Pre-Frontal Fishing on Belton, 68 Fish (P.M. Trip), 22 Dec. 2011






This evening I met up with long-time Killeen resident Charles B. Charles retired from the U.S. Army as a senior NCO and now works at the VA Hospital in Temple. He a good man with a heart for people who are hurting. We fished on Belton Lake because in all the time he’s lived in the area, he’d not been out on Belton before (and because I thought the fishing would be good today!).


Charles and I joked a bit about quantity (which we got tonight) versus quality (which, honestly, we didn’t) before I snapped this photo.





After about an hour’s break following the conclusion of my morning trip, I digested some lunch, neatened up the boat, and talked with Charles about our gameplan for the afternoon. I let him know it’d probably start off slow and build toward sunset.

We put 5 white bass in the boat at the very first place we stopped at after noticing a few terns looking “edgy” over top of Area 998.

After that action evaporated quickly, we spent a fishless hour or so searching under near-calm conditions finding a few fish on top of Area 211, which gave up 6 fish and then slacked off.

By around 3pm, a WNW wind began to push and slowly build up to around 9mph (the strongest wind of the day). The fish responded slowly but surely. We got on a few more fish (7 whites) at Area 960 but didn’t like the lack of bait here so we moved once again.

We headed to Area 302 after seeing some bottom-hugging sonar signatures and hovered above these fish while jigging for them. As soon as we let down we were fast into fish and the more we caught and the closer it got to sunset the harder the fish bit. We boated exactly 29 fish here before spotting some good-looking tern and gull action at Area 1001.

We made the move to Area 1001 and put a final 21 fish in the boat here as the fish put the feedbag on both in advance of dark and an approaching cold front. Interestingly, we didn’t pick up any hybrid amongst these fish, nor did the birds work over these fish with anywhere near the intensity with which the fish fed on bait here.

Every single fish we caught tonight was caught using a vertical jigging technique with a 3/4 oz. TNT slab. Occasionally, toward sunset, I through in an “easing” tactic and did get hit on that, but, by and large, the jigging stroke was the gamewinner tonight.

TALLY = 68 FISH


Start Time: 1:30p

End Time: 5:40p

Air Temp: 62F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 56.0F.

Wind: Winds were near calm at start with a WNW wind picking up at 8-9 in the afternoon.

Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.








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