Kiddie Cast & Blast — Stillhouse Hollow, 27 Dec. 2013

This morning I fished with
with retired U.S. Army NCO Lance H., his two boys, Dylan and J.J., his nephew, Antonio, and a family friend, Matthew B., whose dad is currently deployed to Kuwait. 




First came the casting (we fished until each boy boated a fish so we could take a nice group photo)



…then came the blasting (shooting pellet guns at aluminum cans along the shore in the great outdoors!). L to R: Matthew B., Dylan H., Lance H, Jason (J.J) H., and Antonio

Lance has been wanted to do something “outdoorsy” with his boys for a long time now, and with the decent weather, and time off from work and school, today seemed like a good day.

 After encountering very tough fishing conditions yesterday thanks to clear, windless skies, I called Lance (after seeing this morning’s forecast for more of the same) and suggested we fold in an activity in addition to the fishing, as I suspected we’d have a short, sunrise bite today as we did yesterday, and that the fishing would once again shut down pretty quickly after 90-120 minutes.

As it turned out, that is exactly what happened, so, once we’d boated at least a fish per kid, we then headed to the shore, broke out the pellet guns, and set up our own shooting gallery using a large log for a bench rest and piles of rocks as elevated platforms on which to place our soda can targets.

As we worked with the kids we got to show them the fundamentals of the sight picture they should look for, muzzle awareness, the use of the safety mechanism, and how to use several different sorts of airguns.

After about an hour (and a copious quantity of snacks) the novelty of target shooting wore off and we rounded out and finished up our morning with a lakeside lesson on how to cast a closed-face reel, as Dylan and J.J. had each received one of these as a Christmas present.  As luck would have it, we found a really nice jointed crankbait with enough heft to it to cast a good long way.  I removed the hooks, showed the boys how to tie an improved clinch knot, and we used that as our “casting plug” until each of the boys was able to cast reasonably straight and far.



TALLY = 6 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:20a
End Time: 12:05p
Air Temp: 35F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 51.6F 
Wind: Winds were calm for the entire trip today
Skies: Cloudless, fair skies.
Other Notes:

Areas Fished with success:
**   1316 (3 terns, 1 gull)
**   1308 (no birds)

Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

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