This past Wednesday morning, November 30th, I fished a 1/2 day morning trip on Lake Belton with Dr. Jim Wood. Our focus was primarily on white bass with a few bonus hybrid striper thrown in for excitement.
Our best action this morning came in the first 2 hours, with fish activity slowly tapering down to nil by around 11am as the high winds of the morning plateaued and began to moderate by this time. The time to be out there was when it was really blowing.
Jim has been a medical doctor for many years now and currently serves patients each week in both Harker Heights and out in Lampasas. Wednesdays are his days off, and he chose to spend this one out with me.
A mild, dry cold front began moving into central Texas during the early morning hours. As we launched right at 7 AM, the winds were blowing 14 to 17 mph from the north northwest, with clear, cool, dry conditions prevailing. The ambient temperature was 51F and only rose to 58F by the time our trip concluded. We watched two boats that launched at the same time we did turn around and head to the house after leaving the protection of the launch area and seeing the swell and waves that faced them.
Spurred on by the incoming, dry cold front, approximately 80 ring billed gulls were actively pursuing shad pushed to the surface by aggressively feeding gamefish for approximately two hours. We had a few options, given how aggressive and abundant the fish were. The first option was to throw a blade baits for numbers of smaller fish – – mainly white bass, and the other option was to throw a larger swim bait to select for hybrid stripers. Jim leaned towards steady action and stuck with the bladebaits.
After the aggressive action under birds concluded, the fish moved out to slightly deeper water and grouped up heavily, thus making them vulnerable to a vertical jigging approach. For this work, we used Hazy Eye Shad tandem rigs anchored with ¾ oz. slabs. We made two short hops on top of such congregated fish before the bite in this vicinity died altogether. At this point, our tally stood at 49 fish landed.
We changed locations right around 10 AM, heading to the same area where we encountered fish under birds yesterday between approximately 10 and 11 AM. Although the quantity of birds we encountered yesterday was not to be found, a few helpful Forsters terns were present, and they were feeding over top of actively feeding fish in about 32 feet of water over an area about 100 yards long. We spot hopped beneath these terns for another 75 minutes, and added exactly 30 additional fish to our count, thus wrapping up the morning at around 11:15 AM with 79 fish caught.
TALLY = 79 fish, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00a
End Time: 11:15a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 47F
Water Surface Temp: 65.7F
Wind Speed & Direction: NW14-17
Sky Conditions: Bright and clear with an incoming, dry coldfront
Water Level: 0.33 feet above full pool
GT = 40
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
MORNING:
**Area vic 1735-1858 during low light conditions before, during, and just after sunrise under birds
**Area 1859 – easing after the birds quit
**Area vic 1656 in late a.m. under ranging terns
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
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