Fished a short evening trip on Belton with both my mom, Charlotte, and my brother, Andy, visiting from Kentucky.

Andy M. landed his first hybrid ever on this post-frontal Lake Belton evening trip.

Start Time: 5:30p

End Time: 8:55p

Air Temp: 93F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85-86F

Wind: Winds were NE at 8-11 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies had cleared following the passing of a mild cold front earlier today.

Given we were facing post-frontal conditions with bright skies, I anticipated the fish would be sluggish, and, indeed we found a lot more fish than we did active fish. Fish that, based on their posture, I would normally expect to strike often did not react at all to our presentations. I went with a downrigging approach so as to get some baits in front of a lot of fish hoping to trigger a few. We enjoyed some initial success putting a total of 17 fish in the boat in the first 70 minutes. This included 1 small largemouth, 2 short hybrids (including the first hybrid Andy had ever landed), and 14 white bass of all sizes. By 6:45p things had gone quiet. The best producing areas were from Area 483 and to the NE and from Area 181 north, out over the deep trough.

We moved on and checked a few areas without seeing much notable on sonar. At Area 478 I graphed a school of white bass in about 31 feet relating to a sloped bottom. We hovered and jigged over these fish and pulled 1 white bass, 1 drum, and missed a largemouth.

By 7:30, things were pretty quiet. I’ve seen oftentimes in the summer when a late afternoon bite is on, and then dies, that a good sunset feed often ensues. I was hoping we’d see this, but wondered if the NE wind and frontal situation was going to mess this up.

We pressed on, looking with sonar in the vicinity of Area 147 and found, around 8:00p, fish beginning to school up, rise up in the water column, and move slowly shallower. These fish first appeared over 31 feet, and gradually moved up as shallow as 11 feet by sunset. I just kept an eye on sonar and once the fish got shallower than 15-17 feet, we put up the downriggers and began fancasting blades and connecting regularly. We boated 5 fish in quick succession on the ‘riggers here. Just after sunset we witnessed some very light topwater over a 120 yard span with fish averaging 11 inches out of this school. We boated exactly 20 more fish in the last 15 minutes of the day — an exciting end to a trip that was a bit slow in the wake of a mild change of weather.

TALLY = 44 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 today on Stillhouse with Jeff Oliver (of Oliver Brothers’ Transmission fame), Jeff’s adult son, also named Jeff, and grandson, Dylan.

Jeff, Jeff, and Dylan worked the rods hard for 41 fish today in advance of a mid-summer cold front.

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:35a

Air Temp: 77F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.7-86.2.1F

Wind: Winds were calm until 9:00am when they went NE at 8 for just 20-30 minutes, then tapered off to flat calm by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were grey this morning with the approach of a mild cold front. By 10:45 skies had begun to clear.

We started this morning’s trip off looking for a little low light topwater action. The flat calm conditions and breakdown of our lengthy high pressure system pretty much reduced our chances to slim on this, but, we gave it about 30 minutes beyond sunrise before going to Plan B. During this time I got to work with Dylan to familiarize him with closed-faced casting gear, where and when to cast, how fast to reel in, etc. We made a total of 8-10 casts at single fish popping up here and there between Area 479 and 032, but there was no sustained feed on top.

Next, we got all three fellows trained up on how the downrigging equipment works and how to set it up properly. We ran a Pet on the port side and a Pet / Licker combo on the starboard. We found fair quantities of fish strung in a north – south orientation from Area 481 to Area 471. There was not near as much bait here as there was Thursday. The fish were once again sandwiched between 22 and 26 feet, and were most prevalent over 27 to 35 feet. There simply hasn’t been a lot of fish hanging off the deep side of any breaklines lately. We downrigged for a good while, boating a total of 26 fish including 2 largemouth, a drum, and 23 white, with 3 of the whites going 14.5 to 15 inches. At 9:30, I spotted a tight congregation of fish in a confined area in 25-26 feet of water. These fish were on bottom with bait in their midst on Area 482.

This scenario was just perfect for casting blades and using a lift-drop retrieve. I threw out a buoy and backed off a good cast’s length after showing the boys how to work the blade. In short order the 2 Jeff’s caught 6 fish, Dylan got one, and I got 2. Grandpa Jeff actually caught 2 fish on the same lure at the same time — one on the front hook and one on the back. After ~20 minutes these fish settled down and we returned to downrigging with 35 fish bagged thus far.

We stayed tight to this same area with the downriggers running and immediately came up with two white bass and then a double on the Pet / Licker combo (one largemouth, one white bass) and then picked up two more whites on the solo Pet. By this time Grandpa noticed that Dylan had that “had all the fun an 8 year old can have at one time” look and suggested we call it a real good morning at that point.

We took a few photos, neaten up the boat and had a safe, dry ride back to the dock

TALLY = 41 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