Severe storms cause damage, yield big fish from Nolan Creek

By MIKE MYERS The Belton Journal The month of April experienced severe storms that hit Belton and all of Central Texas. There was more than one occasion when weather meteorologists reported on tornado watches and warnings in the Belton, Killeen, Temple, and Waco areas. On the beltontexas.com website, it was reported that a powerful storm on Sunday night, April 2, damaged Heritage Park Baseball Field in Belton. A light standard was also damaged when it was blown down. A week’s worth of youth baseball games were canceled to allow an insurance adjuster to assess the damage and to clean up the site. In addition, two large trees in the park were blown down, and a third was significantly damaged. The wind also rolled an 8-yard trash container across the parking lot and six porta potties were blown 75 yards away. In other areas of the city, the roof of a portable building at Belton high school was damaged, and a city utility crew moved a tree off a street after it was blown down by the storm. According to Paul Romer, Public Information Officer, monitoring stations along Nolan Creek showed that the creek rose to 12 and a half feet during the storm on Friday, April 28, which is eight feet above its normal depth of four and a half feet. Last Friday morning, Roy Gomez was fishing along the creek behind the Gin. He had been fishing for less than an hour and caught three large channel catfish estimated to be three to four pounds each. Gomez hooked the fish using crawfish under a rushing flow of water over rocks. On this day he was using at least two poles to fish with. He had the company of a Blue Heron sitting on the other side of the creek, also watching the water for chance to catch a fish. Because of recent rains, the creek was deeper than usual and swift. Gomez has been fishing for about 25 years and is also competitive in fishing tournaments. He wasn’t the only one trying to land a fish or two. Two blue herons were spotted in the area. After spotting them, local residents began thinking of names for the large birds. They likewise were spotted flying up and down the Nolan Creek looking for fish. BELTON JOURNAL/MIKE MYERS Roy Gomez catches three large catfish in Nolan Creek in less than an hour after torrential rains raise the water level. BELTON JOURNAL/MIKE MYERS A Blue Heron looks for fish on Nolan Creek behind the Gin after recent heavy rains. BELTON JOURNAL/MIKE MYERS A Blue Heron flies along Nolan Creek after a powerful storm. BELTON JOURNAL/MIKE MYERS One of two Blue Herons spotted along Nolan Creek in Belton looks for fish.