WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Monday evening I fished with two members of the West Virginia National Guard. Phil Arnold and Johnny Jacobs are both assigned to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 104th Aviation Regiment, which is a medical evacuation unit using Blackhawk helicopters to get wounded personnel out of harm’s way and to the medical attention they need. The men were wrapping up a temporary duty assignment here to Ft. Hood and, based on Phil’s past positive experience fishing with me, wanted to get out on Lake Belton once again and this time, bring Johnny with him. Phil and Johnny routinely fish together in some of the lakes in eastern Ohio near the WV border.
PHOTO CAPTION: Johnny Jacobs landed this nice 5-pound class hybrid just as the sun was setting. We had live shad down under the boat on tightline rigs in about 48 feet of water when a small wolfpack of fish came into the spread. We had one more rod go down thanks to this school, but missed that opportunity.
PHOTO CAPTION: Phil Arnold with a just-legal 18″ Lake Belton hybrid striper. Thanks to an aggressive bluecat bite, we had to move frequently to keep our baits from getting killed by smaller blues before they could catch the eye of a hybrid.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: White bass in the first 2.5 hours; hybrid stripers in the last 2 hours
WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton
WHEN WE FISHED: 06 May 2019, PM
HOW WE FISHED: Given the limited success we had on hybrid this morning, and given that those hybrid we landed were taken during the low-light time just after sunrise, I felt a solid approach for this afternoon’s trip was to gun for less finicky white bass first, then invest our time set up with live bait as the light was failing at day’s end. This turned out well.
We checked three areas for white bass finding nothing at the first, finding scant fish in 22-24 feet of water at the second, and an abundance of fish in 24-25 feet of water at the third and final place we would search for whites. At this final location, with a nice wind blowing in on it, and humid, warm, grey skies, the fish were ramped up to feed. We landed exactly 120 fish by 6:30pm including white bass primarily in the now 3-year class, with a few short hybrid thrown in. These all came on my newly minted Hazy Eye Tailspinners. I’m excited about the potential of these baits and am tinkering with blade size and hook arrangements now to overcome shortfalls in many of the commercially available versions.
Toward sunset, we put live baits down to target hybrid. Abundant bluecat forced us to move more routinely than I prefer. We buckled down on one area in 48 feet of water and landed 3 of our 4 legal hybrid there. Then, post-sunset, we setup in shallow water (25′) and landed more whites, short hybrid, and a single legal hybrid there until the fish quit biting around 8:30p.
OBSERVATIONS: Area SHAD014 which I tend to rely upon for bait in May is now inundated with flood water, thus, I had to find shad elsewhere this morning. SHAD025 produced well and showed potential for producing more than just this morning.
TALLY: 137 fish caught and released – including 4 legal hybrid
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:00p
End Time: 8:30p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F
Elevation: 6.04 feet high with a 0.71foot 24-hour rise, and a flow of 431 cfs. This was due to heavy, area-wide rains mid-day Thursday and all day Friday, 2 & 3 May. Downstream flooding on the Brazos is preventing the release of water, so it is presently just accumulating in Belton and Stillhouse.
Water Surface Temp: 70.1F
Wind Speed & Direction: ESE6-9mph
Sky Conditions: Grey skies with varying levels of cloud thickness through the afternoon
GT = 55
#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 164/172 – 120 fish on tailspinners
**Area vic 1152 – scant low light hybrid and blue cat
**Area 1778 – post-sunset whites and short hybrid
Bob Maindelle
Full-time, Professional Fishing Guide and Owner of Holding the Line Guide Service
Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle
Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle