“…An Excellent Transfer of Knowledge” — 131 Fish, Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report, 16 Nov. 2012






This morning I fished with Adrian and Melinda A. of Harker Heights, TX.




Adrian and Melinda boated 103 fish in a shade over 3 hours of fishing this morning. Melinda boated this 1.75 pound black bass from among schooled white bass.

Adrian seemed to have the knack for outsized white bass today. We boated many whites exceeding 13.5″ this morning.

After waiting out the last 2 very calm days, we hit the water again hoping the forecast wind would materialize, and, thankfully, it did.

Adrian and Melinda are occasional anglers with their own boat who hoped to “put the pieces together” on Stillhouse and learn how to fish better. In trying to meet their expectations, I focused on fish location. Many times on the water and in this blog, I’ve stressed that fish are not all that difficult to catch, but can be extremely difficult to find. Thus, location is the key.

As we fished today I gave them some pointers on natural signs to look for in this cool season, showed them what parts of the lake to focus on, demonstrated how to get the most from sonar equipment, and explained what weather conditions tend to produce the best action.

We caught fish essentially non-stop from 7:15 to 10:15. Our first success came at Area 1043 (BA:3HG,3C). We found a school of yearling white bass here and used small TNT180’s (in 3/8 oz.) to target these fish using an “easing” technique. We put 7 fish (all white bass) in the boat very quickly before this action dried up.

Next, we hit Area 1146 (BA:9HG) and found a significant feed underway here. Fish were spread throughout the water column and were actively driving bait to the surface. We kept our TNT180’s on, but upped our size to 3/4 oz., and fished them using a “smoking” technique in order to take advantage of these fishes’ willingness to chase. We boated an additional 36 fish here including 34 white bass, 1 drum, and 1 largemouth bass. By 8:15 this action ended.

We moved to the vicinity of Area 037, made several sonar passes, and spotted fish holding just off bottom in a feeding posture right on the gentle breakline at 25 feet. We got the boat hovered right over top of these fish, let our slabs down and used a smoking technique initially (as fish were aggressive), followed by an easing technique (after they settled down). We added another 42 fish to our tally here, including white bass from the 1, 2 and 3 year old year classes, as well as another drum.

Once this action died, I moved us to a deeper, more wind-exposed area as the sun was getting higher and the wind was fairly light due to the somewhat protected area we were in.

We moved to Area 1147 and, at the deep end of a 28 to 41 foot breakline, found another large concentration of white bass. As we experienced at the previous location, these fish were very aggressive at first, but then calmed down more quickly here, so, we used appropriate tactics to match the activity level and came away with 17 more fish here. As we transitioned into an “easing” technique, we could see at one point on sonar that there still remained plenty of fish beneath us, but, they were quickly and increasingly becoming unwilling to strike. The morning feed was fast coming to a close and I let Adrian and Melinda know this was the “beginning of the end”.

We decided to do one thing before wrapping up, and that was a demo on the use of downriggers. This could not have played out more perfectly … I explained the equipment and the purpose of it — to precisely control the depth of a trolled bait so as to effectively cover lots of water. I rigged up a tandem Pet Spoon, saw bait holding around 25 feet over a 35 foot bottom, and so lowered the ball to 25 feet. We covered about 50 yards during which time I pointed out the appearance of the ball on sonar. Right at that moment, a fish appeared on sonar at 28 feet. I made a fast, manual adjustment, lowering the ball an additional two feet to get the ball closer to, but still above, that target fish. A few seconds went by during which time our bait traveled close to this target fish, and BAM!, that fish hit the lure and allowed Adrian and Melinda to see a “turnkey” demo of downrigging. Adrian landed the largemouth, thus putting our 103rd fish in the boat for their trip.

The couple was ready to head in, warm up, and sip some coffee, so, we took a few photos of our largest white bass and got them headed home after a very productive morning. Adrian paid a nice complement saying, “This was an excellent transfer of knowledge.”, meaning he had gained insight on many of the things necessary to be consistently successful in his future angling pursuits.

With a trip on the books tomorrow, I set back out to check a few more spots. I looked over seven areas with sonar, found fish on two of them (Areas 1148 and 1149) and boated an additional 28 fish off of these areas over the next hour and 45 minutes (that’s a far slower catch rate than the first 3 hours provided). This was much more technical fishing as the fish were now holding tight to bottom, unwilling to chase, and bit very subtly. Every one of these fish came on a light 3/8 oz. TNT180 fished “slabbing” style.

TALLY = 131 Fish, all caught and released, including 4 largemouth bass, 6 drum, and 121 white bass

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 10:15a

Air Temp: 48F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 64.5F

Wind: NE6-8.

Skies: Skies were fair with <10% cloud cover.








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