This morning I met up with James Burger of Stephenville, TX, his 20-year-old son, Hayden, and James’ wife, Mindy Tinkle, for a family fishing trip on Belton.
From left: Hayden, James, and Mindy with several of the larger white bass we took on Cork Rigs rigged with small flies tied to match the small shad and silversides the fish forced to the top during the first 70 minutes of light this morning.
James and his clan tent-camped at the Live Oak Ridge Corps of Engineers park near the Belton Dam overnight and just walked down to the floating courtesy dock to meet me just before first light. James just came off a “summer ranger” stint with the Corps of Engineers working at Lake Proctor and hopes to hire on full-time soon, Mindy works for State Farm, and Hayden is now a junior at Auburn University in Alabama after transferring there from Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York — he drove straight through overnight to get to Belton and fish!
Fishing was a bit tough this morning thanks to bright, cloudless skies and light to calm winds. We did experience about 70 minutes’ worth of topwater action from 7:05 to 8:15, but once that sun hit a certain angle, it died hard. We caught all we could, while we could, with those fish on top knowing that topwater on bright days is a “make hay…” proposition. The Cork Rig once again did a great job, equipped with hand-tied flies designed to match the forage size.
After the fish sounded, we continued picking them up on downriggers for about 40 minutes. I was hoping for a resurgence of activity in deeper water near bottom around 9:30 or so, which has been taking place consistently, but the near-calm conditions turned that into a no-go.
We put a few more fish in the boat via downrigging and stopped briefly at one breakline in 25-30 feet of water to attempt slabbing, adding a few more fish to the count. In the final 30 minutes of the trip, we witnessed multiple “popcorn” schools of white bass blitzing briefly on the surface out in open water. We deployed the downriggers and ran from blowup to blowup trying to get over the action before the fish moved too far horizontally. We added just one more fish to the tally after covering down on about 5 blitzing schools.
By the time 11:45 rolled around, it was getting warm, everyone was hungry for lunch, and Hayden’s long drive was showing itself in his eyes, so, we called ‘er a day right there and headed back to the dock with a total of 29 fish boated on the morning.
TALLY = 29 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 11:45a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F
Water Surface Temp: 83.4F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE2-4
Sky Conditions: Cloudless, fair skies.
Note: Lake has dropped 0.03 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 593.55 above sea level, with 594.00 being full pool
Other: GT= 115
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1585 – topwater started here right at first light
**Area 1596 – topwater – second stop
**Area 1119 – topwater – third stop, then downrigged thereafter
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com