Play a Little Bridge … Do a Little Fishin’ … 43 Fish, Stillhouse Fishing Guide’s Report






This morning I fished with a retired couple, Dickie and Sandra M., of Killeen.

Sandra and Dickie with the best of our bunch today — 43 fish caught — all white bass.

First, let me say I AM open for business despite the government shutdown of the Corps of Engineer facilities at Belton and Stillhouse. Just hours in advance of the gates closing and the barricades being placed in front of the boat ramps, I moved into a wet slip at the Stillhouse Marina and will be running all trips on Stillhouse until the shutdown is over.

Now, back to our trip – Dickie is a combat veteran of the Vietnam war and earned a Purple Heart after being shot down in the helicopter he was piloting. After retirement from the service he served as an instructor pilot at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. Sandra just retired 2 years ago as an EMT and now spends a good bit of time singing with the Central Texas Master Singers and playing bridge.

The couple does a good bit of saltwater fishing up near the Sabine Lake region on the Texas-Louisiana border. This kind of cut both ways. It was great to have people aboard who already knew how to cast, fight a fish, etc., but when it comes to pulling power, our white bass aren’t much of a match for 20-30 pound redfish. That said, they have tried fishing on their own on both Belton and Stillhouse and admitted that our catch today of 43 exceeded the total catch of their last 7-8 trips (by about 40 fish!).

Fishing was just average today thanks to the easterly component of a continued SSE wind in advance of an approaching cold front due in Saturday morning. The fishing followed a very predictable bell-shaped curve this morning starting off slow at sunrise, picking up well from 9-10:15, then tapering off to nil by 11:40 We covered the slow times by downrigging and when things picked up we went vertical using ‘blasters to target more aggressive, schooled fish.

As the water cools and the days grow shorter, the fish continue to be found deeper and deeper as the thermocline begins to dissipate. Today we picked up a few of our fish from as much as 38 feet.

Dickie and Sandra are both from the coastal part of Texas near Lake Jackson/Angleton area and know well the Surfside area where my wife and I are heading for vacation later in the year, so, it was nice to get some local inside scoops on where to go and what to do during our conversation.

We finished up today having boated 43 fish, all white bass ranging from 0-3 years. The two largemouth bass we hooked bothescaped on the jump. We also missed a few while we vertically jigged before I switched us over to mono instead of braided line. I’ve noticed before on clients who have enough fishing experience to have a built-in reflex to set the hook when a fish strikes that they miss a lot of fish while using braided line, so, to compensate, I switch such folks over to stretchier mono and that always seems to fix the problem.

TALLY = 43 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:25a

End Time: 11:45a

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 82.0F

Wind: Winds were SSE11-13.

Skies: Fair, cloudless skies.

Areas Fished:

** Downrigged 1233-1239 until bite strengthened

** Smoked blasters at 864-1134 during peak bite

** Smoked blasters at 1252/1257 as action waned, then downrigged to finish up

**

Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Salado, Texas