I fished my first trip on Stillhouse in this new year today and was pleased to find fish in their traditional modes for this season and water temperature. I waited for the wind to pick up before heading out today and, once on the water, had a nice 14 mph S. wind to work with.

I found two distinct groups of fish today, both on topographic features adjacent to deep water. The first concentration of fish appeared at Area 716. These fish were over 38-40 feet of water and were suspended 20-32 feet down and were relating to sluggish schools of shad in this same area. These fish were ripe for picking with a “sniping” technique using a Rapala Jigging Shad Rap and, indeed, 14 fish fell to this approach with 3 more briefly hooked and lost. This action lasted about 45 minutes, from 3:15 until around 4:00pm.

Next, I headed out looking in areas with similar features and found fish, this time near bottom, at between Area 103 and 549 in 27-31 feet of water. Here again there were lots of sluggish, nearly immobile, schools of shad. These fish were really turned on at this point allowing me to boat 20 additional fish between 4:30 and 5:00 pm, all on a TNT 180 slab in 3/8 oz. I experimented today with a new braid product sent to me by Sufix — it’s called Sufix 832. Honestly, I’m not a real fan of braid, but this is the best I’ve used so far in that it is much smoother than average braid and doesn’t feel like you’re trying to reel a bandsaw blade through your rod guides. All the sensitivity and thin diameter of braid is there — just more to experiment with as the year goes by!! The bite went soft right at 5:08pm.

I found no helpful bird activity whatsoever on this trip.

TALLY = 34 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 2:25p

End Time: 6:00p

Air Temp.: 63F

Winds: S14 tapering to S8

Skies: Fair