This past Thursday, June 2nd, I fished both a morning and an evening trip on Lake Belton. The morning was spent was Will Almond of Kempner, TX, and David Ross of Salado, TX. These fellows became friends while working as pharmacists for HEB.
David Ross with a nice 4.25 pound Belton Lake hybrid striper caught on live shad at mid-morning in about 40 feet of water.
Will Almond with one of many hybrid stripers we took off the windward side of a breakline in 40 feet of water. Short hybrid and white bass were also mixed in with the bruisers.
These two Thursday trips would wind up being the last two trips I would fish on Belton for some time to come, as rising flood water forced closure of all of the lakes Corps of Engineers ramps the following day.
For the time being, I’ll be relocating my efforts down to Lake Walter E. Long (formerly known as Decker Lake), near the Austin-Bergstrom Airport and Travis County Convention Center. This “hot water” power plant lake fishes well for white bass, hybrid striper, sunfish, and largemouth bass.
As Will, David and I got going on Thursday, we knew we would be interrupted by thunderstorms at some point, as the low pressure system that had already dropped so much rain would sit right over central Texas and swirl storm cells over us in a counter-clockwise, hurricane-like fashion.
The two were just happy to leave the work-a-day world behind for a few hours, regardless of the conditions, so, off we went.
During our first hour on the water, we encountered some light topwater feeding activity with white bass and a few small largemouth pushing young of the year shad to the surface. Having see the same thing happen around this time on Tuesday’s trip, this morning I came equipped with popping cork rigs specifically intended for this sort of fishing. Fortunately, both fellow could cast both far and accurately, and they capitalized on this scenario, putting 21 fish in the boat before our first encounter with weather.
Long story short, we simply rode out a thunder-and-lightning laced deluge of rain for about 70 minutes just pulled up onto a bank in a steep sided cove so as not to be the high point for lightning to find. We kept an eye on the weather radar app on my smartphone, and, when the radar and absence of lightning indicated all was well, we got right back to fishing (in the rain).
We hit a hump topping out at 25 feet and boated a blue cat and 2 white bass on slabs with a few more white bass and short hybrid on live shad before that area played out.
About this time, a bit of a wind from the SSE developed, so I moved us so as to fish on several underwater features being impacted by this wind.
From this point on we used live shad of all sizes to put an additional 20 fish in the boat including white bass, legal-sized hybrid stripers, and short hybrid, as well.
As we headed back in, I looked for an opportunity to demonstrate how the pair of #Cannon downriggers I have work, as the fellows had express curiosity about them. I found a tightly schooled bunch of white bass on sonar in about 22 feet of water as we headed back to the boat ramp, so, we U-turned, dropped the downrigging gear in, and plucked one white bass out of the pack with a 3-armed umbrella rig equipped with Pet Spoons.
I extended the trip to ensure we fished well beyond the 4-hours that the fellows had paid for, and ended up our day around 1:30p with 53 fish boated.
TALLY = 53 fish, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00a
End Time: 1:30p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 71F
Water Surface Temp: 75-76F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSW9-10
Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover with rain through 9:45a, then slowly clearing to 40% white clouds on a blue sky by trip’s end
Water Level: ~11 feet above full pool with no release of water currently ongoing due to flooding in the lower Brazos River near Houston and Bryan.
GT = 95
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1756 and the coves to the N and S of this point — topwater whites on popping rig
**Area 1632 – slab and shad for whites, hybrid, and a bluecat
**Area 1636/1622 hybrid on live shad
**Area 618/1666 hybrid on live shad
**1634 – downrigging demo for 1 white bass
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
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