Topwater Action Returns after Cold Front Passage — 85 Fish, Belton, 15 Sep.

This past Tuesday morning I met up with John Johnston of Killeen, TX, and his adult son, Jack Johnston of Belton, TX, for a half-day of fishing on Belton Lake.

After lamenting over not being able to catch fish on Belton nor Stillhouse, and over being regularly outfished by his wife, John kicked our day off right at first light with the largest fish of the trip, this hybrid striped bass that went for his Cork Rig and fly combination.

 

Well-placed presentations delivered as fish were still churning the surface or immediately thereafter were rewarded with success more times than not this morning under a nice layer of grey cloud cover.   Jack displays one of the many white bass we boated today.

John retired from the U.S. Army as the Assistant Division Commander – Support (ADC-S) for the 4th Infantry Division.  John got his start in the military as a part of the West Point Class of 1968 after a four-year experience as a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy in New York.  He and his son were treated to this day on the water after being presented with a fishing gift certificate by a family member.

As of Monday, the impacts of the season’s first significant cold front had fallen by the wayside, with the return of warm, humid southeasterly breezes, and cloud cover.  This made for a solid topwater bite in the morning.  This morning’s weather followed that same pattern: humid and warm, with 100% overcast conditions, and a gentle SSE breeze — just right for topwater action!

And topwater action is what we got — nearly 3 full hours of it, chasing mostly smaller white bass with the occasional short hybrid and outsized white bass thrown in often enough to keep it exciting.  The Cork Rig equipped with a small fly of my own design ruled the roost this morning, doing a great job of imitating the small shad and American silversides these gamefish were aggressively pursuing.

When the topwater ended, we spent about 25 minutes searching with sonar for action beneath the surface.  When we found some promising-looking sonar returns, we used the downriggers to verify our findings.  Once the downriggers proved out that we were dealing with active gamefish (as evidenced by frequent catches of doubles and triples on our 3-armed umbrella rigs), we then switched over to using slabs to take advantage of what we’d uncovered, thus allowing us to boat fish with greater frequency by doing away with the rigging, re-rigging, and boat movement required by the downrigging tactics.

As we closed out the day, we amassed a catch of 85 fish, split equally between topwater and subsurface tactics.  As has been the case all summer, many of our fish were smaller fish.

 

TALLY = 85 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time:  11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Water Surface Temp:  82.3

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE7-8

Sky Conditions:  100% Overcast the entire trip.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.03 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 593.60 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1591 – topwater started here right at first light

**Area 1593-1594 – topwater picked up here after tailing off elsewhere

**Area (vicinity) 475 – larger whites and short hybrid pushed bait into this cove at mid-morning.  This was the last topwater location of the morning

**Area 1592 – downrigging led us here and slabbing worked to exploit what we’d found.  Finished up the trip on a strong vertical bite in 27′

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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