Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:00a

End Time: 12:20p

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start

Water Temp: 84.0 F

Wind: Light puffs from the NE at dawn, then going light and variable until around 10:15, then coming on hard from the N at 18-20 on the lead edge of a disturbance, then settling out to ESE at 7-8 on slowly clearing skies

Skies: Red skies at sunrise warned of turbulent weather ahead. Skies were greyed over but bright until the disturbance passed over, at which time the skies went grey and dark with rain threatening but never falling. Skies then went grey and bright and slowly cleared after that passed.

Fished a half-day morning trip with Craig and Susan M. of Killeen. Craig serves as the Ellison High School baseball coach and a football coach; Susan is a teacher at Harker Heights Elementary.

After greetings, my short safety talk and some basic instructions for Susan on casting with spinning gear we headed out.

We slowly motored around the general vicinity of Area 555 and today only spotted occasional single largemouth bass popping shad on top; no schools of white bass were witnessed here at all. After spending about an hour in and around here hoping some schooling would develop, we headed downlake after only putting two small largemouth in the boat on the cork rig.

We made a quick look-listen stop at Area 191 but didn’t see much here – a couple small, single largemouth on top – so we moved on.

We made our next stop along the centerline just E. of Area 160. As we motored slowly, schools of white bass were seen feeding on the surface here. We eased up on these with the trolling motor and began working these over with the Cork Rig. These schools were feeding on very small ¾ to 7/8 inch long juvenile shad and were a little reluctant to hit the flies we presented behind the cork. Nonetheless, by the time the topwater action faded we had put 9 in the boat, most right at the 11 inch mark.

Next we headed to between Area 61 and Area 222 and noted fair surface feeding beginning. We stayed on top of these surface feeding fish for about an hour. During this time we caught and released 26 largemouth bass. At around 9:45a a dark cloud bank which had been slowly moving from N to S moved right over us and brought with it a wind shift to the N at 15-18 mph. This killed the topwater fishing as the fish responded negatively to this weather change. We hooked up the downriggers and fished through this general area looking at sonar the entire time. We wound up with 1 small white bass and 1 small largemouth in about 25 minutes of effort and decided to move on.

We made a stop at Area 186 after I searched the breakline here with sonar. Sonar returns were so-so with a few gamefish and some scattered shad showing. We vertical jigged for a little while with 3 drum and 1 white bass to show for the effort.

We made one final stop at Area135 and the stretch of water to the WNW of it. I was actually searching for congregated white bass here. What we found instead was a lot of bait and a good number of schools of smallish largemouth surface feeding here. The activity increased as the N breeze slowly shifted ESE and the skies brightened. We used the Cork Rig here and managed to boat another 23 largemouth in the boat before the skies cleared totally and the fish quit.

TALLY = 66 FISH, all 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