Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report – 13July 2009 – SKIFF #4 – 41 Fish






Fished a half-day morning trip today on Stillhouse with 3 siblings, Brandon, Maddisen, and Kayleigh, all of Killeen. This was the fourth SKIFF Program trip that I’ve run. SKIFF stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun. SKIFF trips are funded by donations both given by and collected by the members of the Austin Fly Fishers. AFF has commissioned me to take the children of soldiers deployed in harm’s way and the children of soldiers killed while on active duty on guided fishing trips. The children’s dad, SGT Ron S. is currently serving in Baghdad with the 1st Cavalry Division on his 3rd tour in that country.

(L to R) Kayleigh, Brandon, and Maddisen proudly display their catch

Kayleigh with our largest white bass of the trip – 14 7/8 inches


Maddisen with our largest black bass of the trip 1.75 pounds


Start Time: 6:55a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.1F

Wind: Winds were just right from the SSW at around 8 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were bright and clear the entire morning.

As we started off this trip, little Miss Kayleigh arrived convinced she was not going to catch a fish. I assured her that the sooner she walked from mom’s minivan to the courtesy dock the sooner she’d catch a fish. In fact, I told her she would catch a fish in less than 6 minutes if she’d give it a try. Not being a real patient little girl, this appealed to her. Making good on my promise, we marched to the dock, I put bream rod (already baited) in hand — in went her bobber, down went her bobber, and up came her first fish of the day, about 4.7 minutes after leaving mom’s minivan.

And so it went today, we enjoyed catching sunfish around cover near Area 239 and tallied 14 of those before we set out for open water in pursuit of some larger quarry.

We used a few of the sunfish we’d caught as live bait hoping to hook into some largemouth, and got 2 hits but both of those didn’t result in a catch.

After 2 unsuccessful drifts across Area 222, it was time to break out the downriggers and go to work on the resident white bass population. I showed Brandon, a soon-to-be 10th grader how to work the downriggers and he was a great asset in helping me keep lures in the water for all 3 kids. We had down a Pet Spoon and a Pet / Licker combination for all of 50 seconds when the first white bass hit on the combo. From that point on we caught fish non-stop for the remainder of our trip and tallied a catch of 41 fish on the day. The best action came from between Areas 468 and 070, with lesser but still consistent action coming from between Areas 217 and 460. The open water fishing gave up 2 largemouth, the largest going 1.75 pounds, 2 drum, and 23 white bass up to 14 7/8 inches. It was interesting to note that although only 2 of the fish caught today struck the Lunker Licker spoon, a majority of the fish we took on the downriggers struck the Pet Spoon that trailed that Lunker Licker. That’s something I now intend to experiment with a bit more.

By around 10:30 the girls (Kindergarten and 2nd grade) had just about played out (as had the snacks!) so we brought in the gear, headed for a sheltered area and took some nice photos out of the wind. The kids were very proud to do “show and tell” for their mom and had her come down to the boat to peer into the livewell at the several largest fish we’d caught before we released them.

I want to let you know, Brandon, that your a good young man with a selfless heart … you gave up a number of opportunities to catch fish yourself so your little sisters could have that experience, and you helped me and them the entire time. Thank you for that!


TALLY = 41 FISH, all caught and released (except the sunfish we used as bait)


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