Five Feet High and Risin’ — 71 Fish, Lake Belton, 12 April ’17

This past Wednesday morning, April 12th, I fished for a second time with Raymond and Anna Pagel of Killeen.

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From left  — Raymond and Anna Pagel with a pair of Lake Belton hybrid striped bass that nailed our large, live baits suspended over bottom at 41 feet.

Raymond runs Pagel and Sons Jewelers near Killeen Mall, and Anna works as a pharmacist at one of the Killeen HEB stores.

Thanks to ample area-wide rainfall from Monday night into Tuesday morning which dropped 2 to 5 inches onto the watersheds for both Stillhouse Lake and Lake Belton, Belton rose 5.5 feet within 12 hours of the rainfall’s start.  As I write this report on Thursday, 13 April, the lake stands at 7.97 feet above full pool.

Because these rains also fell to the east of us, thus putting floodwaters into the Brazos River, the Corps of Engineers had not yet released any water from Belton dam. Therefore, the water is “stacking up” and continues to rise. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that without the dam wide-open the dirty water from the Cowhouse Creek and Leon River tributaries has not washed down into the entire lake. The curse is that the rapidly rising water has put the courtesy docks out of commission, and has flooded the lake, depositing much debris on the surface lakewide.

Because I am a strong believer in “no surprises” I drove to several boat ramps the evening before this trip to do a reconnaissance of the situation to make sure the water was not too muddy so as to turn off the white bass and hybrid striped bass bite. What I saw that evening looked suitable and we went forward with Wednesday morning’s trip.

We hit five distinct areas this morning. We scratched at the first one where I was hoping for shallow water fish to throw blade baits at. The next two spots in more clear water produced nearly nothing but hybrid striper, and then, by 10:15 AM, Anna requested that we spend some time vertical jigging for white bass – – a tactic she learned and did well at during our last trip.

So, the last two areas we hit, we hit because I found ample quantities of tightly congregated and bottom hugging white bass.

The fish we found were not overly aggressive, and did not stay active long, but, we were able to add an additional 25 fish to our count.

We wrapped up right at noon with the 71 fish boated, of which 43 were keeper hybrid up to 5.25 pounds and 23 1/8 inches.

TALLY = 71 FISH, all caught and released

Wx Snapshot:

12APR16

 

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 12:00 noon

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 62F

Water Surface Temp: 67.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8-9 the entire trip

Sky Conditions: Grey overcast the entire trip just shy of drizzle

Water Level: 5.5 feet above full pool

GT = 20

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1918 – mixed bag of hybrid, white bass, largemouth and smallmouth on live shad

**Area 1743 – primarily keeper hybrid on live shad

**Area 1827/1676 – white bass on slabs/stinger

**Area 1671/1077 – white bass on slabs/stinger

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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