06 JUNE 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time: 12:20p

Air Temp: 77F pre-dawn climbing to 91 by day’s end

Water Temp: 78.4F

Wind: S at 15 pre-dawn, building to 19 by trip’s end, and occasionally gusting to 25+ in the mid afternoon for the 4th day in a row.

Skies: 80-100% grey cloud cover the entire trip; light drizzle to light rain intermittently falling from 10a to Noon. This weather was due to the breakdown of a high pressure system and the arrival of low pressure.

Fished a half-day Kids Fish, Too! trip with a grandpa (Dick D.) and his two grandsons, Richard and Ryan of Plano. We met at dockside at 6:00a, went over the boat rules, did some basic casting instruction and, lo and behold, Ryan comes up with the first fish of the day, a redear sunfish, during the practice session!! And with that, we were off to the first spot of the day.

We first stopped at Area 173 and, due to the winds and the boys’ limited casting experience, fished from an anchored position with the boys casting from the portside quartering across and down-wind with shad-imitating in-line spinners and with blade baits. Action was slow (I theorize due to the low pressure moving in) with virtually no topwater at all, save a single pod of white bass seen blitzing shad for about 3 minutes at 7:30a. We managed a single largemouth (a nice 3 pound fish) and a single white bass at this first stop.

We gave the shallows between Area 177 and the shoreline a try, but nothing was happening there.

We moved on and searched for some sunfish action and did well at Area 189 finding all manner of sunfish in all manner of sizes here. We used simple bobber and hook rigs with worms to tempt these scrappy fighters into biting, releasing the largest specimens and keeping a few juveniles to use as live bait for largemouth a little later in the trip. We put 35 sunfish in the boat including a nice 7.5 inch bluegill and a 4 7/8 inch longear sunfish which qualified as the new Jr. Angler lake record for this species (caught by Richard).

From here we headed to Area 70 and Area 222 and executed two drifts to the NW on the SE breeze in 35-38 feet and in 12-16 feet respectively. We managed 2 strikes and 1 landed fish (a 3.75 pound largemouth landed by Ryan) on the second, shallower drift. This action wasn’t as fast and furious as the boys attention span required, so we moved on.

We searched Area 176 with sonar and found a few scattered whites here on bottom. We vertical jigged briefly and picked up two whites, but the winds were getting heavier and things were a bit too difficult trying to coach two novices at slabbing and hold the boat in place, etc. so we moved to a more sheltered location.

We hit Area 145 (about 30 yards to the NNW of it) and started slabbing after sonar showed an abundance of scattered gamefish and shad suspended just off the bottom over this entire area. The fish were very sluggish at first during the time the skies were overcast, grey, and drizzling. Once the drizzle ended, and the skies brightened a bit, the fish really turned on. We caught 49 fish at this location in about an hour’s time. Most were healthy white bass coming in right at 11.5 inches, with some smaller, and some larger, with none exceeding 13″. We also put 2 crappie, a small largemouth, and 2 drum in the boat. The last fish of the day hit Richard’s slab as he was working it lift-drop style. I watched the rod tip as the fish struck and knew it was a hard hit. He set the hook and then commenced battling a 7.00 pound channel cat for the next 2 ½ minutes and successfully brought it to net. This qualified as the Jr. Angler record for that species for Stillhouse, pending processing of paperwork by TPWD. We decided to call it quits on that good note and headed back to the dock with a boatload of happy fishermen.


TALLY = 89 FISH, all but 5 sunfish (used for bait) were caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing








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