Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a ½ day trip today from 6:30a to 2:30p with Doug and Paul F. of Belton and Friendswood respectively. Doug is a doctor at one of our local hospitals and his dad, Paul, is retired from the airline industry. They had some good stories to tell, especially the one about the life raft! We launched pre-dawn and noted abundant shad in the shallows both in and around the boat ramp and in the shallows around Area 153.

The winds turned and stayed NE overnight. This morning was cool and damp with lows in the low 60’s, heavily overcast skies and a light and dying NE wind at 8-10.

Our first stop was at Area 153. I was hoping the few remaining birds on the lake would give some indication as to fish whereabouts, but most of the birds I saw (Bonaparte Gulls) were simply patrolling and not feeding. We boated one small white bass here on a Gulp! Shaky Shad and moved on with little showing on the surface and on sonar.

We headed to Area 147 where we covered some ground going several hundred yards to the N and S of this area with downriggers in while searching with sonar. There were dribs and drabs of fish here and there, but nothing worth stopping to slab for. We put an additional 8 fish in the boat on Pet Spoons and moved.

At Area 154 we found fairly abundant schools of white bass, all on bottom in 22 to 25 feet of water at the minor breakline there. Once a fish was hooked by a traditional slabbing approach, schoolmates would follow it up off the bottom and remain active for a few seconds allowing another 1 or 2 fish to be hooked, then the cycle would have to start over again. On a few occasions suspended schools of whites would cruise through and we were able to hook up on these with a smoking technique. We wound up with 27 fish at this location before things petered out when the winds went nearly flat.

We gave drifting with live shad a try in slightly deeper 28-30 foot water in the vicinity of Area 156 with drift path the the NW toward Area 153 . This yielded 3 whites and as many “hit and misses” from small whites that just stripped down the shad.

We then headed to Area 155 and tried the live shad up shallower. This yielded 2 more white bass and as many “hit and misses” from small whites. The fish we graphed and/or caught were all on the high spots here.

We made one final move at around 12:00 noon over to Area 151/152 and, in the middle of the day, in flat calm conditions, and on the heels of a cold front’s passage proceeded to catch 69 fish in the next 2 to 2 ½ hours. The best 3 fish were hybrids going 3 lbs, 3.25 lbs, and 5.5 lbs. The rest of the fish were a mix of whites of all sizes and ~13 inch hybrids. All of these fish came on my customized TNT180’s in ¾ oz. Fish were all tight to the bottom in 41-45 feet of water at first, but then began to suspend throughout the bottom 15 feet of the water column as we caught fish after fish and they began disgorging their stomach contents.

TALLY = 110 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing