JULY 2008 SUMMARY






JULY 2008 SUMMARY

31 JULY 2008 = 47 FISH

28 JULY 2008 = 84 FISH

17 JULY 2008 (PM) = 24 FISH

17 JULY 2008 (AM) = 79 FISH

14 JULY 2008 = 54 FISH

10 JULY 2008 = 48 FISH

07 JULY 2008 = 52 FISH

05 JULY 2008 = 76 FISH

03 JULY 2008 = 37 FISH

TOTAL CATCH FOR JULY 2008 = 501 FISH

AVERAGE CATCH PER TRIP = 55.6 FISH

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








28 JULY 2008






Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a full-day trip on Belton today with Brandon H. of Ft. Hood, and his dad and younger brother, both of Vincennes, Indiana. I fished with these fellows for the morning trip only, and then continued fishing in the afternoon to get a feel for how the evening bite was doing since I hadn’t been on Belton in the evening for a while.

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 9:00p

Air Temp: 75F at trip’s start, warming to 102F by mid afternoon

Water Temp: 83.5F to 86.5F

Wind: SSE at 7 by sunrise, increasing to 12-14 by afternoon, and tapering back to 10 by sunset and thereafter.

Skies: Fair skies all day with the slow breakdown of strong high pressure.

No sooner did I get all 3 men on board and cover safety issues and the plan for the day, then I started glassing the surface and saw a school of hybrids feeding in the vicinity of Area 009. We shot over there but the fish sounded by the time we got close and, to my surprise, we couldn’t graph any bait anywhere near that action. So, we tackled up with the downriggers and trolled a lazy pattern from Area 009 to Area 024 watching sonar and the surface the entire time, but seeing little.

We than headed over to Area 153, but again, little was showing on sonar, and, after a few trial casts with a blade bait, we headed elsewhere.

We pulled up on Area 174 and found schooled fish here at ~25 feet deep on the slope. I buoyed these fish and we proceeded to slab and smoke putting 14 fish in the boat including whites, largemouth, and drum. After about 40 minutes this played out.

We headed to Area 210 and, from a distance with the light just right, could see light surface activity in the area. We slowly motored in started off fishing topwater by throwing at boils. We landed several largemouth with the largest weighing in at 3.75 pounds; we landed 2 smallmouth with the largest going 3 pounds, and we landed several 13-14 inch white bass. Once this topwater completely died, we continued to see gamefish and bait on sonar, so we geared up with downriggers and went to town catching white bass after white bass until around 12:30pm, when the action began to taper off. The blue and silver Lunker Licker and the chartreuse and silver Lunker Licker did the best of the several baits we tried, as they imitated the 3-4 inch shad which seemed most prevalent in the area. At one point, from 12:00 to 12:30, the whites were so consistently located in one area that we stopped downrigging and began smoking for them. We landed 4 whites, a drum and a largemouth that way. We wrapped up the morning trip with exactly 50 fish caught and released.


Spent a little while between morning and evening trips with Keith W. of Belton. We were chatting at the ramp and spotted some topwater and just couldn’t leave it alone. We spotted 5 different schools of whites, but they stayed up for just seconds and couldn’t be approached. We netted some bait in preparation for the evening trip and I headed out.

In the afternoon, I started the search in the vicinity of Area 192; we identified suspended schools of white bass holding in a narrow band at 23 to 26 feet deep over a deeper bottom. This begged for a downrigging approach and that’s what we when with. We started with the same twin Lunker Licker setup that had done well in the morning. The fishing was pretty simple once we found the fish. After boating 14 whites, I headed out with the fish still biting here to look for additional productive areas.

From 5:15 to 7:30 was a very slow time with only 2 largemouth and a channel cat coming on a blade bait I was throwing as a search bait for white bass. I tightlined live bait in the vicinity of Area 171 and to the SE toward the cove on the S. shore, but nothing even got a look.

Finally, things started happening near sundown. We headed to the vicinity of Area 171 and began fishing in 26 feet of water after seeing a small school of whites hanging just off bottom on the slope here. We slowly moved shallower as the light faded, finding fish for a few minutes at each step along the way: 26 feet, 22 fett, 14 feet, and finally in 8 feet of water. When all was said and done, we added 17 fish to the tally at this area.


TALLY= 84 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








17 JULY 2008 (PM)






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 4:45p

End Time: 9:00p

Air Temp: 94F

Water Temp: 87.5F

Wind: Humid, ESE at 14.

Skies: Skies were fair by 10am and stayed fair the rest of the day.

