Fished a morning trip today with Mr. Paul B., and his 11 year old son, Lane. Paul is the Sales Manager at Mac Haik Dodge in Temple and is a real nice fellow who thinks the world of his son. Lane’s an athletic soon-to-be-6th-grader heading to middle school in Troy this year. I really enjoyed their company and their willingness to change tactics to do what it took to stay on the fish today.

Lane B. with his pending TPWD Junior Angler Redbreast Sunfish (a.k.a. Yellowbelly Sunfish) taken on a 2 wt. flyrod from Belton Lake

That smile is worth a thousand words!! Lane shows 2 of the 54 fish he and his dad caught on his daddy’s last day off before schools starts

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 12:05pm

Air Temp: 77F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~84.4 to 85.5F

Wind: Winds were from the SE at around 14 until about 8:15 when they slacked just a bit. By 10, they were back up to 15+ and were slowly turning SSE to S.

Skies: Skies were clouded until 8:15 with some low grey, fairly thing clouds in the eastern sky.

In part due to the enjoyable time I experienced yesterday pursuing a record book Junior Angler fly rod category catch for a young lady from Austin, I phoned Paul last night to see if he thought Lane might be interested in doing something similar. Paul thought he would, so we planned our trip on Belton with the intent of targeting some sunfish on the fly after fishing for whites and hybrid for a while.

As we headed out, our first stop was in open water. We downrigged right off the bat as there was no apparent surface action (which would have been tough to see anyway, due to the wind). We picked up 2 white bass immediately between Area 487 and 488, but the fish moved off quickly. Right at and following sunrise, we also downrigged from Area 496 to Area 497 and scratched, despite seeing good hybrid schools on sonar and trying a variety of sizes of presentations.

We then headed over to Area 483 and picked up 4 white bass, but they were all yearlings.

We then moved to Area 477 at around 8:30 and spotted the first topwater action of the day extending from here to Area 500. We got on these fish as quickly, but carefully, as we could and worked them over pretty good with bladebaits worked just sub-surface when the fish were visible, and on a countdown to 10 once they’d disappeared. We caught 33 fish during this peak time. After the fish here left the surface for good, we downrigged in the same general area and over toward Area 474-475. We picked up 2 more whites and a largemouth.

I then spotted a school of hybrid feeding topwater at Area 501. We got there too late, but, just yards away, 3 separate schools of white bass began working. We caught 5 more white bass here before the fish “went popcorn” on us and began to feed in smaller pods and for very brief periods of time (just seconds in length).

We returned to downrigging at Area 474-5 and put 2 more white bass and a drum in the boat as I kept an eye out for any more surface action to restart. We did return just briefly to Area 501 only to find some largemouth had moved in and were feeding singly on larger shad. This required very quick, very accurate casting and, in summary, we decided just to leave these alone.

By now we’d racked up a tally of 46 fish and decided to turn our attention on that record fish that we’d planned to hunt for. I gave Lane just some basic pointers on flycasting and then let him learn with his hands on the rod. Once he got a roll cast down, we were ready. We went to Area 499 and sight fished for sunfish. I put my polarized glasses on Lane so he could follow the fly and watch the fish respond to his presentation. He watched the fish approach, attack, then quickly spit out the artificial fly and realized he had to react once that fly was taken. Once that sank in, he did well. His first fish landed on fly gear was a 2.5 inch bluegill. Next came a 5 1/8 inch bluegill weighing 1/8 lbs. We placed that one in the box as a potential record book catch. Lane landed 2 more small green sunfish as well. It was apparent that no more fish here were going to exceed the 5 1/8 inch mark, so we took a look at Area 492. Nothing. We make one final stop at Area 502. Now with confidence, Lane doubled his casting distance and placed his fly consistently over some rocks holding sunfish. His first take came from a nice redbreast sunfish (a.k.a. yellowbellow sunfish) easily identified by its long “ear” flap. It went 6 1/8 inches. We now had two records on board!!. Lane kept working these fish over and landed 2 more sunfish for his efforts. By now the rest of the population was wise to his tricks and we decided to call it a good day. We took all the required photos, weights, length measurements, etc. required for the record book entries and bid one another farewell.

I asked Lane what his favorite part of the trip was — he didn’t even hesitate — he said, “I liked the flyfishing.”.

TALLY = 54 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