Fishing Report

WHO I FISHED WITH:

This morning, Thursday, April 25, I fished with the Oliver brothers – Joe, Jack, Jamie, and Jeff. The four have fished with me at least one time each year for most of the eighteen years I’ve been in business.

Today we made an intentional attempt at targeting hybrid striped bass using live shad.

My next open date is Wed., 29 May (AM).

Here’s how the fishing went…

PHOTO CAPTION:  From left: Jamie and Jeff Oliver with a multi-species double landed simultaneously.  Both fish were taken on live threadfin shad.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 25 April 2024 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

We had a damp, cloudy morning all morning with east-southeast winds at 10 to 12 mph and light rain for the middle two hours of this four hour trip.

Although we found fish at all but the last two areas we fished, these areas seemed to have all but legal hybrid stripers.

We landed an unusually high number of freshwater drum this morning (perhaps half of our overall catch), as well as blue catfish, two largemouth bass, one smallmouth bass, a mess of white bass (all legal), two short hybrid, and two legal hybrid stripers. Both of these legal hybrid came from the same area on a fairly well-sloped bottom in about 36 feet of water. One of the two short hybrid we landed also came from this same area.

I’m still kinda shaking my head about the freshwater drum.  I’ve never landed that many as a bycatch on any fishing trip in 33 years fishing Belton and Stillhouse.

Although I am still reserving judgment on how the hybrid fishery may or may not have come back’, I certainly anticipated a better catch of legal hybrid stripers given the time of year and the conditions we had today.

Our final tally was 48 fish

TALLY: 48 fish caught and released 

OBSERVATIONS:

With 2+ days of southerly winds and increasing warmth and humidity, I rather easily netted shad at Area vic SHAD039.  Here is the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured before sunrise on April 18th …

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:20A

End Time: 11:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: 9.07 feet low, 33 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 67.1F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: ESE9-12 all morning

Sky Condition: 100% grey skies all morning with light rain from 8:30 to 10:30A

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 98% illumination.

GT = 50

WHO I FISHED WITH: 

This morning, Tuesday, April 23, I fished with returning guests, Pastor PJ Condit and Pastor Scott Smith.

PJ serves the Community Christian Church in Round Rock, and Scott serves at Crestview Christian Church in Copperas Cove.

This plan came together in under 24 hours’ time as my client originally scheduled for this morning was stuck in Costa Rica and unable to make it in for this trip he had booked more than a year in advance.

Here is how the fishing went…

PHOTO CAPTION: The full moon shone intensely this morning over the bow as it set in the southwestern sky. 

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 23 April 2024 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

I try not to make a habit of having to gather bait just prior to my clients’ arrival. For this reason, I keep a large live bait tank back in my garage and, if anything, just top off prior to my clients’ arrival.

This was not the case this morning , so I wound up throwing the cast net for spawning shad which, around 6:50 AM, began to show up in shallow water to spawn. The plan was to give hybrid striped bass fishing a try, assess where we were after two hours, then decided at that point whether we would press on after hybrid, or swap over to fishing for white bass with artificials.

Things started like gangbusters. Two of our first three fish were legal hybrid, but, we would not see any additional legal hybrid over the remainder of our four hour trip. A lot of white bass are now filtering back into deeper water after doing whatever they did for this year’s spawn given the low water conditions.

So, we often ran into situations where we got baits down and then were instantly inundated with white bass beneath the boat, which then made short work the shad we sent down, regardless of size.

We decided we would keep checking areas and, if any of the first five fish landed were hybrid, we would continue fishing there, otherwise, we would move on until we encountered additional hybrid.

At the two hour mark, PJ and Scott, who have caught hundreds of white bass with me in the past, decided they would like to continue trying for the larger hybrid, so we stuck with fishing with live shad for the remainder of the trip.

By 11:40 AM, Scott and PJ had put together a catch of 75 fish. Those included 2 legal hybrid striper, 1 short hybrid, 2 blue catfish, 6 freshwater drum, and 64 white bass.

After seeing what I observed this morning, I felt any of those locations where the white bass immediately began to form under the boat could have easily produced fish using slabs, as well.

TALLY: 75 fish caught and released 

OBSERVATIONS:

Thanks to the return of southerly winds overnight, the threadfin shad spawn continued this morning.  Netted shad at Area SHAD039.  Here is the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured before sunrise on April 18th …

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:15A

End Time: 11:40A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 58F

Elevation: 9.11 feet low, 33 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 68.3F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SE9 before dawn through 8:30, then shifting and increasing to SSW12-14 thereafter.

Sky Condition: Pale blue skies with 40-70% white/grey cloud mix

Moon Phase: Full moon at 100% illumination.