I fished a ½ day evening trip with lady anglers Suzi E. of Salado and Charlotte M. of Crescent Springs, KY. Suzi had never been freshwater fishing before whereas Charlotte was quite experienced, so the trip really turned into a mutually agreed upon introduction to freshwater fishing for Suzi. After the safety and gear discussion at dockside, we got down to business, and Suzi really picked up quickly on the whole concept of downrigging, as well as on the operation of the gear.

After doing everything for Suzi to get our first fish, a 12 inch white bass, in the boat, Suzi expressed a definite preference for the do-it-yourself approach versus the valet-style approach. So, from fish number 2 through fish number 24, Suzi did it all from rigging the line to dropping the ball, to adjusting the rod tension, fighting the fish, retrieving the ball, etc.

I explained from the onset that because she would have a learning curve to get through, she wouldn’t be able to keep lines in the water to the extent we could if I were rigging the lures, and that would result in fewer fish than we had the potential to catch, but she was just fine with that, and so was I.

So, we read sonar, downrigged Pet Spoons and Lunker Lickers over deepwater Areas 207 and 208 early, and over at Area 209 later on in the evening, and stayed in consistent action on 2 and 3 year old white bass going 11-13 inches.

As sunset fell, the deepwater fishing died down, and we tried a single shallow drift off a point with bait to no avail and so ended the trip with the 24 fish Suzi managed to downrig, including 3 largemouth up to 3.75 pounds, and a single white bass at 14.5″.

TALLY = 24 FISH; all gamefish 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








17 JULY 2008 (AM)






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp: 76F

Water Temp: 85.5F

Wind: Humid, light and variable at sunrise, then a light SE breeze building to and topping off at 8 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were mostly clear with 20% cloud cover; skies went fair by 10am and stayed fair the rest of the day.

I fished a ½ day morning trip with lady angler Charlotte M. of Crescent Springs, KY. She’s been down this way several times and has taken a liking to topwater fishing for anything that will hit on topwater.

Planning trips around topwater always gives me a little knot in my stomach because it is so unpredictable. A change in pressure, too much light, too much wind, etc., etc. can put the fish off, but, we persisted and were rewarded.

We got on the water before sunup and found the lake slick-calm and with an unobscured sunrise. This literally allow topwater action to be spotted from over a mile away when you look at the water correctly with or without glassing. We spotted pods of white bass and largemouth sipping ¾ inch shad fry over open water (60-70 feet deep) and up onto an adjacent deep flat tapering up from 45 to 25 feet over quite a span of water (essentially a circle with Area 56 at the 12 o’clock position and Area 186 at the 6 o’clock position).

Accurate, but not necessarily long, casts were required – this always seems the case on Stillhouse with windless conditions. The casts needed to get to the fish quickly after they initially broke water or they’d be gone.

In 2 hours of fishing we managed 27 fish. These fish were NOT schooling; they were feeding on top in small wolfpacks of a few fish per pack.

By 8:30 or so the action had died off. We went elsewhere looking strickly for largemouth feeding on top, but saw little. We agreed the topwater bite was over, and hoped to begin hunting congregated white bass with sonar to attempt to slab over them.

The wind was flat calm, and I just knew the deepwater bite wouldn’t turn on until the wind got going. So, we put on our polarized glasses and I introduced Charlotte to flyrodding for sunfish with a 2 weight. We had fun and put 20 sunfish of 3 different species (bluegill, longear, and green) in the boat in no time. Then the wind kicked in and we knew it was time to get back to the sonar and start looking deep.

We didn’t have to look long … after looking over 3 areas under light wind conditions, a nice SE breeze began to blow around 8-10mph and the very first spot we checked out under the now breezy conditions held a good bunch of fish. Area 202 sits in 25 feet of water with water up to 35 feet deep very nearby. The fish on sonar were up on top of this topography indicating willingness to feed. It took a few tugs on the slabs to get the fish going, but once they turned on, they stayed turned on and hitting steadily for 2 hours. While we slabbed near the bottom, yearling black bass were popping shad on top, especially from 9:45 to 10:30. In all, we managed 31 more fish here. We caught most of our fish with a smoking retrieve on ¼ oz. slabs including 3 crappie, 2 blacks, and 26 white bass, all 12-13 inches.

By around 10:50 the action really started to wane. We stayed in this same general location, and I continued to graph fish, but the shad began to blanket out instead of balling up, indicating the gamefish were letting up. We dropped a downrigger in to try to finish up the day with an even 80 fish, and hooked a yearling largemouth on a Pet Spoon, but he jumped off, so we settled for 79 fish for the trip.

TALLY = 79 FISH; all gamefish 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








14 JULY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:20a

Air Temp: 73F

Water Temp: 83.5F

Wind: Humid, light and variable at sunrise, then a light SW breeze slowly turning through the W and to the WNW by trip’s end in advance of a mild cold front that came through in the afternoon.

