I fished this morning on Stillhouse Hollow with Mark K. Mark recently moved to this area from Florida as an electrical contractor working on the Darnall Army Hospital expansion project on Ft. Hood.
We caught fish from start to finish today, all on slabs both jigged and “eased”. Mark grips a pair of 13.50 inch fish taken on slabs today.
This morning’s weather had a fishy feel to it — cool, damp, grey, and cloudy. An occluded front to our SE has been responsible for the balmy conditions these past few days, but, as it moves east, things will no doubt get dicey soon. I wanted to get on the water before the weather began to deteriorate.
Based on below average success fishing early in the morning yesterday, we delayed this morning’s start to 8am. This worked well as we immediately got onto fish and the fish were ready to feed … no tentative takers this morning as I had encountered early on yesterday.
I really enjoyed Mark’s company. He’s a likeable, fit, well-spoken fellow in his early 40’s. Most of Mark’s prior fishing experience came through shallow water angling in Florida, as well as during one conventional tackle bonefish trip to the Bahamas. He was already familiar with spinning tackle and the basics of hooksetting, playing fish, etc. So, without much coaching required, we just focused on putting fish in the boat.
Over the course of our trip we fished only 3 distinct areas and found the situation similar at each. The white bass were in a feeding posture, just inches off the bottom, and were heavily congregated. As we first got our slabs down (we used 3/8 and 3/4 oz. in both white and chartreuse today without any appreciable difference in success) the fish would strike as we worked them in a straightforward jigging technique. After we boated a few fish, they would then get more and more reluctant, responding well to an easing tactic. Eventually, even though lots of fish continued to show on sonar, they would become much less enthused about even the easing tactic. Ultimately, despite fish still being present, they’d just stop hitting, thus sending us looking for a “fresh” population fish, where this cycle would repeat itself.
We fished this way at Area 074, Area 1017, and Area 402 catching equally well at each and putting together a nice bag of 48 white bass and a single drum. We culled our fish to keep just the chunkiest two for an end of trip photo. The fish Mark is holding in the photo both went 13.50 inches.
TALLY = 49 FISH all caught and released
Start Time: 8:00a
End Time: 11:15a
Air Temp: 50F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 56.6F.
Wind: Winds were N6.
Skies: Skies were grey and 100% cloudy the entire trip.