This past Tuesday evening, I fished the first of 3 half-day trips on Belton Lake with Steve Dinnell and his friend, James Murdock. Both are retirees and fishing buddies who have traveled far and wide to fish in both saltwater and fresh.

Steve drew first blood on the hybrids on Wednesday evening as a blended school of white bass and hybrid striper began pushing shad to the top and then sounded.  We went to where they were, found them still nearby with sonar, and then worked slabs through them vertically to put a bunch of fish in the boat in short order.

On Thursday morning, before the sun rose, we had live shad in the water in pursuit of hybrid.  Although we found a few, we kept having bluecat move in on our baits.  Most were small — this one wasn’t!

Thursday evening we set out again with live shad gunning for hybrid.  On a rocky hump in about 27 feet of water we found this smallmouth eager to chase down our large live baits.

Not much for having his photo taken, James also caught some nice fish this trip.  This hybrid, taken on live shad, was the last fish in the boat of these fellows’ 2-day excursion.

Under hot, bright, still conditions, fishing was tough this afternoon from 4 to 6 PM as we primarily used downriggers to catch smaller, suspended white bass.

Around 6 PM as the sun’s intensity lessened, and some light cloud cover moved in, the fish began to slowly perk up in advance of an aggressive top water feed at low light after sunset.

When I began to see fish in the lower third of the water column begin to coalesce and position 2 to 6 feet up off bottom, I knew things were about to happen.  For about 1/2 hour, we made pass after pass with the downriggers and caught singles and doubles of white bass that fell hard for our Pet Spoons.

Around 6:40 PM, the first sustained top water action took place when a large school of white bass mixed with short hybrids broke the surface and stayed there for several minutes.  For about 20 minutes we “spot hopped” from school to school and smoked with slabs over these fish quite successfully.

Eventually, schooling action that began here and there, turned into sustained, nonstop schooling action up shallower, allowing us to hop up onto the front casting deck and work soft plastics through these fish allowing Steve and James to put a final 36 fish in the boat between 7:20 and 7:50 PM.

As we closed the evening out, our tally stood at 86 fish.

Trip #2 on Thursday morning began slowly as we fished with live shad gunning for hybrid.  We caught only a handful of fish through 9:45am (including a big blue cat, shown in the report photos) when the lightest of breezes and a bit of spotty cloud cover turned the fish on.  We wound up boating 116 fish that morning, primarily sight casting to surface feeding white bass, or using a countdown method to fish where they were last seen.

Trip #3 on Thursday evening was, by request, specifically focused on hybrid stripers using live bait.  Because we fished long in the morning (and still left the fish biting!!), the fellows wanted to shorten the evening trip.  So, we met at 5p instead of 4p, and only fished until 7:15p after both had accomplished their goal of landing hybrid stripers on the live shad.  Along the way, we also put 1 largemouth, 1 smallmouth, 1 drum, and 1 bluecat in the boat.

 

TALLY = 216 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time:  Trip 1 –  4:00p; Trip 2 – 6:30a; Trip 3 – 5:00p

End Time:  Trip 1 –  8:00p; Trip 2 – 11:40a; Trip 3 – 7:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: Trip 1 –  94F; Trip 2 – 75F; Trip 3 – 91F

Water Surface Temp:  Trip 1 –  86F; Trip 2 – 85.4F; Trip 3 – 86F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Trip 1 –  SE1-3; Trip 2 – SSE5-7; Trip 3 SSE 6-8

Sky Conditions: <20% cloud cover on all trips

Water Level: ~0.06 feet low.  Lake is slightly below full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 90

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS TRIP 2:

**Area 327-211 – topwater white bass and subsequent countdown method

**Area 1360-1811 – topwater white bass and subsequent countdown method

**Area 1629-1757 – topwater white bass and subsequent countdown method

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS TRIP 3:

**Area 156/1068 – hybrid and bluecat on shad

**Area 486 – largemouth and smallmouth on shad

**Area 1808 – whites and hybrid on shad

**Area 1129 – whites and hybrid on shad

 

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