I was joined today on Lake Belton by Austinite Terry W. and his adult son, Matthew, a middle school teacher in Belton. The two had fished on occasion through the years but never focused on white bass other than during occasional topwater frenzies in the warm months. Matthew is fairly new to Belton and wanted to understand what manner of fishery Belton Lake offered.

With a little good-natured ribbing added in, we concluded that Matthew was all about quantity …

…and Terry was more about quality!!

As is very typical this time of year, the fishing amounted to nil while the winds were calm. From our launch time at 7:15 and until around 9:45, there was very little natural activity from birds, fish, or animals. We fished the main basin and up into the Cowhouse arm during this time and caught exactly one fish (a white bass that was solo and suspended over 36 feet of water) near Area 132. As the wind began to slowly build out of the SSE, we found 2 flocks of gulls very tentatively working over open water in the main lake, but after running sonar and slabbing in and around these fish, we found nothing going on.

We then headed a short way up the Leon arm. We found fish in two locations. First, at Area 726, (BA: 12G) we spotted some action from suspended fish at 11 to 24 feet down over a 38-40 foot bottom. We put downriggers down with White Willow spoons attached and immediately boated a just-short hybrid striper on a ‘rigger set at 11 feet. Continued passes yielded no more. I spotted some additional action nearby at Area 328 and so we picked up with the downrigging routine there and boated one largemouth on the ‘rigger set at 14 feet. As we moved about with the downriggers, I had a chance to study the bottom in detail with sonar and with StructureScan. As I did so, I noted a sizeable school of what appeared to be white bass holding tight to bottom at between Areas 709 and 725. We did a quick changeup and got ready to vertical jig. The fellows were already practiced at this as we had unsuccessfully jigged at several areas during the slack wind period earlier in the morning, so, they were already versed on how to lower, adjust, and work their slabs.

When all was said and done, we’d boated from this fairly compact area exactly 74 additional white bass, and 2 additional short hybrid stripers, thus taking our total for the trip up to 79 fish. These fish behaved in classic winter mode: the first fish in any of the small schools we encountered was difficult to catch, but, once the ice was broken, the other individuals in the school then struck more readily. The bite was strong on a straightforward jigging technique, then slacked off a bit. At this point, the “easing” tactic was necessary to continue to catch fish, and, once that slowed down, a long pause in the stroke did the trick for the last few fish remaining willing to bite. Once a particular location dried up, we’d move about until we found fish on sonar and the process would repeat itself.

We actually departed with fish still willing to bite, as Grandpa Terry (a.k.a. The Waffleman – a little inside humor) wanted to see his young grandson before naptime.

One of the very first things I told the fellows while we were still in the parking lot before our trip began was that we’d struggle until we got some wind. They saw this truism play out in a very definitive way on today’s trip.

A side note: On returning to the ramp I received a credible report from another Belton “regular” that fish had turned on near Area 712 and eastward parallel to shore once the wind began to blow. He managed 21 white bass and 3 hybrid during a feed that included bird activity.

TALLY = 79 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time: 1:45p

Air Temp: 64F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~50.3-53.6F

Wind: Winds were light from the SSE at near calm until around 9:45 when winds picked up to 8-10 and leveled off there for the remainder of the trip.

Skies: Skies were 100% greyed over but still bright for the entire trip.