If you own a sonar unit and don’t know how to use it, don’t have confidence in interpreting what you are seeing, or don’t know how to adjust your unit, the time to get on the water is now. If you don’t own a sonar, and plan to get one for Christmas, the time to get on the water is now. I can show you how to make the most of your sonar and will even send you home with a listing of the best setting for your unit, all while catching solid numbers of white bass.

THIS SONAR SCREEN IS SCREAMING “GOOD FISHING!!” If you couldn’t quite tell that just by looking, you should come out and learn to read sonar while catching fish at the same time. This time of year lends itself to many “shots” at sonar-spottable fish on any given trip.

What’s happening right now is this: The water temperature is dropping slowly, and the fishes’ metabolism is decreasing as well. The fish group more tightly and move less frequently then during the hot months, all the while feeding on shad that are also slowing down and bunching up. White bass consume most of the protein that goes into egg and sperm development for the Spring spawn beginning now. With cool weather and deer season upon us, the lakes are underutilized — it’s just a great time to be out. Here’s what happened today…

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp: 63F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~67.5F

Wind: Winds were due ENE at 6-10 mph.

Skies: Skies were 100% grey and heavy.

As I launched, the winds had a ENE bearing — usually not a good sign, but, they were damp, warm winds, not driven by cold front conditions. This was a good sign.

I looked for any natural sign to clue me in to fish location, but found little. I headed first to Area 443 and found sparse, scattered, small suspended white bass here. I caught 1 and had several more fail to respond positively and thought I’d be in for a tough morning.

I then noticed some surface activity at between Area 537 and 538 (BA-2HG/1O) and over 21 to 29 feet of water. I stealthily pulled up on this activity and went to work with a cork rig and very quickly put 16 small white bass in the boat beginning around 7:30. I stayed on this area until exactly 9:03 when, after catching my 70th fish of the trip (69 whites and 1 short largemouth), I decided to leave these fish as they were still active in order to try to pin down the location of additional active fish for future reference. These fish responded equally well to a jigged slab, a lift-dropped slab, and a smoked slab after the topwater died off, and in both the 3/8 and 1/2 oz size TNT 180. This is the first time this fall I’ve had fish willing to hit the larger 1/2 oz. profile. Had I brought a Hazy Eye Shad Rig, doubles would have certainly been possible given the high activity level of these fish. The size of these fish was solid. Most topwater and suspended fish were smallish, but all bottom-hugging fish were at least legal, with many going 13+ inches. The largest white bass today was 14 1/8 inch.

I checked a few areas, but failed to find bait at most, Area 088 being one exception. This area had a bit of bait holding near bottom in 36′. Once I got a slab down there, I raised one school of about a dozen fish, but little else.

I moved on and wrapped up the trip at Area 539. There is a well-defined slope here and the fish and shad were holding off the face of the slope at the 29-32 foot mark. These fish would not respond to the 1/2 oz. slab, as the activity level was falling off rapidly. I caught 11 fish here (10 whites and a 16.5 inch largemouth), 2 struck off bottom, and the rest came out of very stationary suspended groups of 2-3 fish. By 11:00a, the fish would simply not respond any longer, despite still being suspended slightly off the bottom. I packed it up at this point and headed in.

TALLY = 81 fish, all caught and released

I fished a split trip today, solo in the morning and then with two deployed US Army soldiers’ kids in the afternoon.

Robert Stovall (son of deployed SGT Jeffery Stovall, A/2-8 CAV, 1st Cavalry Division) with our biggest of the trip.

Jay Smith (son of deployed CW2 Anthony Smith, A/2-227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division) with a nice white bass he fooled by vertical jigging a TNT 180 slab.

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 9:00a

Break: 9:00am – 2:30p

Start Time: 2:30p

End Time: 6:05pm

Air Temp: 63F AM & 74F PM at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~68.4F

Wind: Winds were SSE at 6-7 mph., then going calm about 45 minutes prior to sunset

Skies: Skies were 100% grey in the AM, and partly cloudy in the PM.

My intent in the morning was to fish only 2 areas that I’d not fished for a while, and to fish them very thoroughly, as they are both fairly expansive.

The first area, Area 113 – 115 yielded nothing. Although sonar showed, on occasion, what I would have bet were small, single white bass, I could not get anything to hit. I covered water with a flatline troll using Rip Shads, and I fished water in detail with blades and slabs, but came up empty handed.

The second area, N. of Area 999 did have abundant shad showing suspended at 12-16 feet over a bottom ranging from 16-22 feet. I sampled this area with a blade to check for active fish and found none, and so slowed down and fished the blade vertically for the regularly showing suspended white bass now materializing in the area. As I got settled in here, small white were occasionally driving very small shad to the surface and making their characteristic feeding sound on top which was audible despite the wind. The cool, damp conditions just didn’t have a fishy “feel” to them this morning, and the fish were slugging. I caught 14 fish here including 1 short black bass, 1 nice crappie, and a dozen white bass, 3 of which exceeded 11 inches — in all a pretty slow morning. I departed at 9:00a only to return at 2:30p for an afternoon SKIFF trip.

In the early afternoon, I picked up two young men for what would be our 12th SKIFF trip of the season. SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Trips are provided at no charge to those military children with a parent deployed in harm’s way or who has passed away while on active duty. Here is the report I furnished to the Austin Fly Fishers, the people who raise the funds to make these SKIFF trips possible:

SKIFF TRIP #12

Since our last SKIFF trip of October 19th, Stillhouse Hollow rose to over 8 feet above full pool, and has now receded to a shade above full pool. During this time of great environmental change, and as the days are getting shorter and the water cooler, I avoided bringing kids aboard knowing the fishing would be spotty at best. This past week I encountered the first reliable activity since all of the rainfall as our water has cleared up, and so got two young men lined up to join me on the water today.

Robert Stovall is the 4th Grade son of Jeffery and Lynn Stovall. Jeffery is stationed in Iraq at Camp Taji. He is an Infantry Sergeant with Alpha Company, 2-8 Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. Jay Smith is the 5th Grade son of Anthony and Stephanie Smith. Anthony is also at Camp Taji. He is a Warrant Officer and flies helicopters in Alpha Company, 2-227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.

Robert and Jay hit it off real well and were a joy to have aboard. We got on the water today around 2:15pm with a SSE breeze pushing at about 8-9 mph. My afternoon trips of late have started off slow, peaked about an hour before sunset, and then died right at dark, and today’s trip followed that same pattern. The water temperature rose about 3.5 degrees this week due to calm winds and brilliant sunlight all week, and as a result, we have a lot of suspended fish feeding up high in the water column as that is where the shad are, typically from 10 to 16 feet below the surface. Be began with twin downriggers deployed using a standard Pet Spoon on one and a doctored Pet Spoon on the other between Areas 035 and 161 We immediately got into fish fishing the ‘riggers staggered at 14 and 18 feet deep. As the boys got more adept at rigging the lines, I added a third, and then a fourth presentation to the spread by flatlining crankbaits over the downrigger spread. Within 90 minutes we’d boated 12 fish including 11 whites and 1 largemouth. The Pet Spoons pretty much split the take, with the smaller of the two Rip Shad baits accounting for 1 small white, and the larger one accounting for none.

I wanted to introduce the boys to technique of vertical jigging, so we left the downrigging behind after the fish tapered off and headed to Area 089. The fishing here has been consistent both for me and a local osprey over the past 2 weeks. As we idled in, sonar lit up with white bass hanging within a foot of the bottom at the base of a breakline in 25 feet of water. I buoyed these fish and gave the boys instructions on how to work a slab. Within minutes, both boys caught their first fish here, and we added a total of 10 fish to the tally during our 35-40 minutes spent here.

I also wanted to introduce the boys to the use of spinning gear (as neither had used spinning gear before). We hit the shallows shoreward of a line between Areas 130 and 407 as sunset approached, hoping we could cast blade baits for white bass laying up in the shallows, but, unfortunately, the winds began to slack off right at this time. Flat winds = flat fishing, and this evening made no exception. From the time the wind died and through the sunset period, we only put 2 more fish in the boat as we returned to downrigging and worked over 14 to 26 feet of water between Areas 535 and 418.

Jay admitted to being a real history buff, with a keen interest in World War II. Jay let his imagination wander a bit as we were doing the last of our downrigger duty and proclaimed a nearby bass boat to be an enemy ship. This caused Robert to giggle, which was all Jay needed to keep thinking up ways to convert our center console into a battleship. He suggested the downriggers could serve as machine guns, the rod holders as mortar tubes, my Carolina rig weights as bullets, my two marker buoys as binoculars and night vision goggles, and the list goes on (actually, for quite a while!). The boys got so entertained at this that our last two white bass of the night nearly took a backseat to this great sea battle about to commence.

Robert, our scientist, explained to all why the sky appeared red as the sun set – that being due to a combination of pollution and volcanic dust being transported by the jet stream.

