With the lake now over 11 feet high and the water lapping at the asphalt, if not covering it, on all of Belton‘s boat ramps, I was afraid we were within hours or days of seeing the lake become inaccessible until I saw that USACE began releasing water through the dam.

For the first time since the flooding, there was light, but noticeable staining to the water in the main basin today.

As compared with Monday and Tuesday, fish were much more difficult to find this morning and seemed much more likely to be either shallow or suspended. I did not see that many signs of life below about the 42 foot mark today.

We caught all of our fish this morning in just two locations. Early in the morning, under low light conditions and under a thin veil of light fog, we found some light schooling activity as I observed two blue herons patrolling routinely out over open water. As I got closer, I could see large shad being chased to the surface by a mix of white bass and hybrid striped bass. My first reaction was to equip Larry and Dan with MAL Originals in order to have them sight cast to white bass and hybrid striper schools which I moved them close to using my trolling motor.

As it turned out, the schooling was not all that consolidated, and, after checking side-imaging while in the midst of these schooling fish, I felt we had better chances of working MAL Dense Lures using a sawtooth tactic.

The men landed a total of 17 fish  at this location, including five legal hybrid striped bass up to 4 pounds.

As the fog dissipated and the direct sunlight began to show through holes in the clouds, these fish pushed downward and outward fairly quickly and disappeared.

I now began hunting for fish once again , journeying up into the Leon River arm, only to find it stained beyond my liking.

I headed back downstream on the Leon and found our second and final group of fish. This group consisted mainly of white bass holding closely to the bottom. We were able to draw them in with the splasher and they responded well to a smoking tactic as Dan and Larry used MAL Originals in 26 feet of water to tempt these fish with a smoking tactic.

We ended the trip right at the 4-hour mark with exactly 50 fish landed, including seven hybrid striped bass, one smallmouth bass, and 42 white bass.