Fished a half-day evening trip this afternoon on Belton with Belton H.S. football coach Seth S., his younger sister, Sarah, and his youngest brother, Nathan. These were good people, and obviously from a tight knit family. I immediately picked up on the fact that they wanted the best for each other on this trip and didn’t get all competitive like so many folks do. It was really nice to have them on board.

SARAH WITH HER 11th HOUR 7.5 POUND, 25 INCH HYBRID TAKEN ON A 7 INCH GIZZARD SHAD

NATHAN WITH A POT-BELLIED LARGEMOUTH TAKEN ON A 6 INCH GIZZARD SHAD

COACH S. WITH THE FIRST FISH OF THE DAY, A DOWNRIGGERED WHITE BASS TOPPING 1.25 POUNDS

Start Time: 3:40p

End Time: 9:00p

Air Temp: 79F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~76F

Wind: Winds were variable from the NE to ESE for the entirety of the trip.

Skies: Skies were leaden grey the entire trip, after a brief period of sunshine and sun showers from noon to around 2p. Distant thunder could be heard constantly from the W., up toward the extreme end of Cowhouse Creek.

When Seth and I first discussed this trip, we tried to figure out a way to fish the morning given his family’s travel plans, etc., but it just wasn’t in the cards. Belton has been tough for me in the evenings as of late, plus, the turbulent weather, E. component to the wind, and Memorial Day traffic made for some very difficult conditions. We did managed to put everyone on fish, and a few quality fish at that.

Our first limited bit of success came off of Area 445. We saw consistent, but scattered fish showing on sonar and ran twin riggers through these fish to gauge their activity level. We missed our first to strikes, but Seth hit paydirt on the third and brought in a nice 1.25+ pound white bass which is a very nice white bass for Belton Lake. Additional trolling passes yielded nothing.

We moved to Area 446 and continued to run downriggers, this time catching 3 short hybrid and an additional white bass, all on the White Willow. Sarah missed a keeper hybrid here as well. Once this area played out, we struggled for a while just to find fish, much less fish in a feeding mood.

We did a bit of slabbing around Area 447 without result, we looked over Area 098 and didn’t see a single fish, and we looked over the Area 346 complex and saw just a few scattered, bottom oriented fish, which we tried slabbing for, but without result. We also ran sonar over Area 133, and from 307 to 188, all without graphing fish.

We finally anchored up at Area 168 and landed 2 nice largemouth here and missed two others that jumped at boatside and threw the hook. We stayed here for about an hour plus, until around 7:00p.

Once this area settled down, we headed just E. of Area 192 on the taper from 25′ up to 15′ for one last shot as some fish. We no sooner got baits in the water down around 22′, then we got the best fish of the trip, Sarah’s hybrid shown above. As she was fighting it, Nathan got the second best fish of the trip, also shown above. As they were fighting this fish the graph was lit up with other fish, but as soon as we got reorganized and baits down, it was over for good here.

We made one last stop at Area 442 and got a 2.75 pound largemouth off the high spot and then called it a day.

TALLY = 10 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

Fished a half-day morning trip this morning on Stillhouse with Steve B., his son, Franklin B., and his son-in-law, Brian S. As I expected, the lake had a good bit of traffic on it today, but the conditions were pretty solid until mid-morning and we caught fish throughout the early morning window.

BRIAN S. (L), FRANKLIN B.(W/ BASS), AND STEVE B.(R) ON THEIR MEMORIAL DAY 2009 TRIP

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time: 12:20p

Air Temp: 68F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~77F

Wind: Winds were light from the NE for the entirety of the trip.

Skies: Skies were leaden grey until approx. 10:15a. During this time, no direct sun shone on the water. At around 10:15, the cloud cover began to thin, the skies brightened, and occasional direct sun shone on the water.

Prior to sunrise, given the calm conditions, we were able to visually scan a lot of water looking for surface activity. We looked closely in the vicinity of Area 206 and Area 440 and saw nothing. We then headed to Area 429 and found lightaction spread from here up to Point 555. We managed 3 fish here.

As the fellows fished, I was glassing for more fish and spotted some spread over open water between Areas 243 and 337, then E. toward the shoreline from there. We found a mix of white bass and largemouth feeding on small shad over open water. Quick, accurate casts were essential as the calm conditions ensured the fish would not linger near the top once they snatched the baitfish they were after. We used the Cork Rig very successfully and, by 9:20 had boated exactly 16 fish with about a 50/50 mix of white bass and largemouth.

By 9:20 or so, despite the heavy cloud cover, the sun continued to brighten through the clouds and by this time, put the fish down. We still saw ample fish holding suspended and in a feeding mood at the 27 foot range and so downriggered them with both a Pet Spoon and a Lunker Licker and did equally well on both, despite the small forage size. In a short 40 minutes we caught an additional 20 fish — 17 white bass and 3 largemouth. The majority of these fish came on or near the channel break from Area 176-243.

By 10:15, this bite was waning and the fellows wanted a shot at some larger fish to finish out the day. We looked over Area 206 once again and found solid schools of white holding down around 15-18 feet, but no surface action from largemouth as I’d found here at this same time recently. We headed over to Area 433 to work it over with jigworms. On the way 2-3 largemouth broke the surface and Franklin quickly got his Cork Rig out to them and managed one keeper out of that loose school. We headed on to fish Area 433 with jigworms going up the E. side first and the W. side after that. We wound up with 2 keepers in the boat, and one additional missed at boatside on the jump. As is typical of these fish, the bite was a light pressure bite and nothing more.

We wrapped up at 12:20 with the sun finally breaking through continuously for the first time all day, and thunderstorms beginning to build to the NE near Loop 121 and to the far NW, out near Gatesville and over the Owl Creek and Cowhouse Creek areas.

TALLY = 42 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