GT = 0

WHO I FISHED WITH: 

This morning, Monday, April 22, I fished with a crew of first time, guests all members of the Sun City, Rod and Gun Club. Mr. Pat Patterson (who did not participate today) organized the trip for Ivan Stubbs, Brett Mainz, David Semich, and Nick Carnes.

All of these men had prior fishing experience, but had no prior experience with Garmin LiveScope.

Next available date: 28 May (AM)

Here is how the fishing went…

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday, 22 April 2024 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

I had some concerns about today’s winds, as the strong northerly winds we had over the weekend were to cease then shift out of the east then southeast by the end of the morning. Sometimes, as the wind shifts, it goes completely slack. Other times, it simply reduces velocity as it changes directions. This morning, we had a bit of a mix of the two, but, long story short, we did not have slack winds for more than about 20-30 minutes.

The northwest winds were still blowing when we hit our first area, then I used most of the time that the slack winds existed to travel to another area, and by that time, the winds were blowing just south of east, and we enjoyed increasing winds for the remainder of the trip.

Thanks to the blowing winds, we were able to catch fish from start to finish today. The last two hours were definitely more productive than the first two hours.

We fished five locations this morning and fished each of them in an identical manner.

We used a slow smoking tactic with white, 5/8-ounce Hazy Eye Slabs to fish for fish which were either bottom-hugging or suspended just slightly off bottom.  The goal was to get these fish to pursue these lures upwards, overtake them, and strike.

As the winds increased, the propensity for these fish to chase harder, venture further from bottom, and swim horizontally at a faster pace, all increased noticeably.

We ended the morning right at 11:30 with 122 fish landed, including 2 blue catfish, 1 channel catfish, 5 freshwater drum, and the balance of 114 white bass.

Find the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab at the Liberty Mart on Adams Ave. uphill from Temple Lake Park, or here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 122 fish caught and released 

OBSERVATIONS:

Thanks to the chilling factor of the weekend’s north winds, I observed no threadfin shad spawning activity this morning. Here is the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured before sunrise on April 18th …

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:15A

End Time: 11:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 45F

Elevation: 9.10 feet low, 33 CFS flow (up 0.27 feet thanks to Saturday night’s rain)

Water Surface Temp: 68.1F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: NNW5 for ~40 min., then slack, then starting NE4 and rising while shift slowly through ESE up to 12-13.

Sky Condition: Cloudless, pale blue skies.

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at  98% illumination.

GT = 80

WHO I FISHED WITH: 

This morning, Thursday, April 18, I fished with a five man crew in what would be my first intentional effort to catch hybrid striped bass in several years.

I welcomed aboard returning guests Joey Sapien, Danny Marriott, and Tim Long, as well as first time guests Craig Hunter, and Harris Young.

Next available date: Tuesday, 28 May (AM)

Here’s how the fishing went…

PHOTO CAPTION: A few of the 42 legal hybrid went as much at 5.25 pounds.  Here, Texas’ top game warden, retired Colonel Craig Hunter, hoists one of the beefy white bass/striped bass crosses.

PHOTO CAPTION: Although longer and leaner than Craig’s fish, this Lake Belton hybrid also went 5.25 pounds.  Large, healthy shad did the trick.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday, 18 April 2024 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED: 

Thanks to gray skies and breezy conditions from before sunrise through to the end of our trip at 11:30, there was both a strong shad spawn and a strong morning bite.

We split the trip into two 2-hour blocks with the first half dedicated to fishing live shad for hybrid striped bass, and the second half dedicated to chasing higher numbers of smaller white bass using a vertical approach with slabs.

In our first two hours we landed 59 fish including 2 blue catfish, 1 yellow, catfish, 1 channel catfish, 7 white bass, 2 freshwater drum, 4 short hybrid, and the balance of 42 legal hybrid with the largest right at 5.25 pounds. The timeframe from 7:30 through 8:40 was the best, with a slow taper to nil by 9:30.

In the final two hours from 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM, we put an additional 143 fish in the boat including 4 more freshwater drum with the remaining 139 fish consisting solely of white bass.

Fishing vertically with three-quarter ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs using a smoking tactic turned out very well with five anglers as their baits constantly racing upward and fluttering back downward did a great job of imitating a school of shad directly beneath the boat and created constant commotion.

I helped keep everyone’s retrieve at just the right speed by way of the use of an onboard metronome, and we churned the water to imitate the sound of schooling fish using a splasher .

Three of the five had never used LiveScope before, and everyone found it very engaging and entertaining to be able to see fish response to their presentations.

