This morning I fished with brothers Zach (10 years old) and Jessie (15 years old), the sons of Lindsey and Toby W., recent transplants from Ft. Worth to Belton.
Keeper hybrid were hard to come by today, but, we had some very memorable early morning topwater action and some mid-morning mixed-bag angling to enjoy thereafter.
Zach and his cousin Reese fished with me last Monday on Stillhouse and he just got bit by the fishing bug. He went out on two occasions on his own to Belton with his last trip resulting in just one small catfish, so, he was ready to get back on them and put some fish in the boat. His mom and brother were only too happy to support that cause, and we all had a good time out on the water trying to stay on the fish this morning.
Things got off to a great start as we spotted some light topwater action just before sunrise at Area 016/147. We used some small soft plastics and then transitioned to Spook Jr.’s as the action got more aggressive. None of the the 3 had a lot of experience with spinning gear, so, there were the normal learning curves to go through, but, the practice we did on the dock before starting our trip really paid off and all 3 were able to boat multiple fish before the bright July sun sent them swimming for the depths. We boated 23 fish from this schooling action before things died, all in about the first 45 minutes of our trip.
By comparison, the remainder of our trip would only see 17 more fish come over the side, so, this was our “WOOF” of a start, heading for a bit of a “whimper” of a finish.
After the topwater died, things got a bit quiet as we never did have a good breeze develop to move the water around and stir things up.
We downrigged and consistently put short hybrid and average white bass in the boat using a tandem rig equipped with doctored Pet Spoons. This action took place at both Area 844/846 and nearby Area 838/214, but not in between the two. We landed 4 white bass, 1 keeper hybrid and 2 short hybrid here.
When things went soft we moved over to Area 1106 and charted some scattered, suspended fish here. We got live shad down for the first time of the morning here and immediately got the blue cat stirred up. We wound up landing 1 short hybrid, 1 keeper largemouth, and 3 blue cat here before moving on.
We did some looking and failed to find much at 3-4 different locations, and finally came to rest in the vicinity of Area 154/155 where we once again put live baits down. We boated 3 more blue cat and 2 more white bass here. It was now 11:45 and the sun was letting us know it was a force to be reckoned with. We decided to call it a great day right there with both boys having landed fish larger than they’d ever caught before and mom glad for the time she had to spend with her sons while school and work schedules allowed.
TALLY = 40 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 11:45a
Air Temp: 71F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 86.3F
Wind: S3-4.
Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.