SLEEPIN’ IN – 100 FISH @ BELTON

WHO I FISHED WITH:  This morning, Tuesday, February 1st, I fished with returning guests Dwight Stone and Otto Riedel from the Georgetown, TX, area.

After yesterday’s rain, fog was almost a certainty whether it was forecast or not, simply because the lake’s low temperature combining with the cool, damp air above it creates fog on the water even though it may not exist on the surrounding land.

For this reason, I pushed our start time back to 8:15AM to give the sun a chance to warm the air and thin or eliminate the fog before we started hunting fish.

Here is how the fishing went …

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My next few openings will be on Feb. 7th, 8th, and 9th.  Weekday mornings are always best.

 

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Otto Reidel and Dwight Stone. Balmy conditions and grey skies with a light SE breeze were just right for white bass this morning.  That white bass in Dwight’s right hand is a 14 3/8″ Lake Belton white bass — you don’t come across many of those in a year’s time on Belton.  Shirtsleeves in February won’t be lasting long as a winter storm is due in Wednesday evening!!

 

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday (AM), 01 February 2021

HOW WE FISHED:

As we began fishing around 8:15A, there was still a significant blanket of fog over the lake and the surface was calm.  The fog was thin enough to allow light through, so the air had a white appearance (not grey as when there is a thick fog with no sun coming through).

We found fish off of a short, vertical “step” which connected a 28′ flat with a 34′ flat, and the fish were on the deep side, tight to bottom.  We used the thumper (now that the water is in the low 50’s) to draw fish in and keep them under us, and worked slabs with a slow-smoking tactic to draw strikes.

This worked well; with two short hops over about an hour’s time, we tallied 24 fish.  We then moved about 75 yards along this same feature, fished one stop for another 30 minutes and picked up another 24 fish as the fog began to lift, revealing a sunny sky with ~75% white cloud cover, which did not last long as it gave way to full, grey cloud cover within 45 minutes of the fog’s disappearance.

When these fish slowed, we’d fished the entirety of this feature, and so we moved on.

We began hunting fish once again and shortly thereafter spotted a small flock of terns just beginning to show interest over a ~5 acre patch of water.  We observed them, and the still-glassy water surface, and took an educated guess on the center of mass of the action.  That was a good guess as it landed us on our next 9 fish before the birds committed more heavily about 300 yards away.

From this point on, just as a light SE ripple was beginning, it was easy fishing by keeping up with the birds and working the slabs slowly and vertically. By 11:45 we’d landed exactly 100 fish.

The 100 fish we caught were all taken on the 5/8 oz. white Bladed Hazy Eye Slab fished with a slow-smoking tactic in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope.

At this point, I gave Dwight and Otto the option of continuing to catch white bass, or changing things up and chasing some blue catfish.  A buddy of mine had been doing well with a pretty simple approach, so, I’d loaded the catfish rods knowing that Dwight is always game for trying something new.

The catfishing didn’t really work out.  I was hoping to find large schools of shad near bottom, which normally correlates with good blue catfishing, but, the only bait I found in the brief time I looked was suspended up high in the water column.  We drew three strikes in about a 25 minute span with no hookups, and called it a done deal with our 100 fish catch.  The fellows then made a bee-line for Miller’s Smokehouse!

We caught 100 fish, including 14 freshwater drum, 1 largemouth bass, 11 short hybrid striped bass, and 74 white bass.

Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs and MAL Lures found here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 100 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: I saw the first evidence of white bass “dripping” milt and eggs.  We got a 1″ rain area-wide yesterday. Here is the temperature profile:

0 feet 53.5F
5 feet 53.2F
10 feet 53.2F
15 feet 53.2F
20 feet 53.2F
25 feet 53.1F
30 feet 53.1F
35 feet 53.1F
40 feet 53.1F
45 feet 53.1F
50 feet 53.1F
55 feet 52.9F
60 feet 52.9F
65 feet 52.9F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 8:15A

End Time: 12:30P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  54F

Elevation: 2.8 feet low, 0.05 rise in last 24 hours, 8 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 53.5F

Wind Speed & Direction:  Calm until ~10:00, then SE6

Sky Condition: Fog for ~90 minutes, then clearing briefly, then clouding back to 100% bright grey

Moon Phase: New moon at 0% illumination.

GT = 25

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Areas 971 (24 fish), Area 038 (24 fish), Area B0002C (9 fish), Area 579 (21 fish), Area B0190C (22 fish)

 

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

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