We ended the morning right at 11:30 AM with exactly 202 fish landed.

Find the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab at the Liberty Mart on Adams Ave. uphill from Temple Lake Park, or here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 202 fish caught and released 

OBSERVATIONS:

Light shad spawning activity has reached the main basin. Here is the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured before sunrise on April 18th …

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:15A

End Time: 11:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Elevation: 9.37 feet low, 33 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 68.9F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE9-11 all morning

Sky Condition: 100% thin grey clouds for 3 hours, with slow clearing to 80% white cloud cover thereafter.

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 75% illumination.

GT = 240

WHO I FISHED WITH: 

This morning, Friday, 19 April, I conducted the 13th SKIFF trip of the 2024 season.

Joining me was the Landry family. Mrs. Nikki Landry brought her five kids – – Jhanna (16) Madison (13), Alayna (12), Brian (11), and Moslyn (8).

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Matthew Landry is currently deployed to South Korea where he works in the signal intelligence field. CW2 Landry has been in the military for 18 years.

Nikki is the homefront parent currently parenting 5 kids, but, the family is in the process of adopting four additional teenagers now scheduled to arrive in the U.S. before CW2 Landry’s return, thus upping the “kid count” to nine.  Nikki was quick to give the Lord credit for the way He has moved and removed barriers and how He has been faithful in all of the adoptions she and Matt have been through.

ABOUT SKIFF:  SKIFF trips have been provided to military families at no charge since May of 2009.  SKIFF is funded by donations from Austin Fly Fishers, The McBride Foundation, & Austin Subaru.  S.K.I.F.F. provides kids of military members separated from their families by duty commitments with the opportunity to fish.  SKIFF trips are also provided to Gold Star families who have lost their service member.  In mid-2019, SKIFF began providing trips to kids of bona fide disabled veterans.  I conduct these 3.5 hour adventures on Belton Lake and Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir year ’round.  Call or text 254.368.7411.

My only open date prior to June is Wednesday, May 1st.

Here’s how the fishing went…

PHOTO CAPTION: Alayna landed our largest white bass of the morning.  It fell for a 5/8 oz. white Hazy Eye Slab in 32 feet of water.

PHOTO CAPTION: Eldest daughter Jhanna landed our largest fish of the trip.  Her 2.25-pound freshwater drum also fell for a 5/8 oz., white Hazy Eye Slab from out of 37 feet of water.

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

A mild cold front blew in to Central Texas around 7 PM last night bringing some thunderstorms to Mills, Lampasas, and Burnett counties. The warm, muggy air was replaced by cooler, dryer air.  Yesterday‘s high temperatures were in the high 80s, whereas we were right at 60° this morning with a stiff north breeze at 13 and gray cloud cover.  It stayed in the 60s all day.

Before dropping a line at our first fishing area, I took the time to cover the fundamentals of properly gripping the rod and gripping the reel’s handle, I emphasized the importance of turning the handle smoothly and continuously as we used the slow smoking method, and I introduced the kids to the concept of following the beat of my onboard metronome so they would be sure to be retrieving at just the right speed. I also made sure everyone knew to open and close their bail by hand so as to avoid wind knots

I keep my kid-specific trips a bit shorter than those with adults participating. Usually 3.5 hours  sees most kids reach the end of their attention spans.

During our 3.5 hours, we encountered three groups of interested fish, and another four groups of disinterest fish.

The fish all fell for a slowly smoked, white, Bladed Hazy Eye Slab in 5/8 ounce.

Thanks to the cold front conditions, the fish were holding tightly to bottom and were noticeably more lethargic than under more ideal conditions. Even the fish in those schools which were interested did not stay interested for all that long.

When all was said and done, the kids had boated a total of 81 fish including 80 white bass and one freshwater drum.

WHO I FISHED WITH: 

This morning, Wednesday, April 17, I fished with returning guests, Dr. Jim Wood and his friend, also from the medical community, Sky Sparks.

Jim celebrated his 77th birthday today.

Sky makes his living as a medical scribe. The two men first got to know each other when Jim was practicing and specializing in wound care, and the two have remain friends since then.

Next available dates:  Wed., 24 April (AM), Wed., 01 May (AM)

Here is how the fishing went…

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

In a word, the fishing this morning was … tough. We had next to no wind all morning and a thin veil of fog for the first half of the morning.

I had hoped to get Jim and Sky on some pre-dawn fish blitzing spawning shad up in shallow water. Although we did find plenty of spawning shad, there was not much in the way of gamefish trailing them to feed upon them.

After we left the potential for catching shallow water fish behind around 7:20, I began looking for heavily schooled fish in deep water for us to work vertically for.

