28 JULY 2008






Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a full-day trip on Belton today with Brandon H. of Ft. Hood, and his dad and younger brother, both of Vincennes, Indiana. I fished with these fellows for the morning trip only, and then continued fishing in the afternoon to get a feel for how the evening bite was doing since I hadn’t been on Belton in the evening for a while.

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 9:00p

Air Temp: 75F at trip’s start, warming to 102F by mid afternoon

Water Temp: 83.5F to 86.5F

Wind: SSE at 7 by sunrise, increasing to 12-14 by afternoon, and tapering back to 10 by sunset and thereafter.

Skies: Fair skies all day with the slow breakdown of strong high pressure.

No sooner did I get all 3 men on board and cover safety issues and the plan for the day, then I started glassing the surface and saw a school of hybrids feeding in the vicinity of Area 009. We shot over there but the fish sounded by the time we got close and, to my surprise, we couldn’t graph any bait anywhere near that action. So, we tackled up with the downriggers and trolled a lazy pattern from Area 009 to Area 024 watching sonar and the surface the entire time, but seeing little.

We than headed over to Area 153, but again, little was showing on sonar, and, after a few trial casts with a blade bait, we headed elsewhere.

We pulled up on Area 174 and found schooled fish here at ~25 feet deep on the slope. I buoyed these fish and we proceeded to slab and smoke putting 14 fish in the boat including whites, largemouth, and drum. After about 40 minutes this played out.

We headed to Area 210 and, from a distance with the light just right, could see light surface activity in the area. We slowly motored in started off fishing topwater by throwing at boils. We landed several largemouth with the largest weighing in at 3.75 pounds; we landed 2 smallmouth with the largest going 3 pounds, and we landed several 13-14 inch white bass. Once this topwater completely died, we continued to see gamefish and bait on sonar, so we geared up with downriggers and went to town catching white bass after white bass until around 12:30pm, when the action began to taper off. The blue and silver Lunker Licker and the chartreuse and silver Lunker Licker did the best of the several baits we tried, as they imitated the 3-4 inch shad which seemed most prevalent in the area. At one point, from 12:00 to 12:30, the whites were so consistently located in one area that we stopped downrigging and began smoking for them. We landed 4 whites, a drum and a largemouth that way. We wrapped up the morning trip with exactly 50 fish caught and released.


Spent a little while between morning and evening trips with Keith W. of Belton. We were chatting at the ramp and spotted some topwater and just couldn’t leave it alone. We spotted 5 different schools of whites, but they stayed up for just seconds and couldn’t be approached. We netted some bait in preparation for the evening trip and I headed out.

In the afternoon, I started the search in the vicinity of Area 192; we identified suspended schools of white bass holding in a narrow band at 23 to 26 feet deep over a deeper bottom. This begged for a downrigging approach and that’s what we when with. We started with the same twin Lunker Licker setup that had done well in the morning. The fishing was pretty simple once we found the fish. After boating 14 whites, I headed out with the fish still biting here to look for additional productive areas.

From 5:15 to 7:30 was a very slow time with only 2 largemouth and a channel cat coming on a blade bait I was throwing as a search bait for white bass. I tightlined live bait in the vicinity of Area 171 and to the SE toward the cove on the S. shore, but nothing even got a look.

Finally, things started happening near sundown. We headed to the vicinity of Area 171 and began fishing in 26 feet of water after seeing a small school of whites hanging just off bottom on the slope here. We slowly moved shallower as the light faded, finding fish for a few minutes at each step along the way: 26 feet, 22 fett, 14 feet, and finally in 8 feet of water. When all was said and done, we added 17 fish to the tally at this area.


TALLY= 84 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