This morning, Monday, May 6, it was truly a whole new ballgame.

Both Lake Belton and Stillhouse rose significantly thanks to heavy rains from Saturday night into Sunday morning.

Lake Belton rose over 6 feet in a 24 hour span, and Stillhouse rose over 9 feet during that same 24 hour span. Lake Belton, which has been below full pool since the summer of 2022, is now flooded with over 5 feet of excess flood water, and the water is still pouring in.

I fished a party of six this morning including five returning guests and one new guy.

Joining me were Joe Oliver, Jack Oliver, and Jack’s three sons – Asa, Isaac, and Eli.

The new guy was Joseph Jarosck, Jack’s daughter’s boyfriend.

Here is how the fishing went…

After nearly 2 years without usable courtesy docks, the courtesy docks on Lake Belton were usable for about a 36 hour window from being totally grounded due to low water on Friday, May 3rd, to being inaccessible due to high water on May 6th.

I was very concerned about how and where the fish were going to relocate given all of this fresh water and the fact that dirty water is dumping into lake Belton from both tributaries . Fortunately, we were able to find water which was clear enough that I felt confident fish would bite, and, they did!

We got our lines in the water around 7:45 AM and the fish bit well through about 10:35 AM. During that time, we fished three distinct areas  in the exact same manner. Those four areas gave up a combined 213 fish, including 211 white bass and 2 freshwater drum.

The process involved finding fish with sonar, Spot Locking on top of them in 26 to 42 feet of water, then dropping my newest MAL Lure – – the MAL Dense with silver body – – down to these fish and then cranking the lure toward the surface using a smoking tactic. The real trick on this method is to get the blade spinning as close to the bottom as possible, with a hard fast half-turn, three-quarter turn or full crank of the reel’s handle, then, without stopping, continue reeling at a slower pace keeping the lure climbing upward toward the surface until it gets struck.

White bass respond well to commotion, and with a splasher running and six men working these heavily vibrating, flashing lures, we created our own attractive commotion right beneath the boat. At two of these areas, as the fish began to lose interest in the spinners and settle back towards bottom, we followed up with white Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs. When the fish lost interest in the slabs, we moved on.

The last hour on the water was unproductive.

The amount of rainfall we had has produced record flooding. I really am at a loss to predict whether or not the lakes will stay fishable even if they remain accessible. We will just have to take it one day at a time now.

Bill and Dale are both graduates (Classes of ’81 and ’82, respectively) of the US Military Academy and played college football for Army there back in the day.

Since Bill and Gardiner had fished with me previously and caught a great number of white bass doing so, Bill wanted to target the larger, hybrid striped bass on today’s trip. We did that using live threadfin shad.

Here is how the fishing went…