After finding a good school, I went to go about setting up on them and I encountered issues with my trolling motor deploying properly.  We wound up losing about an hour as my sweet wife hoisted my spare trolling motor into her vehicle and shuttled it out to us  at lakeside. With the new trolling motor installed, we set out once again to find fish. It was now 8:20 AM and the winds were still nearly calm.

We would go onto fish 5 areas with the fish behaving in nearly the exact same manner at each one of them.  Being heavily grouped and on the bottom, these fish would express interest in the slabs we dropped down to them just for a few minutes after we arrived, allowing a catch of just a handful of fish. After that, the fish would turn off and only halfheartedly follow lures, if at all.

We found that by remaining in an area awaiting the arrival of additional schools of fish to pass beneath the boat, we could catch another one or two or three fish before everything went quiet at each of these locations.

In this manner, we were able to put together a catch of 41 fish including 37 white bass and 4 freshwater drum.

I compared notes with two other regular Lake Belton anglers, and they reported identical behavior under these same, tough conditions.  Misery loves company!!

WHO I FISHED WITH: 

This morning, Monday, April 15, I hosted a father and son crew – – Jeff and Drew Cizek.

Both men are U.S. military veterans, with Jeff having retired after 31 years in the Navy, and Drew having served, among other things, as a US Army air traffic controller.

Jeff is now retired, and Drew sells vehicles at the Garlyn Shelton dealership in Temple and also works as a volunteer fireman on his “spare time“.

Here is how the fishing went…

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

Thanks to a full weekend of warmth, and an overnight air temperature of 70F (more than 4 degrees warmer than the water’s surface temperature), the threadfin shad spawn has reached the main lake and with it, some pre-dawn, shallow water fishing opportunities.

I planned to be on the water quite early this morning in advance of meeting the Cizeks in order to get a feel for how the shad netting situation might be for forthcoming spring hybrid trips.

I met up with the Cizeks at 7:10 AM , and they proceeded to catch fish for a full four hours. Our first hour and our last 30 minutes were the taper up and the taper down from the morning’s peak fishing in between.

During the taper up and taper down, we found fish fairly sluggish, glued to bottom, and willing only to chase halfheartedly.

During the peak, it was as if these white bass were an entirely different animal. They moved energetically, both horizontally and vertically, came as much as 12 to 14 feet off the bottom to chase a bait, and were more than willing to strike both Hazy Eye Slabs and MAL Originals vertically with a smoking tactic.  We found all of our fish during this peak in 28-32 feet of water along south-facing shorelines being impacted by the SE wind.

My two guests landed 14 fish during the taper up to the peak, then another 5 fish during the taper down, with a grand total of 110 fish caught over the course of the entire four hour morning, hence a catch of 91 fish during the 2.5 hour peak of activity.

Oddly enough, as ideal as the conditions were, and as aggressive as the fish were, I saw no open water bird activity, nor any topwater activity.

Of the 110 fish landed, 4 were freshwater drum, and the remaining 106 were all white bass.

WHO I FISHED WITH:

This morning, Friday, April 12, I conducted a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip for the Guerrero brothers — Isaac (13), Micah (9), and Matias (6). The boys’ grandfather, Gary Emory, coordinated the trip, and the boys’ mom, Kate, came along for moral support and crowd control.

Gary sold his roofing company and retired so as to be able to enjoy his grandkids, and Kate homeschools the boys, hence giving them the flexibility to enjoy adventures like this morning’s without competing with the rest of America to do so on Saturdays.

My next open dates are: 16 & 24 April, and 03 May (AMs)

Here is how the fishing went…

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

With warming water — and about three additional feet of it coming into the lake since Tuesday — fishing both yesterday and today was a whole lot easier than I thought it might be given all of the environmental change that has taken place in such a short period of time.

I was concerned because as my crew showed up at around 7:15, the winds were flat calm, but, just as we began heading out to our first spot after my pre-trip briefing, an 8 mph northwest wind began to blow, both moving and rippling the water enough to really fire the fish up.

This boosted the boys confidence early and allowed them to make rookie mistakes without those being too costly.

In under an hour’s time, the three boys had landed exactly 35 fish before the winds began to taper down in advance of a wind shift; the fish activity tapered down with it.

The weather forecast called for southerly winds to start and build to about 13 mph by 11 a.m., so, we pushed through the more difficult 30 or so minutes of calm until that wind shift finally did materialize.

During this time, as I often do when conditions get tough, I moved out to as deep water as I could find fish in (in this case, 42 feet), and allowed depth to serve as a buffer to the tough conditions we faced.