Skies: Skies were mostly clear with 20% cloud cover, increasing to 60% by trip’s end.

I fished a ½ day morning Kids Fish, Too! trip with Leonel T. (dad), his son, Justin, and family friend, CJ. The boys were both 5 years old and had never been fishing before, but were very willing to give it a try!

Due to the boys’ age and level of experience, I went with a low-tech approach that would keep them reeling in fish without a whole lot of manual dexterity required. We downrigged very successfully for the first 2 ½ hours of the trip in the vicinity of Area landing a total of 20 fish split equally between the two boys. The fish consisted mainly of 2-4 year old white bass, with 3 drum and 4 largemouth thrown in for good measure. The largest of this mess of fish was a big bug-eyed black bass weighing in at exactly 6.00 pounds (see photo in Gallery on this date). All of these fish were taken on twin downriggers rigged with a Pet Spoon and a Lunker Licker.

By about 9:00, the novelty of downrigging had worn off, and so we left the fish biting in order to pursue sunfish. We headed to Area and found abundant bedding sunfish, rigged up with sensitive quill bobbers and it was all Leonel and I could do to keep hooks baited, lines untangled, and take fish off the hook. The boys cooked through 34 fish in about an hour’s time, taking our tally up to 54 fish boated for the day. By this time, the air was still due to a pause in the breeze prior to a wind shift in advance of a cold front’s arrival. The heat and humidity were suddenly very noticeable. Dad gave me the high-sign that the boys had had enough, and we headed back to the dock with 3 very happy campers on board.

We made a quick stop at Area 199 to see if we could pick up one last fish, and, although the fish were there, suspended at 27-31 feet atop the ridge, none struck our single Pet Spoon presentation.

TALLY = 54 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








10 JULY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 12:10pm

Air Temp: 73F

Water Temp: 84.5F

Wind: Dead calm at trip’s start, with a light, humid SE breeze building by trip’s end to ~10mph

Skies: Skies were mostly clear under the influence of high pressure in the early morning, with up to 40% high, thin clouds building in by late morning which, combined with the breeze, kept things bearable.

I fished a ½ day morning trip with a wonderful senior couple, Dick and Barbara D. from the Austin area. Fishing was quite simple this morning. We downrigged the entire trip in the vicinity of Area 205 and within a 150 yard radius of it for the entire morning up until about 11am. For this effort we netted 43 fish including white bass, largemouth bass, and drum. The majority of the catch consisted of ~11 inch white bass with very few shorter and several longer. All fish came on lines run at roughly 24 feet over a deeper bottom and on Pet Spoons and Lunker Lickers. After introducing Dick and Barbara to the mechanics of downrigging, they were each able to completely rig their lines themselves which provided me with more time to watch sonar than usual, thus allowing us to really stay on top of the fish this morning.

At 11am we decided to try a little different technique just for variety’s sake, although the downrigging was still doing great. We baited up with live bait and made several tightline drifts from the SE to the NW into Area 17. We landed a total of 5 solid fish in the next hour including the largest white bass of the trip, a nice 15.5 inch fish, as well as a pair of 3.75 pound bass, and 2 smaller 16 inch largemouth.

TALLY = 48 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








07 JULY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp: 74F

Water Temp: 83.5F

Wind: Dead calm at trip’s start, with a light, humid SE breeze building by trip’s end to ~10mph

Skies: Skies were mostly clear under the influence of high pressure in the early morning, with clouds slowly building to ~75% by trip’s end. The afternoon saw light showers with grey skies.

I fished a ½ day Kids Fish, Too! trip with Bobby (dad) and Haley (daughter) H. of Temple.

We met at the ramp at 6:30a and got acquainted, went over some casting basics, and some safety basics and then turned to fishing.

We noted a hatch of small white flying insects right near the boat ramp on which the local bluegill were feeding heavily. A small #18 dry fly pattern in off white matched these insects perfectly. I introduced Haley to basic fly casting and she scored her first fish before we even left the dock! The hatch died off and we headed out to big water.

We looked over some deepwater areas and saw no strong bait or gamefish returns on sonar and so moved shallower. We encountered both shad and gamefish in between Areas 17 and 204 in 20-30 feet of water and decided on a downrigging approach at first. This netted us a 13″ largemouth and a 13″ white bass immediately. Two more fish later, as we were re-rigging to catch a fifth fish at this location, white bass began to churn the surface all around us. We pulled up the hardware and switched over to the cork rig and caught fish on top consistently for about an hour. After these fish quit on top, we continued to downrig and extended our catching for another 40 minutes or so with dual riggers out; one with Pet Spoon, the other with a silver and chartreuse Lunker Licker. Our tally up this point was 36 fish. This final stint of downrigging yielded a nice 2.25 pound white bass and a pending lake record drum weighing in at .875 pounds and 13.0″, both on the Pet Spoon. At this point in time, Haley was ready to experience a different technique, so we moved on, baited up and hunted sunfish.

