Belton Lake, Stillhouse Hollow, Lake Georgetown, Salado, White Bass, Fishing Guide, SKIFF, Kids Fish Too

Of Ground Hogs and Hitch-and-Go's, 55 Fish, Belton Lake Fishing Guide's Report, 14 May 2012

This morning as the sun rose I met Larry, Joe, and Eddie, all life-long coaching buddies, at Belton Lake for what we hoped would be a continuation of last week's topwater fishing showcase.

Eddie started the ball rolling this morning taking this nice hybrid on a slab worked meticulously by suspended fish and bait holding at about 30 feet over a deeper bottom.

Larry pitched in by taking this hybrid on an umbrella rig trolled through the same school of fish that Eddie's hybrid came out of, after they turned off to the slab bite.

And, not to be outdone, Joe took this 11th hour hybrid literlly within minutes of our previously agreed upon end time of 11:00am.

While Larry has completely retired from coaching and enjoys the flexibility of travel and spending time with his grand kids, Joe went from retiring as a public school district superintendent to immediately take on the athletic director's position at a Christian school in Belton. Joe called up Eddie out of retirement to coach for him. So, bottom line, if you didn't know what the noseguard and the nickelback were supposed to do on a buttonhook or a coffin corner, well you pretty much couldn't hang out in my boat this morning!!

Within 20 minutes following sunrise, which is the time topwater action typically kicks off this time of year if it is going to, it became obvious that topwater fishing was not going to factor in heavily to today's plans. The shad spawn is over now, so, live shad did not figure in strongly, either.

One thing we did have working for is the gulls that have carried over unusually late this year. I estimated sighting ~400 birds this morning which I believe to be laughing gulls. These gulls were helpful in identifying where bait was located and, although the fish did not force much bait to the surface, in leading us to suspended fish on two occasions this morning.

We began our morning visually checking several areas where the fish had been holding into late last week. Finding little at these areas, I began checking deepwater areas. We first encountered fish at just NE of Area 815 in about 40 feet of water. The fish were holding in a horizontal band around 30 feet. We first began using TNT180 slabs in white and silver to tempt these fish and, after they turned off on the slabs, ran downriggers amongst them. We wound up with 18 fish boated at this stop and moved on. The fish included 2 legal hybrid, white bass, and short hybrid.

We moved on to between Area 1081 and Area 687 in the gut located here. I slowly idled over this area and hovered with the trolling motor every time I encountered a "wolfpack" of 15-25 fish. All 4 of us would slab for these fish seen on sonar. Typically, the bite was very aggressive with each of us catching 2-3 fish right away, then, the action would die as quickly as it started as the fish either moved on or turned off. We boated 24 more fish making 4-5 short hops around this general area, consisting of both white bass and short hybrid.

By 9:30, it was getting brighter and calmer. Most boats out looking for an early bite had called it quits by now and so the boat traffic was much reduced. Birds once again led the way to deep bait, and that deep bait had fish lurking nearby at Area 1011. We found and boated a mix of white bass and short hybrid here, as well. We put an additional 11 fish in the boat before things went soft.

We concluded our trip in the vicinity of Area 815, where we had begun. I ran one downrigger at 30 feet with an umbrella rig and another at 30 feet with a White Willow Spoon. Within 2 minutes our umbrella rig got slammed and we added a final hybrid to our catch. This one taped at 17.25 inches.

TALLY = 55 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY'S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp: 76F at trip's start.

Water Surface Temp: 74-75F

Wind: Winds were NNE4-5 at trip's start going light and variable by 10am.

Skies: Skies were 60% cloudy on a hazy sky.

Environmental Note: Lake rose ~0.36 feet over last 72 hours due to recent rainfall.

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Of Ground Hogs and Hitch-and-Go's, 55 Fish, Belton Lake Fishing Guide's Report, 14 May 2012