Chummily Chumming with her Best Chum, 57 Fish, Belton Lake Fishing Guide Report, 07 May 2012






I had a great time on the water this morning with a very nice married couple, Matt and Sarah S. of Austin. Sarah contacted me some time ago and got a gift certificate from me for Matt’s 37th birthday and today both enjoyed a day together, away from the workplace, and one which provided 3 solid hours of action.


Sarah insisted that I take this photo for reasons that all of you male readers with a competitive spouse will understand.

This hybrid of Matt’s was par for the course today. Plenty of fish, but on the smaller size so far as the hybrid were concerned. This one came early on a Cork Rig.

Once again the shad showed up right on que here in the 6th week of the shad spawn. I can’t believe this will go much longer, but, we’re still making hay while the sun shines. I netted an ample amount of bait with little effort and was ready to go for our 6:45am trip start time.

First, I assessed where both Matt and Sarah were in their casting abilities and got both to where they’d need to be for the early morning topwater action I’d hope to find. Matt’s casting was just fine, so, I only needed to show him how to work the Cork Rig I prefer in these conditions. Sarah was starting from scratch with spinning gear, but only needed 6-7 practice casts before she was throwing accurately enough and far enough for what I anticipated we’d encounter.

About 15 minutes after sunrise the first “early risers” started popping shad on the surface at Area 155, this action would evolve and trend WNW over the course of the next 3 hours, eventually ending at Area 1080, with fish lingering significantly at Areas 180 and 1078 along the way.

The topwater fishing was very exciting as gamefish chased shad, herons chased gamefish, gulls chased anything they could get their beaks on, and the sights and sounds of it all were up close and continuous. As is often the case, the fish taken on top trended a bit smaller than the fish we’d find suspended beneath once the action settled and we got some live baits in the water. Our catch was a 50/50 mix of white bass and short hybrid striped bass on the Cork Rigs. Toward the end of the topwater feed, as we witnessed the fish willing to strike the cork on the front end of the cork rig, I switched Matt over to a Spook Jr. and he did equally well on that.

By ~9:00 the topwater was tapering off, so, we switched over to fishing live shad and targeted groups of fish that had broken off from the fast-moving main body of generally smaller fish.

The switch to shad definitely upped our take of hybrid over white bass and the hybrid we caught were generally larger than the hybrid taken on topwater but keepers (18″ or greater) were in short supply. At Area 1080 we found a band of hybrid right at 28-30 feet deep over a deeper bottom and did best here before even this suspended, deep bite began to weaken.

Along the way we also picked up a freshwater drum and a largemouth with one other largemouth lost just at boatside as I got tied up netting one fish and couldn’t quite get to the other in time before it jumped at boatside and got off the hook.

Every trip has a little something that stands out in my memory. On this outing, I’ll simply state that Sarah was “taken” with the art of chumming and managed to tie this time-honored fishing tactic to an amusing play-on-words-game which Matt kept rather tight-lipped about. And that’s really all that needs to be said about that 😉

In all, we boated 57 fish this morning, with the last 45 minutes from 10a to 10:45a yielding nothing as the skies brightened, the wind died, and the fish turned off completely.

TALLY = 57 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 10:45noon

Air Temp: 71F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 74F

Wind: Winds were SSE6 at sunrise, tapering to calm by the end of the trip.

Skies: Skies were hazy at sunrise, gradually clearing to fair by trip’s end.

Environmental Note: The elevation dipped .02 inches below full pool with a slow release of 95 cfs still underway.