Fished a half-day morning trip today with a father (Marty W.), his 4th Grade son (Evan W.), and Evan’s 4th Grade buddy (Jonathan A.). These boys were well behaved, they wanted to do well, and, because they listened well, were very successful, especially given the tough wind conditions we had today.
EVAN W. AND JONATHAN A. WITH A PAIR OF STILLHOUSE BLACK BASS.
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 11:15a
Air Temp: 63F at trip’s start. Temps peaked at around 79F today.
Water Surface Temp: ~58.1F
Wind: Winds were SSW at 15 before sunrise (obscured) and steadily build to 20+ with higher gusts to 30+ by 10:00am.
Skies: Skies were overcast the entire trip with occasional breaks in the clouds existing by trip’s end.
Following launching and my basic safety talk, we headed out hoping the birds would help us out today. As we watched and waited on the birds, we did a little flatline trolling and scored a single white bass on a Bomber bait. Soon, around a dozen gulls began to show interest in and around Areas 89 and 143. We cruised in with sonar on, verified the presence of fish, got lures in the water and got a feel for what kind of lure size and retrieve would work best today. After figuring that out and considering the boys’ abilities, we went with a 3/8 oz. TNT180 slab fished smoking style. After the boys each struggled to get their first, second, and third fish, their minds began to put together what it would take to be consistently successful. After they mastered that learning curve, there was no stopping them. Over the next ~2 hours we spot hopped, but only yards at a time, to stay under the hottest bird activity. During this time, the boys landed a total of 54 additional fish consisting mainly of 11-13 inch white bass, with an occasional small largemouth mixed in.
By 9:15, the birds had lifted and the bite slowed a bit. We rigged up the downriggers and trolled a bit so we could still have lures in the water as the boys snacked and as I searched some deeper haunts with sonar. We picked up one white bass on the downrigger with a White Willow Spoon and then spotted a large congregation of fish holding at the E-W oriented lip of the hole between Areas 102 and 55. We stayed on these fish for about 30 minutes, and took the tally up to a total of 64 by the time the wind began to blow so hard we couldn’t maintain boat control with the trolling motor. Since the fish had about played out here anyway, we headed for some more protected water.
From ~10a to 11a we downrigged in the vicinity of Areas 330 and 385. There were very sluggish and very scattered, bottom-oriented white bass and largemouth bass on this flat in 19-22 feet of water. We ran twin ‘riggers with White Willow Spoons on both and finished off the day with a total of 7 fish off this area. By 11:15 it was back to the dock to tie up and photograph and release a few of our better specimens.
A great day on the water!!
TALLY = 71 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