We got by with a little help from our friends (the birds!); 39 Fish, Belton Lake, 28 Jan. 2012






Today I held off fishing until the afternoon as the mornings of late have been really spotty. I fished with 9 year old Nathan G. of Fort Hood today, so, the extra 12-14 degrees of warmth versus the cold and windchill of the morning turned out to be a good call.

Heavy concentrations of suspended white bass and hybrid stripers were found under the birds today, but the action was typically pretty short-lived.


The fish were active enough to chase a lure versus just having it presented nearly motionless in front of them as is typical for cold water fishing. Nathan took this 3.50 pound hybrid on a TNT180 slab moving along at a moderate pace as we worked our slabs through fish seen on sonar.

As we got going today, I was hoping for some bird action to provide some clues as to fish location. We both got excited when, upon launching, we spotted a white flurry about 1/2 mile away. As we crept in for a look, we saw that the birds were working over top of their cormorant cousins — no fish there. This scenario would play out a few times over the course of the trip, but, we did find fish under birds as well.

The fish seemed to feed in “spurts” today. We’d see some active fish pushing bait to the surface with birds working over both, we’d get to them, catch some suspended fish by working a bait up from the bottom, then when the suspended fish disappeared, we’d jig a few off the bottom, then the fish would disappear altogether. We stayed hard after them for 4+ hours encountering this trend over and over again and were able to put together a respectable catch for our efforts.

We were able to “pin down” fish at the follow locations today long enough to hover over them and vertically jig, at least for a few minutes: Areas 1020 (30′), 1021 (35′), 1022 (30′), and 1019 over to 929 following the contour of the shoreline (~15-17′).

Nathan was a trooper! I could look over as he was jigging and see his rod tip shake as he fought off shivers due to the cold, but, every time I asked if he was cold, he’d just say, “Nope, I’m okay.” I just smiled and kept him on the water as long as I could. The fish actually bit right until dark today and were finally done around 6:25p.


TALLY = 39 FISH all caught and released

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Start Time: 2:15

End Time: 6:30p

Air Temp: 52F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 54.0F.

Wind: Winds were NNE13-14, tapering to NNE9.

Skies: Skies had high, thin clouds at ~55% coverage just enough to diffuse the direct sunlight.








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