Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle
Trip conditions:
Trip duration: 6:00a to 8:45p
Air temp: 65F at launch time
Surface temp: 71.8F
Wind: WNW breeze at 9 at sunrise (obscured) with heavily overcast skies just shy of drizzling, slowly building to 17mph with slowly clearing skies, then a slackening in the wind near noon with clearing skies. Skies stayed clear and the air comfortable and dry for the remainder of the day.
Fished from 6a to 3p with LTC Greg D. of Killeen. Greg is headed to Saudi on Sunday and this was his “last hoorah” fishing trip before heading out. As I awaited his arrival, I observed gamefish crashing the abundant spawning threadfish shad against the shoreline and caught a white and a hybrid on a white blade bait from out of this fray.
Once Greg arrived, our day got off to a quick start with 4 solid white bass landed on live shad in the vicinity of Area 133, directly off the ramp. As soon as good seeing light came up, these fish disappeared. I hoped for birds to point the way to some topwater action but found none.
We struggled for a while to contact fish, but then managed to get into a small school of whites and small hybrids along the slope at Area 174. This was short-lived and so we moved after boating only 4 more fish here.
Headed to Area 155 and picked up 92 fish just a few yards to the S. of the actual waypoint here including white bass of all sizes and some 13-15 inch hybrids. These fish came by a combination of slabbing, easing, or smoking. Keeping the action going was the key to success. Any pause put the fish off and the process of getting them teased up had to start all over again.
After hitting the 100 fish mark, we agreed to focus just on hybrids with live shad. This was a tall order as the winds were now high and the sky bright and clear. We checked a number of quality locations, and, upon checking Area 169, found primarily deep largemouth bass including quality fish. We opted to rock back and forth over the area with me working the trolling motor and Greg working the rods. We ended up with a total of 11 black bass and 1 sunfish (which was subsequently used for bait to catch the largest bass of the day, a 7.00 pound fish – Greg’s personal best!). Greg also landed a 5.00 pound largemouth on live shad.
We concluded the trip round 3 p with 112 fish caught when the action at this area dried up. Although we did catch hybrids, none were of legal size during this morning trip.
After dropping Greg off at the boat ramp, I headed to Area 170 to attempt to net shad for an upcoming trip. I found abundant gizzard shad suspended at 11-14 feet over 22 feet in this area and put 45 in the tank and a dozen more to experiment with myself.
From here, I headed to Area 171 and marked fish, individually and tight to bottom in 23-26 feet of water. Caught 8 consecutive keeper hybrid here in the next hour with a single downline used in conjunction with sonar. These fish went 8.25 pounds (24 7/8 inches), 6.00 pounds, 6.00 pounds, 5.75 pounds, 5.00 pound, 3.75 pounds, 3.50 pounds, and 3.00 pounds. Every one had a moderately full belly and all were healthy. Also put 3 whites in the boat here on live shad. I noted that another angler positioned over the transition area at Area 172 was also doing well on white bass and smaller hybrids fishing with artificials.
When it got within an hour of sunset, schools of surface feeding whites were regularly observed. I first used a popping cork with a Polished Chicken fly behind it, but was regularly having the popping cork struck at and so up sized to a Jr. Spook in clear. This did bring the average size up a bit. By the time the surface action died I had managed 26 fish.
TALLY = 151 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