Well, I've been a little more quiet than normal around here the past few months. Time to break that. The past few months since totaling my boat I've been doing the minimal amount of guiding just to get bills paid and such until I can get a new boat. I've had a few friends who have been unbelievably gracious in allowing me to borrow their boats to continue guiding here and there. I don't really need to go into details about it here, but while I do not have my new boat just yet (probably another 4 weeks or so here), I do have a boat that I will be using to guide from until my new boat arrives. Also, don't bother asking about the new boat yet because I'm not quite ready to announce that one. I will soon. Anyway, the main announcement here is, I know there's a lot of guys who have been wanting to or who have tried to book trips with me in the past couple of months, but for various reasons haven't been able to make those trips happen. Just want to announce that I'm back in full motion with booking trips, so feel free to contact me...

Now, on to the report! I've got three tournaments coming up on Belton over the course of the next month (Capt. @ FAN High School championship, a club tourney, and Fishing for Freedom), so I figured I'd head out there yesterday. Also, after following the last few Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments on their northern swing, it really had me itching to get in on some smallmouth action. I decided to head out there yesterday with the intent of solely targeting Smallmouth Bass all day, so that's how I rigged my rods and that's how I picked my spots.

Now, since I do have some tournaments coming up out there, I'm not going to go into my usual details. (Sorry!) I'll give ya'll some generals... However, the end result was boating 12 keeper bass (9 of which were smallmouth) and just as many under-sized fish (plenty of 12-13" smallies). The common belief about Belton is that if you have a day where you catch several smallmouth, that must mean you lucked into a school of them... which does happen, but that wasn't the case yesterday. I was running two different patterns and rarely caught more than 1 smallmouth in an area/spot. Also, I caught fish on a little bit of everything... just to give ya'll an idea... various topwaters, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, finesse worms (drop-shot!), and creature baits... and maybe 1 or 2 other things I'm not remembering right now. I kept mixing it up depending on the spot...

Water temps yesterday were 83-85 degrees and the water clarity was it's usual Belton variations from pretty clear by the dam to muddy as you go up lake... the usual.

Now, while I may not have gone into many details in this report (although I usually do), I am happy to go into details and specifics for paying guided trip clients who want to go out to Belton and learn how I approach targeting smallmouths out there (and largemouths for that matter). I know Belton is a bit of an enigma for many anglers around here, and I believe my experience growing up fishing some of the deep, clear rocky reservoirs in California as well as spending time in some of the smallmouth infested waters of Utah has helped me when breaking down Belton. FYI, it looks like there are no rules against hiring a guide prior to the Fishing For Freedom event if there is anyone out there planning on fishing it but has always struggled on Belton.

Here's a couple from yesterday... Man, I love chasing those brown fish every once in a while...

Nice Smallies!

Good luck guiding..........

Solid post and nice fish.

very nice....thanks for the info !!

makes me want to head on down there!

Ive always wanted to try drop shots, just never have..... nice fish and great info, keep it up bro