This morning I fished Stillhouse Hollow with Brad M. and his long-time friend, Bob.
Brad’s nice black bass fell for a Pet Spoon we ran at 26 feet deep.
The best of our white bass were caught from off bottom in 36′ on both blades and blasters today.
Brad’s wife saw me advertising in “Buy Texas Deals” online and booked the trip for her husband. Since the deal was good for 1 or 2 people, Brad invited Bob along. Brad is a Red Raider and makes a go of it running a booth at the Bell County Flea Market. Bob and his wife most recently sold rustic furniture and metal art from a shop they owned on Stan Schleuter Loop in Killeen.
As we began today, the winds were very light out of the NW. We found ample quantities of white bass both on bottom and suspended, along with ample bait in the same general vicinity, so, catching was pretty easy on the downriggers, but, we all kept a watchful eye out for topwater as this typically begins to come on strong with the initial cooling of the water (which we experienced beginning this past Saturday). Indeed, we saw three very brief topwater episodes — enough to help show us where fish were, but not long enough or strong enough to gear up and spend time fishing on topwater for them.
When we spotted topwater action, we headed to it, then I searched in that vicinity with sonar, and, more often than not, found fish on bottom and ready to feed where the topwater had erupted. It seemed the later it got the more tightly those fish on the bottom held their place and didn’t wander off. We threw both bladebaits and ‘blasters for these white bass (as deep as 36 feet today — the deepest I’ve found them all summer, and that due to the thermocline beginning to break down).
I observed that the thermocline has already begun to push downward with the fall of the surface temperatures from the summer high of around 87F to the current 80F.
Our fishing today was confined to the first 3.25 of the 4+ hours we spent on the water. By around 10:15 it was very bright and the surface was growing closer and closer to flat calm with a fading WNW breeze.
We wound up boating 51 white bass, 1 drum and 1 largemouth on today’s trip.
TALLY = 53 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 7:00a
End Time: 11:20a
Air Temp: 64F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 80.4F
Wind: Winds were WNW3-5.
Skies: Clear blue skies.
Areas Fished:
** 1241/484 for 1.75 hours with a combination of 90% downrigging and 10% blades
** 1255 for .75 hours throwing blades & blasters vertically and horizontally
** 866/859 for 1 hour throwing blades & blasters vertically and horizontally
** Last 45-50 minutes was flat
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas