 3 good whites before the action died. Dan got one additional white on topwater with a popping cork rig.
TALLY= 77 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