Exciting Near-surface Fishing on Belton, 87 Fish, 26 March 2011






This morning I fished with Coach Mark E. and his 9 year old son, Ethan, and 6 year old daughter, Ellie. Mark serves as an Assistant Athletic Director with the Belton school district and came on a word-of-mouth referral from a co-worker, Ken S., who has had his boys out with me twice before (thank you, Ken!).


With rapidly warming water and the fishes’ metabolism increasing, heavy feeds at all levels in the water column are common. Here’s a screenshot from this morning’s trip.

Ellie boated our first keeper hybrid on a large swimbait this morning.

Not to be outdone by his little sister, Ethan boated our largest fish of the trip, this 5 1/8 pound, 21.75 inch hybrid taken on a TNT 180 slab in 3/4 oz. white.

I had a very good feeling about today’s trip as we had a cold front on the way in, but our fishing time would be influenced by pre-frontal south winds in advance of the wind shift and weather change.

We launched just prior to an obscured sunrise and did a little downrigging to pass the time between sunrise and the skies becoming bright enough to spur the fish on to feed and allow birds to see the bait being forced to the surface. We didn’t have to wait long today — at 7:54a I spotted the first bit of bird activity and it was “game on” from that time forward.

We began catching fish — a mix of 16-17 inch hybrid and keeper white bass — at Area 751. Ethan was very capable with spinning gear and was catching fish independently in the bow, while Mark and I worked with Ellie to cast for her (into the fish we saw boiling to ensure her success) while she retrieved. After both children had caught a number of fish, I then worked with Ellie one-on-one and quickly taught her how to cast with a spinning outfit. She was a quick learner and after just 2-3 so-so attempts, got all 6 cylinders firing and was casting and catching her own fish for the balance of the trip. The near-surface action here lasted for over an hour. All the while, fish were spread, albeit at a lesser density, between us and Area 298, as well as to the east of a line between Area 751 and Area 298 by about 150 yards.

When the action at Area 751 waned with the brightening of the sky, we eased out to the deeper water at Area 298 and, instead of fishing only for sub-surface fish, we smoked for those fish seen on sonar at mid-depth between the 42 foot bottom and the surface, and also used a “count down” technique to target those fish that were still sub-surface at 12 feet deep and shallower.

When this action died, we moved over to some obvious bird activity at Area 579 where we found mostly small white bass and juvenile hybrid. We used strictly a smoking technique for these fish as they were found only in the lower third of the water column in ~35 feet of water.

Finally, as some bird action was just developing in the vicinity of Area 561, we found fish right on the shallow end of the 24 to 32 foot breakline and, using a smoking technique, again encountered mostly smallish white bass along with juvenile hybrid and an occasional keeper white bass.

At exactly 10:23am, based on the calming wind, the brightening sky, and the rapid decrease in feeding activity we were experiencing, I looked back toward Mark and told him, “This is the beginning of the end.” By then, anything less than the intense fishing we’d already enjoyed was going to be anticlimactic, so, he wisely decided we’d call it a very good morning, and we ended on a great note right there with exactly 87 fish boated.

TALLY = 87 FISH, all caught and released


CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp: 70F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~67F

Wind: Winds were S6 and stayed that way until around 10:30 when they tapered to light and variable for the mid-day period.

Skies: Skies were mostly cloudy at 70-80% at sunrise, slowly clearing to ~20% cloudy by trip’s end.








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