Fished a short evening trip on Belton with both my mom, Charlotte, and my brother, Andy, visiting from Kentucky.

Andy M. landed his first hybrid ever on this post-frontal Lake Belton evening trip.

Start Time: 5:30p

End Time: 8:55p

Air Temp: 93F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85-86F

Wind: Winds were NE at 8-11 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies had cleared following the passing of a mild cold front earlier today.

Given we were facing post-frontal conditions with bright skies, I anticipated the fish would be sluggish, and, indeed we found a lot more fish than we did active fish. Fish that, based on their posture, I would normally expect to strike often did not react at all to our presentations. I went with a downrigging approach so as to get some baits in front of a lot of fish hoping to trigger a few. We enjoyed some initial success putting a total of 17 fish in the boat in the first 70 minutes. This included 1 small largemouth, 2 short hybrids (including the first hybrid Andy had ever landed), and 14 white bass of all sizes. By 6:45p things had gone quiet. The best producing areas were from Area 483 and to the NE and from Area 181 north, out over the deep trough.

We moved on and checked a few areas without seeing much notable on sonar. At Area 478 I graphed a school of white bass in about 31 feet relating to a sloped bottom. We hovered and jigged over these fish and pulled 1 white bass, 1 drum, and missed a largemouth.

By 7:30, things were pretty quiet. I’ve seen oftentimes in the summer when a late afternoon bite is on, and then dies, that a good sunset feed often ensues. I was hoping we’d see this, but wondered if the NE wind and frontal situation was going to mess this up.

We pressed on, looking with sonar in the vicinity of Area 147 and found, around 8:00p, fish beginning to school up, rise up in the water column, and move slowly shallower. These fish first appeared over 31 feet, and gradually moved up as shallow as 11 feet by sunset. I just kept an eye on sonar and once the fish got shallower than 15-17 feet, we put up the downriggers and began fancasting blades and connecting regularly. We boated 5 fish in quick succession on the ‘riggers here. Just after sunset we witnessed some very light topwater over a 120 yard span with fish averaging 11 inches out of this school. We boated exactly 20 more fish in the last 15 minutes of the day — an exciting end to a trip that was a bit slow in the wake of a mild change of weather.

TALLY = 44 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