I've been fishing Lake Belton for smallmouth. How deep is too deep? I've been fishing around the dam and rocky bluffs near by, but a lot of that water quickly turns into 65 - 95 feet of water.

long as you have line on your reel you should be ok.

Everyone thinks that 20 foot is real deep. If you think about it , that is the length of our boats.

Good perspective^^

I try to stay above the thermocline.......

Hmm good thought

You also had to take in account fizzing the fish, if they came from really deep water. Unless you release them immediately. I may not be 100%accurate about that but it's what I've been told before. Good luck

If you've got electronics on your boat, idle around for a while in deep water. You should eventually mark bait fish. Whatever the deepest you mark them is a general idea of how deep you could figure your deepest fishing to be. As the summer progresses and the thermoclines set up good, you'll start to see a very distinct depth where bait fish will not go below due to the low oxygen. Once that happens, you note that depth, start your map work and find good structure or cover at that depth and a little bit less. That's a good way to find summer time fish.

Each lake has different thermocline depths as well.

Good luck and I hope that helps.

Pix, you will catch most of your smallies on the first drop off from the bank. They cruise up and down that ledge looking for forage. When I used to bank fish in that area, I'd make about a 20 foot cast and catch good numbers and some were up to 3 pounds. But that was using minnows about 3 feet under a bobber with no where else to go. If you're a boater, theres no pattern that you can really count on. Those fish are constantly on the move. A frirnd of mine had an old flasher type fish finder that would beep when it found fish. We may have been sitting on a spot,not catching anything,then it would go off and we'd both catch a smallie and then they'd be gone. That happeneed several times. So on Belton, you never know.

Great posts guys!!! Really interesting information on thermoclines and small mouth bass behavior.

I appreciate all the advice. I do have a boat and electronics. Last weekend we worked that drop off from where you exit the marina past the restaurant, along the dam, and the bluffs up to the park. We tried to stay in no deeper than 40 foot of water, and end up landing only 1 fish on a crawfish crankbait. I know most of the articles I find online are about smallmouth up North, but I'm not sure how much different their patterns are down here. Will top water work in the early morning? That was about the only thing in my tackle box I did not toss last weekend.

I grew up fishing Lake Whitney back when the smallmouth fishing was awesome. Topwater baits accounted for most of our larger fish (two over 7lbs) Zara Spooks, Crazy Shad (prop bait), and Pop R's were always the deal for us. As mentioned before, the first break line is where I'd concentrate after the Sun comes up. But from daybreak till about an hour afterwards (or the bite dies) topwater was/is a great way to catch smallmouth bass.

great look on it, never thought about it

or 2 basketball goals laid down on their side!

Yes, This ^.

Below that is dead water.