This past Tuesday I fished a full day trip with Tom and Trisha Wells of Sun City, TX. The Wells are members of the Sun City Hunting & Fishing Club and were in attendance when I was invited to speak there both this past spring and in the spring of 2014. One of the things I highlighted was how commonly overlooked the excellent November fishing is on Belton Lake. Every year, as the water temperatures fall from the 80’s down to the low 60’s, the white bass and hybrid bite on Belton goes through the roof. Thankfully, Tom and Trisha listened, and took me up on a day on the water. They were handsomely rewarded, landing a total of 346 fish between 6:30am and 4:00pm. And, truth be known, we “left ’em biting”.
Everything was feeding heavily today — big hybrid, small hybrid, big white bass, and small white bass. The fishing simply doesn’t get any faster than it is on Belton right now! Tom landed this nice hybrid striper on a bladebait in 14′ of water within an hour of sunrise.
Tricia, also using a bladebait in 14′ of water, landed this award-winning white bass just minutes after Tom’s hybrid, shown above, was caught. This white bass weighed exactly 2.00 pounds and measured 15 3/8″, thus qualifying Trisha for a TPWD “Big Fish Award”, putting her on the path toward Elite Angler status.
Tom and Trisha met and married in college, became a Vietnam-era Air Force family (where Tom learned the trade of a radiologist), and recently retired from private practice in Homer, Alaska, settling in Sun City, TX, near grandkids (and kids) living in Buda, TX. They love the Lord, their family, … and fishing!! They even run their own 22′ center console, primarily on Lake Georgetown.
There is no other way to put it … we had a once-in-a-lifetime kind of day on the water, amassing the second greatest daily catch I’ve ever put a guided party onto.
The day actually got off to a bit of a slower start as near-calm winds and a bright sun right at sunrise put the fish in a bit of a funk. But, the south wind soon kicked in, and we relocated to be in a segment of lake where the water was being moved by that wind, and the fish responded well. The fish then cranked it up about 10 notches when grey cloud cover accompanied that southerly wind, and it was “Katy bar the door” from that point on.
We caught fish on Cicada blade baits, 3/8 oz. slabs, and Hazy Eye Shad tandem rigs for 6 hours straight in the morning, right up until 12:30p when the bite softened just a bit. We came off the water, had a great lunch served up by Sol de Jalisco on FM2271 near Temple Lake Park, and then headed right back out and fished another 2.5 hours until 4pm, when Tom had to pull the rod from Trisha’s hand and head their Ford F-250 back south to Georgetown.
The approach was very similar at each area where we found fish on sonar. As I approached a likely area at idle speed, I’d see a bottom-oriented school of fish, then we’d all work together to stop the boat on a dime and very quickly get baits in the water before we passed away from the school, or they continued swimming on, or both. The critical thing was to hook a single fish and get it struggling on the line, thus captivating the attention of the remainder of the school, getting that school to stay put right under the boat. Once that was accomplished, we “Spot Locked” on the fish and would catch fish after fish from that school.
Although there were ebbs and flows in the action, the action never stopped once it got started today, and the fish were still biting as we concluded our efforts at 4p!!
If you have any vacation time left this year, or are retired and are just sitting around the house, NOW IS THE TIME! I don’t know how else to say this. This isn’t wishful thinking or marketing hype, this is accurate, just-off-the-water reporting from the last 3 trips which saw 267 fish, 143 fish, and now 346 fish come over the gunwales.
Belton fishing is truly white hot right now, and, barring flooding or an extended, severe cold snap, looks like it will be this way for at least 2-3 weeks to come.
TALLY = 346 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:30am
End Time: 4:00pm (with off-the-water lunch at mid-trip)
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F
Water Surface Temp: 69F
Wind Speed & Direction: S9-12
Sky Conditions: Light grey cloud cover moved in around 8:30am and stuck the remainder of the day.
Other: GT= 40
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
AM
**Area 1621 low light shallow action on bladebaits
**Area 1625 shallow fish revealed by light topwater/bird action – fish here much larger than average
**Area 1620/1622/1626 slabbed/smoked for whites/hybrids; moved in short hops to keep up with packs of fish unwilling to move horizontally
PM
**Area 1623 slabbed/smoked/tandem rigged for whites/hybrids
**Area 1624 slabbed/smoked/tandem rigged for whites/hybrids
**Area 618 slabbed/smoked/tandem rigged for whites/hybrids
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com