This morning I fished Belton Lake as one boat of several taking out the crew of Ashton Woods Homes, based in Austin.
Cody scored on the hybrid early. This fish went 19.75 inches and was the first shad-caught fish of this morning’s trip.
Spencer brought in this nice 17+ inch blue cat which earned him $100 for the “ugliest fish” prize.
Gerald had a “thing” going with the white bass today. Every time he came up in the rotation, a white bass was attached to his line. He, too, earned a $100 prize for smallest fish for a 9+ incher we took early on the downriggers. This legal white bass shown in the photo was our last white bass of the trip taken just minutes before coming off the water.
I was joined by Cody, Spencer, and Gerald. We got going around 6:30 and fished for five hours. The bite was really sluggish today. Our boat posted the second highest catch of just 18 fish.
The fish we caught came off of two distinct areas. We found fish with the downriggers and then put live bait down over the fish we’d found at Area 214. We picked up 2 hybrid, 3 blue cat, and 1 white bass here.
After that action dissipated, we spent a good while searching for our next fishable concentration of fish. We finally found building action at Area 1106, again finding fish with the downriggers, then attempting to exploit the find with bait; only this time the bait didn’t do the trick. So, we “danced with who brung us” and returned to the downriggers. The ‘riggers yielded 10 more fish for us including 4 more hybrid, 1 largemouth bass, and 5 white bass. To underscore the negative mood the fish seemed to be in, there were several times when we had twin ‘riggers down and well-placed and brought the balls through large, suspended schools of white bass and occasional smaller wolfpacks of hybrid. Under normal conditions I would have bet money that we’d have drawn a strike when seeing that combination of factors on sonar, but today, maybe 1 in 6 or 8 times would that happen. Further, we noted the absence of topwater action for any sustained length of time. Over the course of the 5 hours on the water we saw about 5 schools of white bass and 1 school of hybrid erupt on the surface, each staying there less than 10 seconds.
Things actually played out well for Spencer and Gerald by trip’s end. As we all gathered to compare notes and results, Spencer won a $100 prize for “ugliest fish” with a 17+ inch blue cat he put in the boat, and Gerald also won a $100 prize for smallest fish with his (documented!) 9″ white bass (our first fish caught this morning).
The Ashton Woods folks surely did not get a good taste of the great hybrid fishery Belton has to offer. All but one of Belton Lake’s full-time guides were participating in this event and we all struggled for what we did put in the boat.
TALLY = 18 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 11:30a
Air Temp: 80F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 84F
Wind: Winds were SSE under 8mph the entire trip.
Skies: Fair and 30% cloudy.
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas