WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:  We targeted white bass on an all catch-and-release basis during the first 1.5 hours of this 3.5 hour trip.  During this time, the kids landed 52 white bass (all legal), with more doubles and triples caught on the 3-armed umbrella rig than singles.  The fish were pretty fired up this morning, but did not make much of an appearance on the surface anywhere.  After the low-light bite died at 7:50, we searched for about 25 minutes without success for additional groups of white bass to target. We then invested about an hour into panfishing up shallow, adding another 25 fish to our count, including sunfish, largemouth, and smallmouth.  We closed the trip out with a final round of downrigging, which added a final 14 fish to our count, including 13 short white bass and 1 freshwater drum.

LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP:  The white bass we landed all struck #12 Pet Spoons attached to 3-armed umbrella rigs fished precisely with downriggers to control the depth they were presented at.  Find umbrella rigs here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 91 fish caught and released (65 white bass, 1 drum, 3 largemouth bass, 1 smallmouth bass, & a mixed bag of 21 panfish)

OBSERVATIONS:

1) The lake is still 1.62′ high, but the flow of water through the dam has decreased substantially.

2) The water looks like green/brown tea and is darker than usual.

3) All fish were taken in under 21′.

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Here was the water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device before sunrise on July 12 …

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:20A

End Time: 10:10A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 78F

Elevation: 1.62 feet high and falling with a 594 cfs flow, resulting in a 0.24′ fall over the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 86.1F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE5-8 all morning

Sky Condition: Hazy, cloudless skies

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 75% illumination.

GT = 30