At Area 195, we encountered solid sunfish action on the bream pole and quill bobber rig, adding 15 fish to the tally – 100% of the catch here was bluegill sunfish.

We attempted a drift on the SE breeze from Area 59 into the shoreline with livebait on tightlines. This did not produce and didn’t keep Haley’s attention too well after snack time was complete, so we made the decision to give downrigging one last try for one final fish before we headed in.

At Area 199 our quest came to an end as a decent 14″ largemouth hit our downrigged offering. We ended the trip with big smiles, high-fives and lots of photos.


TALLY = 52 FISH, all gamefish 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








05 JULY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 11:30a

Air Temp: 71F

Water Temp: 84.6

Wind: Dead calm at trip’s start, with a variable SW breeze of 7 to 11mph steadily building through the morning

Skies: Skies were mostly clear under the influence of strong high pressure. Perhaps 10% white billowy clouds.

I fished a half day morning trip this morning with Charlotte M., a very nice lady and school nurse from northern Kentucky visiting relatives for the summer. Charlotte wasn’t picky about species so we used a combination of techniques to expose her to different means of catching fish this time of year, and targeted several species.

We first stopped at Area 555 before dawn and thus before the surface activity began. We fancast this area with bladebaits and came up with 1 largemouth and 1 drum. By sunrise we found ourselves in the middle of ample surface activity, but as has been the case lately, most all fish here were short. We used the cork rig to put 12 topwater fish in the boat by 8:00am.

We next headed just to the SW of Area 56 after spotting some light surface activity here. We started off slabbing because the chop on the water and the glare made spotting surface activity very difficult. We caught 2 largemouth, 1 white bass, 1 crappie, and 1 sunfish. We used the sunfish for bait and immediately took a 2.75 pound largemouth on it. We never found solid schools of suspended or bottom oriented white bass or largemouth here as I had hoped for and so we moved on.

We headed to the slope between Areas 176 and 187 and saw ample bait, but that bait was blanketing the bottom and not in balls or schools, indicating that they were not feeling threatened by predator fish. We slabbed for a while and managed 1 largemouth, 2 crappie, 1 sunfish, and 1 white bass, but, again, no schools of fish.

We then headed to Area 202 and fished the 25 foot knob here. Things really started to pick up as the wind hit it’s greatest velocity of the morning and this area took a direct hit from the wind. We caught 31 fish here including 1 crappie, 3 largemouth, and 27 white bass, all about 11 inches in length. We caught these fish right up on the top of the knob and to the SW down into 34 feet of water, on the windward side of the feature. This action eventually tapered off and we moved.

Our last stop of the day came at just to the ESE of Area 149 in 35-41 feet of water. Sonar showed fish strung in a horizontal band at 32 to 35 feet deep. We smoked slabs through these white bass and quickly added a dozen fish to the count, bringing the tally up to 67. This band dispersed and we went looking for more.

We again encountered fish, this time tight to the bottom, in about 27 feet of water at just S of Area 34. We again used slabs and managed 3 whites and 6 drum. As soon as we hit the drum, I knew the big feed was just about over, and, sure enough, the fishing didn’t last another 20 minutes before they were done for the morning.

Charlotte was a joy to fish with – and enjoyed the variety we put into the morning from fishing with bladebaits to topwater to tightlining with bait to slabbing.

TALLY = 76 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








03 JULY 2008






Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Conditions:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 8:40a

Air Temp: 71F

Water Temp: 83.5F

Wind: Dead calm at trip’s start, with a light SW breeze building by trip’s end

Skies: Skies were mostly clear under the influence of strong high pressure.

I fished a very short solo trip today just doing some scouting for topwater action for tomorrow’s trip.

First stopped at Area 555 and found ample surface activity, but most all fish here were short. Used the cork rig to put 27 fish in the boat by 7:45a. Of these only two were legal largemouth, and one was a just legal white bass.

Moved to Area 203 to see how the sunfish population looked. Due to the loss of hydrilla, there wasn’t much going on here. Managed 2 sunfish on the flyrod and left.

Moved to the SW of Area 56 after spotting some light surface activity here. Caught a few largemouth and a few whites here (which was a bit surprising given how bright it was at this point, just past 8:00a. I set out one tightline with livebait while working the area over with a slab. Managed a nice 3.25 pound largemouth on the livey and 2 short largemouth and a crappie on the slab.


TALLY = 37 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