Cloud Cover and Topwater Went Hand-in-Hand — 59 Fish, Belton Lake

This past Saturday afternoon, June 25th, I fished Lake Belton with father-and-son team Jamie and Brennen Kidwell of Harker Heights, Texas.

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From left: Jamie and Brennen Kidwell — the blue cats were “cattin’ around” during the early evening and took a liking to our live and cut baits.  We found a large, suspended school of these rascals up to 5 pounds off a blunt point in about 22′ of water.

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And then the hybrid stripers and white bass went ballistic for about 60 minutes during a pre-sunset topwater feed.

This trip was kind of a spur of the moment thing, as Brennen will be traveling much of the summer. Given that good old dad still has to go to work each day at the Copperas Cove post office, he decided to do a little something with his son before Brennen’s departure.

We set our meeting time for 4:45 PM. Anticipating nothing short of a zoo at the Belton Park boat ramp, I headed over there at 3 PM to make sure I arrived in a timely fashion to meet these fellows. When I arrived my expectations were fully realized. It was truly a zoo. Regardless, I got launched and was afloat and waiting by the time the fellows arrived.

As is often the case on afternoon trips, the first hour was fairly slow. We picked up only two white bass on downriggers in the first 45 minutes.

I moved us off of a point and saw bait and gamefish holding at about 22 feet over deeper water. Hopeful that these were hybrid striper, I got us set up in a hover over top of these fish using the Ulterra’s i-Pilot feature, and we then got baits suspended just above these suspended fish. The response was nearly instantaneous, but the results were not as expected. As it turned out, this school of fish was not made up of hybrid stripers, it was blue catfish — some up to 5 pounds. Knowing that the time up until around 6:30pm is typically soft fishing this time of year, I kept us on top of these fish knowing that catfish action, especially with quality sized fish, was better than the alternative of picking at fewer white bass using downriggers. So, we stayed over top of these blue catfish until right at 6:30.

At 6:30 I moved us to an area that has been producing hybrid striper both morning and evening consistently for the past several weeks. As I idled over this area slowly while at the same time studying sonar, it was clear that fish were holding at 25 to 26 feet deep over a deeper bottom. Once again, we went with live baits suspended just above these suspended fish, and once again had nearly instantaneous results. We landed a trio of hybrid stripers right off the bat, and then continued to land one at a time over the next roughly 40 minutes. When the action here slowed, I began preparing to move us, and as I brought in the trolling motor and the slap of the waves on the hull ceased as we begin to drift, I heard a most welcome sound. It was the sound of white bass and hybrid striper aggressively chasing young of the year shad across the surface. Top water action had been going well right up until the several days before the full moon, but has been nonexistent up until today ever since the time of the full moon and the several days thereafter.

We finished up our trip with a full hour’s worth of topwater action casting cork rigs with hand tied flies to white bass in the 1 to 2 year class and mainly two- and three-year class hybrid stripers.

We ended up this afternoon’s trip with 59 fish.

TALLY = 59 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:45p

End Time:  8:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 89F

Water Surface Temp:  83.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSE7-8 the entire trip.

Sky Conditions:  A nice, thin, grey cloud layer kept the direct sun from beaming on us for the entire duration of this evening’s trip.

Water Level: ~24+  feet above full pool with a release of 5,744 cfs ongoing.  Lake is still rising due to even heavier flows out of Lake Proctor upstream from Belton.

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1760-1769   –  downrigging for smaller fish early

** Area 1770 – suspended bluecats for ~ 1 hour

**Area 1763  – live shad fished for suspended fish for ~1 hour ; mainly keeper hybrid

**Area 1641 and up toward the flooded shoreline – topwater action for last hour under grey, humid conditions

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

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