Just Drop Me Off at the Marina, Dad!! — 36 Fish — Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide’s Report






This morning I met father-and-son team Michael and Dakota V. at Stillhouse Marina for a half-day fishing trip in celebration of Dakota’s 12th birthday.


It was a day of “firsts” for Dakota’s fishing career!


I’ve got to start off by saying Dakota is my kind of kid. Over the summer he spent approximately 70% of his waking hours stalking the property around Frank’s Marina on Belton Lake or the banks of Nolan Creek running through the town of Belton in pursuit of anything with fins. At 12 years old, he came to the realization that his fishing was limited by his dad’s ability to get him where he “needs” to go. He came up with a proposal for his dad which went something like, “Why don’t you just drop me off at the marina when you go to work in the morning and then come pick me up at night when you’re done?”. Again, my kinda kid!! Now, add to that that he wants to become a Navy SEAL, retire from the Navy, then run a fishing guide service of his own … well, you just want to hustle for a kid like that!!

Coming into today’s trip Dakota had never fished from a boat, nor landed a largemouth bass or white bass. Most of his success had come on smallmouth bass, sunfish, carp, and catfish.

As we got going, we battled a murky, grey sky which limited the sudden brightening of the morning sky which often triggers the morning feed. So, things were a bit slow in the first hour or so, but, thanks to the scouting done yesterday, we had a handful of places where I suspected fish would be and as I worked through those places, we found fish.

While things were slow, I relied on the downriggers to comb out the more aggressive individuals from a generally non-aggressive population. As the winds calmed a bit at mid-morning and the skies brightened, the bite intensified and our downrigging results improved, and we also began to see fish pull up off bottom into a feeding posture. We switched over to a more aggressive vertical presentation with ‘blasters and TNT180’s and scored well over about a 70 minute window beginning just past the midpoint of our trip, around 10:30.

Most of the large concentrations of fish we found today were between 36-41 feet.

By 11:15 the bite was over and although we looked elsewhere with downriggers down, we saw precious little ready to feed any longer. After finding nothing to fish for in 3 different, typically productive areas it was clear that we’d caught all we were going to catch for today.

By trip’s end Dakota had (obviously) fished from a boat, AND he caught his first white bass, AND he boated the only largemouth to come over the side (although his dad hooked and lost one right at boatside as we were beginning our trip). In all, we boated 36 fish and had a good time mixing it up with the 3 techniques we employed to do it. Mission accomplished!


TALLY = 36 FISH, all caught and released


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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:25a

End Time: 12:35a

Air Temp: 68F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 77.2F

Wind: Winds were SSE10-14.

Skies:100% greyed over with “squinting” light in last 2 hours.



Areas Fished with success:

** 453 early – only 4 fish, but multiple large schools here

** 495/1265/855 – deep ‘rigging for sluggish fish, 16 singles and doubles

** 1263 – 10 fish, vertical ‘blasters for schooled, active fish

** 1264 – 6 fish, vertical ‘blasters for schooled, active fish

Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Salado, Texas








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