Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Report – 26 Jan. 2009 – 13 FISH






I fished another half day morning trip today with Garland W., a retired architect from the Tyler, TX, area. Garland is a seasoned fisherman with both fresh- and salt-water experience, however, most of his freshwater experience was with largemouth on the shallow, cover-filled lakes of East Texas. Garland hoped to experience the deep water fishery on our clear local lakes here.



Start Time: 7:15a

End Time: 1:30p


Air Temp: 50F at (obscured) sunrise heating up to only 52F for the high.


Water Surface Temp: ~51F

Wind: Winds were damp and from the ESE for the majority of the trip, ranging from 6 to 11 mph.

Skies: Skies were heavily fogged the entire trip.

Well, it doesn’t happen often, but we got spanked today. I told Garland at the close of the trip that if I’d known the weather was going to be as we experienced, I would have cancelled the trip. The forecast was for a chance of light, patchy fog in the early morning with winds from the SE at 10-15. Instead we had a wet, drizzly, ESE wind and thick fog all morning.

These conditions make for predictably poor fishing. The birds that can be so helpful this time of year do not feed in the fog (as they are sight-feeders), and although we stayed on fish, these fish were very lethargic.

We began the day in the Area 54 complex and drifted with live shad waiting on the skies to clear and the birds to work. We missed a nice black bass, and managed a barely keeper black and a nice white bass for the effort and moved on.

Another drift to the SW of Area 100 netted the best black of the trip, just shy of 3 pounds, and another short black.

We then looked over all the humps and drops in the Area 54 complex, saw little, and moved onto Area 342 where we used a smoking retrieve for another short largemouth.

We then took a short hop over to Area 349 and found the single best concentration of fish we found all day. We stayed here about 90 minutes which was as long as the fish were active. We boated 1 largemouth and 7 white bass here, and both missed several fish on the slabs and at least 3 more on live shad. Once this action ended around 11am, we found very little else the rest of the day — just one short largemouth missed at boatside at Area 340.

January and February trips are always so tightly related to weather, and we just zigged when we should have zagged on this one.

TALLY = 13 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








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