Our First Trip to Lake Belton

Like I stated in an earlier blog, we have never been to Lake Belton. We have driven over it several times, but never fished it, skied it, nothing. But not anymore! If you don't know where Lake Belton is, here is a map to help you out. It is on I-35 about half way between Waco and Austin. Very pretty lake. It reminded me of Possum Kingdom, clear water, deep cliffs, lots to see.

We started our trip on Friday. Here is Frank driving.
He looks happy for me to be taking his picture, huh. This will not be the last time in this post that you see this expression on his face. We didn't leave until after work, so it was late when we got there. We checked in to the hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, and did some sight seeing in the dark. Have you ever done that, looked around a new place after the sun goes down? I have decided doing this is about as exciting as looking at Christmas lights during the day. You just don't get the same effects!

Saturday morning, we slept in a bit, woke up about 6, then we had breakfast and headed to the lake. This is as we were pulling away from the ramp.

Nice and smooth. One of those great mornings.

This is the ramp. See our truck?
Does this help? The yellow circle is our truck. The pink circle? That is the "toilet". I use that term loosely. A whole in the ground with seats and four walls and two stalls. Not the best, but when you gotta go, you gotta go!!!
Just some of the shore line. Some of God's handy work.

From what we could tell, the lake looks low. This picture shows what we think is the water line. This is what it would look like around our home lakes. I am sure if this is not the case, I will have some nice person leave me a comment correcting me.
I think this is an Egret. Really pretty bird. It posed for me then took off.
And I think this is a Heron. It stuck around a little longer than the Egret, but not much.
This is not what any fisher person wants to spend their time doing.

(Note, there is that face again)

Just more of the cliffs.

This is my OH MY moment!

Have you tried these things. They are fantastic!

Just remember to put them in the cooler if you will be outside in the heat!

This was about the time of day I got really bored and my wrist was killing me. (I have got to get to the doctor this week to check it out)
One of my favorite past times, looking at clouds. This is another thing that drives Frank crazy, me finding shapes in the clouds.
See this man? He is an old man, not happy or sad.
OK, if you don't see it, I have used red to outline it.
Did that help? I hope so.

See the elephant?

Again, I have used red to outline him.

OK, one more.
See the elf face?
Here he is.
I know, most of you can see these shapes. These outlines are for the Franks out there that don't see the shapes.

I love trees with character. This is one of those trees. It is dead, but don't you know at one time is was beautiful. Just imagine it during fall.
This was a surprise to us. A waterfall.
This is at the bottom of a water processing plant. Very pretty and surprising.

This is at the damn. Someone put in a lot of time here.

Oh, here is the face again. He was not happy having to take me over here to take this picture.
This was up in one of the coves. The best we could tell, this is a permanent dock, it is just out in the lake, not attached to the shore like most docks. They sure were having a lot of fun. We found it funny that being in between Baylor and UT that they had...
this flag flying.
Those Aggies are everywhere!!

Sunday morning brought some more wildlife. This roadrunner was running up and down the shore.
And when I took down my camera, I saw this!

OH! You know how I hate snakes and this one was about two feet from the boat. I think the roadrunner was looking for him too.

This little turtle was all alone sunning himself. He was tiny. I don't think I have ever seen one this little alone.

We did quite a bit of moving around the lake. At one point, we were in a flock of buzzards! Here are three of them.
Yes there are three, see the arrow.
They are not the prettiest birds, but the serve a great purpose. But on this day, I think we were right in their flight path. They would fly so close to our heads, we could feel the wind off their wings as they took off.
We ended our trip by going through Killeen to find the airport where I will have to pick Frank up before our tournament. Then had to turn around and go back when we realized I had left my purse at Jack In The Box! I was so mad! It took an hour to take care of that.

Then just as we pulled into Tuscola, Frank got a call that he had to go to work. The OT is always nice, I just wish he would have had some time to rest. Maybe next time he will let me do some of the driving.

OH, I'm sorry. Did you come hear wanting to read a fishing report? Well not much to say. We caught nothing on Saturday and Frank caught four fish on Sunday and they were just barely 14". So, any of you nice people that fish this lake often, if you have any suggestions, we sure would appreciate it. We will return the favor when you come fish some of our home lakes!

WE'RE GOING FISHING

Have you missed me? Did you wonder where I have been?

Well, not fishing! We were supposed to go a couple of weeks ago and had to cancel due to circumstances beyond our control. But that was OK, we were needed here so here is where we stayed.

We are going to go prefish at Lake Belton. Neither of us has ever been there. Oh, we have both been to Temple and Killeen, and we have probably driven by or over the lake, but we have never fished it. We usually like to keep our prefishing to one or two weeks before our actual tournament, but since this is a three day weekend and Frank will be in Atlanta the week before and we will have our Stillwater tournament next week, this was the only weekend we could go. So go we will.

Of course I will have my camera and I will try to post some pictures while we are there, but no promises. Frank gets mad at me when I go down to the public computers and play. But I do promise to post some pictures and hopefully a story or two next week.

Only 28 days to the TBC Championship Tournament!

The Worst Day Fishing...

I know you, if you are a fisherperson you have heard the saying "The worst day fishing is better than a good day working."

We are here to tell you, that is not true.

Saturday, Frank fished a tournament at Lake Stamford with Warren (it was a team tournament). Other than the regular fishing stories, "you should have seen the one that got away" told by both men, there was the broken favorite flipping rod, the loosing the rod and reel while running across the lake, and the oh so famous trolling battery that pooted out.

I still haven't been told the whole story on how the rod was broken but he did tell me the "Rod Saver" will have to be replaced. It didn't hold up going across the rough lake hence the lost combo. But when the wind picked up and the trolling motor wouldn't keep up with it, he checked and he had lost a battery. So Warren kept fishing while Frank made a run into the Wal-Marts in Stamford to purchase a new battery.

Needless to say, the tournament was won by someone other than these two, but they made it home safe! And Frank said he would have rather been working, at least that was guaranteed money!

Trip Canceled

Well, we had discussed with friends when we would go pre-fish Lake Belton. A weekend was agreed upon and Pam called to make the reservations for all of us.

It seems there is a large convention in Temple on that same weekend and there are no rooms available at any of the hotels. The CSR at the hotel said Temple was expecting 10,000 people for this "convention"! My goodness, if there are that many people, it looks like they would go to a larger metropolitan place that could accommodate them better.

Oh well, we will try to figure out a different weekend to go on. I will be able to talk about fishing then!

(I did not say the group that is having the "convention" on purpose. I have already been accused of being non-politically correct once today.)

August Stilwater Tourny

Today was our August tournament on Hubbard Creek Lake in Breckenridge and I don't have much to report. Frank and I decided after a bit of discussion that I should pass on this one. The weather forcast was hot, hot, hot, and not much wind. I know, we normally hate for the wind to blow, but when it is August and hot in west Texas, you need the wind to cool off.

Frank did fish and weighed in a 7+ pound stringer. I can 't even tell you his exact weight, but I know it was not enough to win anything.

I, on the other hand, spent my day with our daughter and granddaughter. It was the annual Zoo Day at the Abilene Zoo and we thought we were getting there in plenty of time to beat the heat and the crowd. We handled the heat much better than I did the crowd, so we only stayed about 2 hours. It was a great 2 hours watching them enjoy the zoo, but we came home early to eat lunch and get a nap.

Hopefully, it won't be quite so hot in September and I will join him again on the lake and will have a better report. Until then, hope you catch a big 'un!