1.2 million new striped bass coming to Belton Lake this week

April 24, 2025

By David Stone

Belton Journal

Lake Belton will become home to a massive number of new hybrid striped bass this week, according to Carl Kittel, program director of the Region 1 fish hatchery in San Marcos.

“For this stocking season, we plan to put about 1.2 million hybrid striped bass fry in Lake Belton,” Kittel said. “That’s all we have planned for new — there are no stockings planned in 2025 for Stillhouse Hollow.”

The Lake Belton stockings will continue a massive move to boost the striped bass population in the Bell County lake. In 2022, Texas Parks & Wildlife introduced 2.2 million Sunshine bass into the lake, and in 2023 more than 400,000 Palmetto and nearly 700,000 Sunshine bass were released.

Last year, 99,855 Lone Star bass fingerlings, 148,620 smallmouth bass fingerlings, and 780,255 Sunshine bass found new homes in Lake Belton.

Lone Star bass fingerlings are second-generation offspring of pure Florida strain ShareLunker largemouth bass that were at least 13 pounds, said Michael Baird, district supervisor for the Waco Inland Fisheries District of Texas Parks & Wildlife.

“They have taken the place of Florida largemouth in our hatcheries and are being stocked statewide,” Baird said. “Lake Belton is a smallmouth bass brood fish source for our state hatcheries, and it consistently gets smallmouth stocked, mainly for that purpose. But it is one of the best smallmouth reservoirs in Texas for angling.”

Sunshine and Palmetto bass are crosses of white and striped bass. Sunshine bass are a hybrid of female white bass and male stripers, and the Palmetto bass are the opposite — a hybrid cross between a male white bass and a female striper.

“In Lake Belton, TPWD typically stocks hybrid bass on an annual basis at 100 fry per acre — and that request shouldn’t change unless there is some unforeseen issue with production or the status of the reservoir,” Kittell said.

“Smallmouth bass are not stocked every year in Belton but were last stocked in 2021 (51,308 fingerlings),” he added. “The smallmouth bass population is strong, and there is some natural recruitment from year to year. Whether or not TPWD stocks smallies at Lake Belton in 2024 depends heavily on the status of the reservoir at that time and the outlook for hatchery production of this species.”

In addition to the hybrid striped bass, Lake Belton also is known for large populations of smallmouth bass and blue catfish.

At Stillhouse, TPWD stocked 63,326 Florida largemouth bass in 2021, 123,165 channel catfish in 2022, and 93,228 Lone Star bass last year.

“TPWD has discontinued Smallmouth Bass stockings at Stillhouse due to poor stocking success and recruitment of fingerlings from previous stockings,” Kittel said.