I fished with Englishman Richard H. today, originally from Sheffield, U.K., and his son, Alec. I suppose, then, that I could blame the London fog we had shrouding us the first two hours of the day on these chaps! Indeed, I’ve never in 18 years fishing on Belton and Stillhouse found fish feeding aggressively during foggy conditions and today was no exception. We struggled to boat just 4 fish in the first 2 hours of the day downrigging between Areas 502 and 509, and near Area 133. However, by around 9:30 things started “looking brighter” literally and figuratively.

Alec boated this 1.50 pound, 14 7/8 inch white bass to clinch the Jr. Angler lake record for Belton Lake, previously set in August of 2008 (1.28 pounds)

Not to be outdone, Richard landed our largest fish of the day, a nice 3.75 pound hybrid that fell for a TNT 180 in the 3/4 oz. size.

Around this time, we headed to Area 551 to 132 and looked along the long east-west breakline here separating 20 foot water from 30 foot water. Sonar showed some interesting signs on bottom near Area 132, so we hovered in this general area and began to pick up fish with a jigging approach. Soon, we began to see action on top (BA: 20HG) and the action ramped up, peaked, and tailed off over a 75 minute period. During this time, we primarily used a smoking technique with both 3/4 and 3/8 oz. TNT 180 slabs to boat 61 fish including a 3.75 pound hybrid striped bass landed by Richard, and a pending new Junior Angler Belton Lake record white bass landed by Alec. It tipped the scales at 1.50 pounds on a certified Boga Grip and measured 14 7/8 inches (mouth shut, tail pinched as required by TPWD). When the smoking tactic cooled off, we jigged, and when the jigging tailed off, the bite was over in this locale so we continued the search.

I looked over one deepwater area, but this entire week deepwater has just not been holding fish. Most all action I’ve found all week has been in 27 feet or less.

We headed to the vicinity of Area 689 and were blessed to discover some topwater action taking place here, too (BA: 5 HG) with fish chasing shad ~3 inches or more in length to the surface and popping at them. These fish were, on average, a bit smaller (~11 inches or so) than we’d found previously, but hit better on the larger 3/4 oz. TNT 180 as it did a better job of imitating the bait they were feeding upon.

By the time this brief flurry had come to a close, we’d boated an additional 18 fish for our efforts. It was now around 11:30 and I didn’t hold much hope that we’d see any more action from this point through midday, so we called it a great morning with 83 fish boated including the new lake record, and headed back to the dock.

TALLY = 83 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:05a

End Time: 11:30a

Air Temp: 58F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~62.9F

Wind: Winds were S at 7 at sunrise, increasing to S11 for the remainder of the trip.

Skies: Skies were foggy until around 9:15, then went 80% cloudy.

Following this morning’s fishing trip which concluded around 11:30am, I came off the water and awaited the arrival of my guests for this afternoon’s trip, Mr. Mike B. of Ft. Worth, and his children, Bailey and Blaine. I peeled out of several layers of clothes as the afternoon warmed, broke open my cooler and had some cold, leftover pizza and some green tea to wash it all down with.

Mike and the kids were due in around 2pm, so, I thought I might catch a quick catnap before they arrived. I left the boat tied up at the courtesy dock, the windows rolled down in the truck and fell asleep in the otherwise vacant parking lot. I drifted off only to be awoken at 1:15 by the one-note screech of a distant lone seagull (perhaps only a fishing guide would be tuned into this in his subconscious). I got out my spotting scope and watched as one bird turned into three, as three turned into eight and then as several began to dive to the surface of the water to feed. All of the sudden I went from drowsy to full-throttle. I hustled down to the boat, cranked up, got sonar pinging, made a beeline to the birds, marked fish and got a buoy on top of them. I worked a slab over these fish vertically and also cast out horizontally to try to get an idea of how large the school of fish was, boating 5 white bass and a hybrid striper in the process. I was then hoping that these fish wouldn’t turn off before Mike and the kids arrived. It was now 1:40. Again I was blessed today to look up and see at that moment Mike’s SUV pulling in the parking lot early!! I raced back to the courtesy dock, did a hasty introduction, explained the urgency of the situation and got us back out on top of the buoy and the fish to “make hay while the sun shone”.

Ya’ think he might be happy about that bass he just caught??

Bailey and Blaine with a few of their prized catch taken just after sunset.

Fortunately, the kids had been fishing before, including making a saltwater excursion for some inshore fishing in Florida, so, they both knew how to handle a spinning reel. Long story short, in 1 hour and 40 minutes spent over top of these fish, Bailey and Blaine boated 39 fish including white bass, hybrid striped bass, and largemouth bass, all using 3/4 oz. TNT 180 slabs. All of these fish came via a smoking retrieve from between Areas 676 and 473.

Once things got quiet, we moved on to Area 475 finding little and boating only 2 short hybrid here.

After that, we moved on down to Area 097 and spotted some topwater action (BA: 7HG) and got on top of some fish in 17-19 feet of water. We boated 8 fish here during a brief feed. The topwater action moved further and further west and into shallower and shallower water and we followed right along. By trip’s end the kids were throwing light Rattlin’ Raps and blade baits into 2-9 feet of water for whites and small hybrid up in pretty skinny water out from Area 607 and boated a final 4 more fish here to cap the evening off with 53 fish boated during the trip, not including the 6 I boated while waiting on my guests to arrive.

As the light began to fail, we snapped a few photos of dad and the kids near the waterfall and headed back to the dock.

TALLY = 59 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 1:40p

End Time: 5:35p

Air Temp: 70F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~62.9F

Wind: Winds were S11 for entirety of the trip.

Skies: Skies were about 50% cloudy the entire time.