Fished a “split trip” today with Matt. W. of the Austin area. Matt had an earnest desire to improve his consistency on his home waters of Georgetown Lake and Lake Austin and fished with me to learn my approach to ferreting out fish and to pick my brain on a number of topics. Matt came with an open mind and was ready to learn, not to demonstrate what he’d learned already, and that made a huge difference in what I could help him with.
MATT WITH A SHAD-CAUGHT BELTON HYBRID
Start/End Time: 6:30a-1:15p, and 6:00p – 8:15p
Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start climbing into the low 80’s
Water Surface Temp: ~73-74F
Wind: Winds were SE at ~7-9 until around 10:30a, then went SSW at 9-12 until around 1p, then stayed SE at 9-11 the remainder of the day.
Skies: Skies were mostly cloudy through mid afternoon, then went partly cloudy with some direct sun breaking through.
Our split trip took place in the morning on Stillhouse and in the evening on Belton.
On Stillhouse we encountered success at between Areas 007 and 217 finding light topwater feeding by whites and largemouth over open water. These fish were preying upon shad fry. Accurate, gently worked casts with the Cork Rig did the trick for 8 fish. This action was fairly short-lived.
We then found some rock-oriented largemouth at Area 433 and fished these with a jigworm. We boated 4 fish here, and had 2 more hooked and missed on the jump.
We then encountered a bit of a lull but the fish perked up as soon as the SE wind went SW. As this happened, I moved us to Area 429 / 430 and we immediately got into heavily schooled white bass congregated on bottom in 25-34′. Over the next 2 1/2 hours we stayed on these fish and, using the TNT 180 3/8 oz. slab, jigged up 115 fishing including mainly white bass with several largemouth thrown in, in addition to crappie and drum. By 1:15 the wind was swinging back out of the SE and the action diminished.
Before our evening trip I netted live shad. There were abundant, large gizzards found from Area 170 to Area 435. I typically got 2-5 shad per throw.
At 6p we met again at Belton Lake. I anticipated a weak bite tonight due to the late hour at with the morning feed ended and the fact that the SE wind hadn’t let up.
We headed to Area 163 and found semi-active fish on and just off bottom in ~24-26′ of water. I hooked the first fish — and then lost it at the boat — a hybrid of about 5-6 pounds.
We then managed 11 whites and 1 hybrid on the slab and 2 hybrids and 1 white on live gizzard shad. The largest fish of the night was a sweet 5.75 pound hybrid that Matt hit on the live shad.
As sunset came, we did not find any surface feeding fish as I hoped we might.
TALLY = 142 FISH
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