This morning I fished with returning guest Craig M. of Temple, this time joined by his dad, Billy, and one of his two brothers, Chad.
Billy is flanked by his two of his three sons, Chad (L), and Craig (R). The hybrid was one of 13 we boated today primarily on live shad.
The “boys” were all spending the weekend together on one of the floating barges up in the Cedar Creek arm of Belton Lake. The plan was to eat well and fish when possible.
I’d contacted Craig earlier in the week to see what his preferences were for this trip. I was very candid about the slow, tough hybrid bite we’ve been experiencing lately — something which happens this time of year after the shad spawn and before the thermocline sets up. I offered the option of white bass fishing on Stillhouse, but, they preferred to gun for hybrid, so, that is what we did.
Summertime hybrid usually involves live shad and/or downrigging, and we did a bit of both today.
By far the best action was within an hour of sunrise. As we got launched, we encountered some aggressive but short-lived topwater action by white bass in the vicinity of Area 133. Some well-placed casts saw everyone hookup with whites, allowing us to boat 5 before the fish sounded, never to reappear.
So, now were were off to hunt hybrid. We first began graphing fish down around 29-31 feet in the vicinity of Area 1223. We put a variety of baits down with 4.5 inch gizzard shad being the centerpieces of our offering. We had a number of good takedowns and put fish in the boat consistently for a solid 45 minutes or so before thing dried up here. We bumped over to Area 1023 nearby and picked up a few more hybrid and a few white bass.
After things noticeably slowed, we began downrigging in the vicinity of Area 844-1084 both so we could present baits horizontally and on the move, and so we could cover some water hoping to graph some schooled fish that we could again put baits in front of. We picked up a number of white bass, including a “double” for Billy, as well as one short hybrid on the two downriggers, both equipped with tandem rigged Pet Spoons, hence fishing with 4 lures at one time. By 10:35 we saw our last fish come over the side and the fishery in this area shut down.
I spent another hour searching with sonar, but, in the end wound up with nothing to show for that final effort.
By 11:45 the count stood at 22 fish, including 13 hybrid and 9 white bass.
TALLY = 22 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:15a
End Time: 11:45a
Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 83.4F
Wind: Winds were S12 at sunrise and stayed within ~3-4mph of that the entire trip.
Skies: Skies were greyed over with some low, thin clouds for about half the morning, giving way to fair and cloudless skies thereafter.