While on this same deep water spot, the south winds began making their way to us from the southeast.  As the ripple started, and the water began to move once again, the bite fired up greatly. We never moved off that area until 10:20 when all three boys had had enough. By this time, they had put exactly 111 fish in the boat.

At one point in time, Micah saw the Garmin LiveScope monitor he was watching come alive with a school of fish covering an area from the bottom up to 8 feet off of it, moving quickly from one side of the screen to the other.  Wanting everyone else to see what he was seeing, he just blurted out, “Whoa! Look at the TV!”.  His brothers knew exactly what he was talking about.

I found that we could extend the time over which the white bass would stay interested enough to bite by starting off with slabs and, once interest in the slabs began to wane, switching over to MAL Lures.

I had the boys work both of these vertically with a smoking tactic in rhythm with a metronome going 80 to 90 BPM, depending on how aggressive the fish appeared on Garmin LiveScope.

This catch of 111 fish included 110 white bass, and 1 just-short hybrid striper.

This morning, Thursday, April 11, I fished with father and son team, Adam and Gabriel Lee from Troy, Texas, just outside the city of Temple.

My next open dates are: 16 & 24 April, and 03 May (AMs)

PHOTO CAPTION:  On one of the hundreds of drops Gabriel made to the bottom this morning, his lure stopped dead on bottom before he could crank it up through the white bass.  That’s because this 5.25-pound blue catfish had grabbed it!

With winds sufficiently high to ripple and move the water blowing prior to sunrise and high-pressure still building in, the situation was right for a good day on the water following several days of much more turbulent weather.

This morning‘s report is quite simple… Father and son caught white bass for four hours straight from but three locations using white, Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs when we first arrived at each area, then, once the fish began to turn off to the slabs, they used MAL Originals vertically with a smoking tactic to continue catching those fish which had begun to refuse a slab.

The locations these fish came from were all identical and that they were in 34 to 36 feet of water and on underwater slopes which faced into the direction of the northwest wind.

Despite the presence of many flocks of laughing gulls, I spotted no fish-related bird activity this morning .

As we wrapped up at 11:20 AM, Adam and Gabriel had landed exactly 166 fish, including 164 white bass, 1 hybrid striped bass, and a 5.25 pound blue catfish.

My next open dates are: 16 & 24 April, and 03 May (AMs)

After rounds of training rain storms yesterday which dropped over 5 inches of rain right on top of both Belton and Stillhouse, both reservoirs are now rapidly rising.

Belton rose over 2 feet in under 24 hours.  Despite this, the water was not as badly discolored as I thought it might be.

We got going around 7:20A. My plan was to fish any open areas I felt would hold fish early on, as the winds were forecast to be manageable (under 15 mph) through around 11 AM. After that, I was planning to seek the protection of the Leon River arm if need be, as the wind was blowing straight down the Cowhouse Creek arm.

That plan lasted all of about an hour when the northwest winds ramped up easily to 20 mph with higher gusts by 8:20.

My crew managed to land a handful of fish in open water before the winds picked up, and, if nothing else, got the hang of the Hazy Eye Slab using a smoking tactic during this first stop.

With the wind forcing a change of plans, we headed into more sheltered water and, to my surprise, we found fish rather easily, albeit at glued to the bottom in 32 to 36 feet of water.

These fish demonstrated the typical bottom-hugging behavior with a reluctance to chase and strike shortly after the novelty of our baits appearing among them wore off, as they often do when environmental conditions are not favorable.

Despite this reluctance, my crew of three was still able to catch fish consistently, mainly because the sheer numbers of fish we found created a bit of competition, and because the nearly ideal water temperature has fish active and occasionally suspended and patrolling for food.

We fished at four different areas after leaving open water, finding nearly identical scenarios at each.

Right at the four hour mark, the fish we were on had about given up and I was planning to make one more move before calling it a good morning.

Before moving, I checked weather radar and it clearly revealed an organized cell of thunderstorms from Gatesville up to the Granbury area all moving north. It appeared we were in the clear for quite some while to come.

Well, I’ll bet I had not moved the boat 100 yards before a light sprinkle materialized out of nowhere. That turned into rain, rain turned into a downpour, and the downpour included marble-sized hail. I had to turn the face of each of my sonar units toward the floor of the boat to keep them from getting pelted by the hail.

I surveyed the crew and we all agreed we were happy with the 51 fish they had landed, thus, we would make a run to the boat ramp as soon as the rain relented.

We finished up the morning with exactly 51 fish landed, including 4 drum and 47 white bass.

100% of our catch came using the slow-smoking tactic with the 5/8 oz. white, Bladed Hazy Eye Slab.