Fished a half-day morning trip this morning with Danny and Kim M. of Georgetown, and Danny’s parents, Bonnie and Harold, visiting from New Mexico.

MRS. BONNIE WITH HER BIGGEST FISH OF THE DAY

MRS. KIM WITH HER 15″+ WHITE BASS TAKEN ON LIVE SHAD

HAROLD’S 11th HOUR BLACK BASS TAKEN ON A JUMBO GIZZARD SHAD

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time: 12:30p

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~73-74F

Wind: Winds were SE at 12+ at sunrise, increasing quickly to 22+.

Skies: Skies were mostly cloudy with high humidity causing haziness.

In advance of this trip Danny and I agreed that a more “laid back approach” than I typically take would be appropriate for his parents. We hoped to get on Belton to live shad fish for hybrid, but the wind forecast spelled trouble, so we stuck to Stillhouse and enjoyed the protection that the south shore affords.

We started the day looking shallow in 14-16 feet using slabs and watching sonar. Right off the bat we landed 2 whites as they passed suspended beneath us in a school. Harold had good reflexes and got his slab up through them in time to intercept, as did I. Mrs. Kim and Mrs. Bonnie were not quite as fortunate. Regardless, we established the presence of fish in the area, and although a few continued to show on sonar, none were on bottom. So, I rigged up one, then two, downriggers and we downrigged with White Willows (due to olive brown murk still remaining from the recent flood waters) landing 7 fish in this area before pulling out and searching elsewhere.

Our next stop came at Area 145. We made a short drift through here from SE to NW with a driftsock out. There wasn’t much in the way of fish or bait showing up, but Mrs. Kim did manage one nice 15+ inch white bass.

We moved again to Areas 429 and 430 and made 3-4 stops in an attempt to vertical jig a few additional fish, but got none. Again I deployed the downriggers, and we scraped up one keeper largemouth, this time for Mrs. Bonnie.

We left here and gave the channel break a try at between Areas 76 and 243. We added 7 more white bass to our count here using dual White Willows fished within 2′ of bottom and fished this action until it died.

Around 11:45 we set up on our last area of the day, Area 253 and about 180 yards to the NNW of it on a drift with large live gizzard shad. No sooner did we get our drift set up than all 3 rods went down. We only came up with one of the fish, but it was the largest of the trip caught by Harold — a 16 inch largemouth. We completed the drift with only 2 other “touches” and no hookups. A subsequent drift over this area yielded nil.

We called it a day at this point with the wind only continuing to increase and bellies starting to growl for some good ol’ Johnny’s Barbeque.

TALLY = 18 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 Guide