Belton Lake Fishing Guide Report – 19 Mar. 2011 – 61 Fish






I fished with a wonderful newlywed couple from Leander, TX, this morning, Jason and Morgan T. After a packed-full Spring Break fishing schedule this week it was great to end the marathon with a very experienced pair of fishermen on board.

Jason and Morgan with a hybrid striped bass that struck a Swimmin’ Image crankbait run behind a downrigger ball over open water.

Jason and Morgan own a small plane and have used it to shuttle themselves to some great fishing destinations in both salt and freshwater and both inside and outside the U.S. and had a great breadth of experience as a result. Their experience paid off today when we had to “grind it out” in order to put together the catch we did.

I was hoping for a continuation of the “easy” fishing we encountered last night where we found ample bird activity over the water with aggressive surface action below it yielding, among other things, keeper hybrid striped bass, but this was not to be. Our winds took and easterly turn and the fish got sluggish as they often do under such conditions. We vertical jigged for our first 49 fish, and then ran downriggers for our last 12.

We began our day near Area 739 in about 18 feet of water and boated four white bass and a short largemouth.

Our next significant catch came at Area 747. We stayed in this area longer than any other, initially lured there my some limited bird action. We boated a mixed bag of white bass (both short and keeper) and short hybrid here. Jason hung a good one that did nothing but take drag, but it pulled the hook before we even got a look at it. I suspect a nice 6+ pound hybrid based on the way is swam and fought, but, we’ll never know for sure.

Around 11:30 the action up shallow got hard to come by, so, partially to continue catching fish and partially to satisfy Jason’s curiosity about downrigging, we used downriggers to target some “high riding” gamefish found over ~40′ between Areas 574 and 748 We put balls down at both 10 and 16 feet with a Swimmin’ Image on one and a Thin Fin on the other. Both caught fish equally well and allowed us to add another 12 fish to our tally.

Along the way today we got to talk about favorite fish and fishing destinations, hunting and favorite quarry, whitetail management, church, aviation, good restaurants, dogs, business, and more. We found we had a lot in common, so both the fishing and the company was very enjoyable today!!

By 12:30 I saw very little in the way of catchable fish on sonar so we decided to call it a day at that point. We headed in for a few photos and parted ways.

TALLY = 61 FISH, all caught and released


Today’s Conditions:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time: 12:30p

Starting Air Temp: 62F

Water Surface Temp: 61.4F

Wind: ESE6 at trip’s start increasing to SE15 by trip’s end

Skies: Clear at sunrise, then increasing to 100% overcast through the mid-morning period, then decreasing cloudiness to ~40% by midday.