By dark we’d done all we were going to do and headed back in. The boys both thanked me (twice) without any prompting from their moms as I carried them home and delivered them safe and sound.

We tallied 24 fish this afternoon.

TALLY = 38 fish boated today, all caught and released

Today’s success underscored the advantage of living on the south shore of Stillhouse and being able to observe lake and wind conditions from my house. I was able to time today’s trip with the arrival of the first significant winds of the entire week, and found the fish very active as a result. I hadn’t planned on fishing today, but, seeing these conditions starting to line up just right, I made a quick solo venture out there and was rewarded.

Start Time: 2:55p

End Time: 5:55pm

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~68.4F

Wind: Winds were due S at 9-10 mph.

Skies: Skies were fair.

This entire week we experienced high, blue, clear skies, and very light, variable winds due to high pressure being firmly in place.

Today, in advance of a disturbance moving in over the weekend, the high pressure began to break down, resulting in S. winds. Oftentimes when the wind begins to blow after an extended period of calm, the fish crank up, and today was no exception.

I fished 4 windblown areas, finding ample fish at 3 of them.

First stop came in the form of a downrigging circuit run between Area 035 and 161.

A prospective customer from Goldthwaite called me just minutes into the trip as I was steering the boat, and as I got to talking, I came up a bit shallower than I had intended, and, at the 24 foot mark here, saw the bottom light up with white bass on sonar. Up to this point, I’d boated 7 whites, all suspended, on Pet Spoons. I buoyed this concentration of fish, got the downriggers stowed, noted the area (Area 536), and began vertical jigging for these fish. I put 22 white bass in the boat, all nice, solid 12.5 to 13.75 inch fish and fairly plump — by far the best quality fish I’ve come on in any numbers for quite a while. All of these slabbed fish came on a TNT 180 in 3/8 oz.

After things calmed down here, the wind continued to blow even as sunset was approaching, so I headed to Area 089, and, just shoreward of this area found another solid concentration of fish, again, on bottom and in 25-26 feet of water at the base of the slope. I put 10 fish in the boat very quickly (only 2 were legal) and decided to leave these fish biting to go search out additional congregations of fish so I’d have a nice milkrun to make for the next several booked trips.

I hit Area 531 without result, then hit Areas 052 and 053 with sonar only and found nothing. By now it was within minutes of sunset.

I headed back to the vicinity of Area 089, but moved up shoreward and found fish on bottom with sonar in 16-18 feet of water. I jigged just beyond sunset and boated an additional 5 fish.

TALLY = 44 fish, all caught and released

Slack winds = slack fish activity. With high pressure firmly in place we had no wind to speak of this morning, nor is there much forecast for the next several days. Fishing was tough as a result.

Start Time: 6:35a

End Time: 11:05am

Air Temp: 48F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~64.5F

Wind: Winds were light and variable to near calm the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were clear and bright.

I did a good bit of cruising this morning hoping to find some bird activity as the time is about right for that to kick in. I did spot 6 herring gulls, but, they, too, were cruising and not on fish.

I first found fish at Area 161 and worked this area over pretty good from 19 to 28 feet resulting in one nice white bass jigged off bottom and 4 other smaller whites taken as solos or from small suspended schools, all on the 3/8 oz. TNT 180. I decided to move after putting 5 in the boat so as to try to locate additional reliable fish holding areas given our current slightly flooded conditions.

I checked in at Area 535 which has been very reliable of late, and put 5 quick fish in the boat — all small whites from larger suspended schools — and then left them alone to search for more action.

I found a few fish holding on the slope at Area 130, and landed a small largemouth, a nice crappie, and a nice white bass, all jigging right on bottom.

I then noted an osprey working open water nearby grab a live white bass off the surface. I went over to investigate and found numerous schools of small whites holding at 12-17 feet down over 20-25 foot depths. I put out twin downriggers to cover some water quickly and quickly came up with 3 whites and a short largemouth, all on the Pet Spoon.

I’d planned to fish only ’til 11:00 today, so, with no indicators that the wind was going to pickup, I headed on in and checked Area 534 along the way, and picked up one just-legal white bass there from a school that materialized then disappeared, allowing for just that one fish to be taken.

Not once did I raise an active school of whites, and not once did I catch fish back-to-back. The fish were taken steadily, one at a time, and each had to be worked for. I saw many more suspended fish on sonar than I actually caught, as these fish were just turned off and unwilling to chase a presentation. You can pretty much bet on it: Slack winds = slack fish activity.

TALLY = 19 fish, all caught and released