Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a half-day morning trip with Keith W. of Belton and Lance B. of Pflugerville.

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:10a

End Time: 1:50p

Air Temp: 69F pre-dawn climbing to 89 by trip’s end

Water Temp: 78.4F

Wind: SSE at 12-15

Skies: Bright and partly cloudy

We began the day with a tank full of shad intended for hybrid fishing later in the morning and headed out to look for surface feeding white bass prior to sunrise. What had been a fairly consistent bite never materialized this morning despite decent conditions. While hovering in the vicinity of Area 178 we did pick up a single white off bottom on a slab and a smallmouth on a topwater hardbait.

After this we spot-hopped adding 4 more fish to the tally here and there until finally getting into a fair concentration of fish between Areas 154 & 155. Here we caught a mix of white bass and short hybrids all on slabs. The fish here seemed to be patrolling back and forth along the 28-32 foot breakline. Always before schools of fish appeared, schools of shad preceded them. We used primarily a smoking retrieve to boat 13 fish in this locale.

We did a little more spot hopping and struck out a 2 areas before locating fish once again in Area 188. We found a mix of largemouth bass and decent white bass in this area, as well as a stray channel cat. Most were suspended but rather inactive given that positioning in the water column. We used a smoking technique to catch as many as we could until they began to ignore that presentation, and then switched over to live shad and continued to catch fish up until around 11:15a. We rolled the dice and decided to leave fish to find (hopefully) bigger fish in the form of hybrids, and departed this area with the tally standing at 46 fish.

We tried Areas 151 and 152 and the general vicinity around them for hybrid but didn’t see much in the way of bait or fish here and departed. We made our final stop in the vicinity of Areas 98 to 187 and finally did get into a few hybrid tight to bottom in 41-45 feet of water. We caught a total of 5 fish, 3 of which were keepers with the largest going 4.5 pounds.

After a brief lesson on downrigging at Lance’s request, we wrapped up the day. The tally stood at 51 fish, and every last one of those was worked for. Kind of a tough but rewarding day.

TALLY= 51 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