SKIFF Trip #2013-12 — 27 July 2013 on Stillhouse Hollow with Taj & Austin






This morning I fished with two soldiers’ kids — Austin Wildrick and Taj Glasgow-Abraham, accompanied by Taj’s mom, Dawn. This was the 12th SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun)trip conducted so far this year.

L to R: Austin, Dawn, and Taj with a pair of white bass taken later in our trip as the skies greyed over completely and the winds began to pick up.

Taj’s dad, Sergeant First Class Abraham, originally from Grenada, has now been deployed 4 times and is currently serving as a combat engineer with the 1st Cavalry Division in Afghanistan; he is 3 weeks into this 9 month deployment. Austin’s dad, Specialist Mark Jackson, originally from Florida, has been deployed once to Iraq and is currently serving with the 1st Cavalry Division as well. His unit is just wrapping up a 2-week long gunnery (live-fire weapons practice in a field environment) and will head back to gunnery in October.

A summertime north wind is truly a wildcard in the game of Texas fishing. I’ve seen the conditions that cause north winds drive fishing through the roof, and I’ve seen those same conditions make fish lock down hard. Today, the fish were more aggressive than normal which aided in getting my two novices a respectable number of fish in the boat, as Taj had never fished before, and Austin is not quite 6 years old yet, so his ability was limited simply by his age.

We started our day downrigging with Pet Spoons — my summertime standard. The boys did well at working together and came to understand that teamwork directly impacted their success. Their key to catching fish was keeping our baits in the water a maximum amount of time as I kept us in the fish using sonar. This meant that when one boy caught a fish, the other reeled in his downrigger ball for him so we could re-rig quickly; also, when a fish was boated, we worked to keep the tandem rigs from tangling and to get them back the right setback distance from the boat as quickly as possible. Keeping the boys engaged like this kept them focused and allowed them to influence their own results. In short order we had boated 23 fish, including both white bass and largemouth. For better or worse, the boys were both quite vocal in their celebrations over each fish boated and soon we’d drawn a bit of a following (one downside to weekend fishing) as at least 5 other boats began to get too close for comfort. We departed this area (Area 842/1228/1243) for greener pastures.

As I prepared the boat for travel, I noticed a small flock of 5 terns working over open water about 3/4 miles away. I ran over for a closer look and, although they were not staying in a small area (which would indicate topwater action), they were striking the water and feeding regularly over a definable patch of water. I moved in for a look with sonar and found the bottom littered with fish along a breakline from 27 to over 36 feet (Area 070/882/883). I buoyed these fish and prepared the boys for working slabs vertically through them. We used a technique I call “smoking” to excite these fish into biting. As we worked our slabs (TNT180’s) in the lower 1/3 of the water column, the fish responded well and stayed in a biting mood for over 30 minutes, allowing us to boat 33 fish in that short span of time.

Gradually, these fish began to lose interest and we returned to a downrigging approach over these same fish to try to comb out the still active fish from out of a disinterested majority. We managed 15 more fish in this manner until the bite finally died around 10:30. We took a few photos, prepped the boat for travel, and took it nice and easy heading back while spotting wildlife (buzzards, blue heron) and answering the boys’ boating questions as we went.

As I try to get smarter about getting the word out about the SKIFF program via local social media (Facebook) on Fort Hood, I appreciate what the Austin Fly Fishers and other friends of SKIFF have done in the way of fundraising so that as interest and participation grows, the budget is already there to accommodate that growth. Thank you all so much for your long-tern support!!

TALLY = 71 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:40a

End Time: 10:40a

Air Temp: 78F at trip’s start, staying constant due to the cooling NE breeze.

Water Surface Temp: 85.41F

Wind: Winds were NE8 at sunrise slowly rising to NE13 by trip’s end on the heels of thunderstorms and a wind shift last night.

Skies: Skies went from mostly cloudy at 80% at sunrise, to fully and heavily greyed over by trip’s end.

Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Salado, Texas








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