Today’s trip was the kind of trip that makes you glad you’ve chosen to be a fishing guide.

Proud papa Tom and his daughter, Sarah, who caught the first fish of her life on today’s fishing trip on Belton Lake.

I had 3 generations aboard today, all super nice people, and the men were focused on the youngster’s success.

At 7:30, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, I greeted Grandpa (Big Lou), his son, Tom, and Tom’s 7 year old daughter, Sarah. We went over a few basics and tried to set Sarah up for some immediate success to grab her interest early.

Sarah had never caught a fish before, so, we certainly had to fix that problem! And, about 6 minutes into the trip when her downrigger rod tip jerked erratically, she brought in the first fish of her life, a keeper white bass which struck our Pet Spoon.

Now, here’s where the “wiggly jiggly” came in. Each time Sarah had an opportunity to catch a fish, she did really well at it, but, once that fish came in the boat she got a bit timid about going anywhere near it, much less touching it. She stood back what she considered to be a safe distance of about 30 feet (in a 19 foot boat!) and pointed at the fish and, when asked why she was fearful of a small fish, she pointed and said, “Because it’s doing the wiggly-jiggly,” referring to how the fish shook their tails before we removed the hook.

Well, in summary, we went on to catch a total of 60 fish today.

The fish got active right at sunrise in 30-35 feet of water and in the lower 5 feet of the water column in a section of water bounded by Areas 677, 678, 472, and 473 and were willing to hit a downrigged Pet until around 9:40. We got 21 fish here in all, including short hybrids, short and keeper whites up to 12 inches, and 2 largemouth.

Once the low light bite ended, we moved on to Area 214 and stayed on fish here for another solid 2 hours. We boated 37 fish here by smoking slabs including short hybrids, and a mix of short and keeper white bass. Once the slab bite died, we switched over to live bait and, as has been the trend lately given the abundance of small fish, got a lot of bait stolen, but did manage to land an additional keeper white bass and a small blue cat on the shad.

After 4 solid hours of gentle, fatherly encouragement, Tom finally managed to convince Sarah that she could touch a fish. We chose the smooth skinned blue cat for this remarkable event. Sarah slowly approached the fish, extended her right arm, then extended her right pointer finger, then touched her pointer finger to the fish for 0.00001 seconds and quickly exclaimed, “There! I touched it!” as she headed back in the direction she came from. And that was that! Back went the fish and everyone was happy. It was just a great trip with great weather, cooperative fish, and a great bunch of folks to enjoy it with.

By about 11:20 the morning bite had died off to zero and we called it a great day at that point.

TALLY = 60 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 11:40a

Air Temp: 51F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~75.1F

Wind: Winds were light from the S at around 5 until ~11:50 when they increased to SSW10.

Skies: Skies were bright and clear the entire morning.