Tough day today!! After a glimmer of hope provided by a catch of 30 whites this past Saturday on Stillhouse, I thought I’d give Belton a try to see if things were improving there, too. Granted, today’s weather was less than ideal, but, I spent 4 plus hours, accompanied by a fishing buddy (who, based on these terrible results shall remain nameless so as not to tarnish his credentials!!) out there with only 2 fish to show for all that effort. Bottom line — Belton is just tough right now — the water is high and not coming down all that quickly, yet the gates are open wide and there is a lot of water movement through the reservoir.
Start Time: 7:15a
End Time: 11:30a
Air Temp: 31F at trip’s start
Water Surface Temp: 47.8F
Wind: Winds were light from the NW at 5-7
Skies: Skies were fair the entire trip
This trip was taken in advance of two paid trips forthcoming this Friday and Saturday in an attempt to nail down which lake was going to provide me with the best shot at putting my clients on fish. Well, that objective was accomplished!!
Upon launching today I was encouraged to once again see a multitude of birds working, but, as we watched these birds closely, it was clear that they were feeding on small schools of threadfin that were feeding on the surface in the low-light period before and after sunrise. These birds were lightly sipping, not aggressively diving, thus indicating the bait they were feeding on was not pushed to the surface by gamefish.
We fished and ran sonar over a number of areas and wound up catching both fish we landed (a smallish white bass and a short hybrid) both in the vicinity of Area 500 after I spotted two loons working in that area. Both fish responded to a sniping approach. I should note that we both had significant numbers of fish refuse that very same technique both before and after these fish were caught.
TALLY = 2 FISH, both caught and released
***For a complete listing of gear and lures used, please go to the “About” tab, and click on the “About Your Guide” page on the drop-down menu.