Fished a 1/2 day morning trip on Stillhouse today with Wills Point ISD Superintendant Mr. Joe O. and his 79 year old dad, Billy Joe O. — both really decent men who have both devoted their lives to teaching and coaching others.
Joe (L) and Billy (R) work on one of several downrigging doubles today
Billy holds a colorful longnose gar
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 11:53a
Air Temp: 75F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: ~83-84F
Wind: Winds were NE at 7 at trip’s start, slowly coming E, then SE by trip’s end following some turbulent weather the previous day, and in advance of strong thunderstorms later this day.
Skies: Skies were mostly cloudy due to a high moderate layer of clouds that began to clear by around 11am.
As we began our day prior to sunrise, I checked a few areas to see what kind of bait concentrations were present so as to hit those areas later in the morning following any topwater action we might find.
I found solid bait in the vicinity of Area 444 and just made a mental note of that. With it still being a bit too dark to expect topwater, I showed the fellows the basics of downrigging so when we switched over to that technique later in the trip, the learning curve would be lessened. We put 2 juvenile whites in the boat as we were learning.
Next, with sunrise and skies brightening, we looked for topwater and, thank the Lord, drove right to some strong action — in fact the strongest I’ve seen since late June. I attribute this to both the weather and the fact that the surface temp. has dropped a bit from its high of 88-89. Between Area 222 and Area 468 we cast spoons at the surface feeding fish we found from about 7:10 to exactly 9:23 and caught 29 fish during that time. The key was quick, accurate casts followed by a brisk retrieve. Of these fish, 27 were largemouth and 2 were white bass.
After the action died here, I hoped we could find more surface action continuing over some deeper water near Area 333. We scooted over there and did find widespread surface action. The fish seemed more easily duped here, but we only were casting now and then due to how spread out the fish were. We added 5 largemouth to our tally here and called it quits on the topwater for the day.
By 10am we were set up with downriggers in the vicinity of Area 217. There was a lot of bait here, but it was spread like a blanket and not balled up, indicating a lack of predators in the area. We did catch a longnose gar with some pretty colors, but not much else. So, we moved on and downrigged from Area 481 to Area 444 and contacted fish at Area 484 to Area 444, right where that bait appeared pre-dawn. We worked these fish over pretty good and managed exactly 25 more fish here before the bright sun and calming wind put an end to the show. Of these 25 fish, 4 were black bass, 2 were drum, and the rest were keeper whites up to 13.5″. On 3 occasions we had both rods working at the same time, and on 2 occasions Mr. Billy had on a double on his tandem rig (a Licker/Pet combo).
TALLY = 62 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
