“Principals” of Fishing, Stillhouse, 43 Fish, 22 March 2014

This
afternoon I was joined on Stillhouse Hollow by father and son team Brian and Colby Jost of Copperas Cove, where Brian serves as an assistant principal at S. C. Lee Junior High School.  Go Cougars!!

 

Father and son did equally well this evening, boating exactly 37 white bass, 4 crappie, and 2 freshwater drum.



This beautiful white crappie landed by Colby was in full spawning colors with deep blues and dark black flecks.  White crappie are distinguished from black crappie by the parallel vertical “bars” of black flecks extending from the base of the dorsal fin down toward the belly.

I had hoped to get Brian and Colby on the water this morning before the cold front arrived just because the impact of springtime coldfronts on the fishing can be very unpredictable, as can be the winds and the temperature drops that accompany them.  However, Colby’s baseball schedule dictated an afternoon trip so, we dealt with the coldfront and, all things considered, got off pretty easy as the front arrived without much precipitation, manageable winds, and a mild, slow temperature drop.  The icing on the cake was that the fish fed right through the front’s arrival.  I believe the increasing water temperature and the corresponding increase in the metabolism of the fish population is responsible in large part for that.  Simply put, the fish now need to feed.

We split our time between two locations.  We began in 25+ feet of water near a breakline that falls into the old Lampasas River channel and found small bunches of white bass here.  We caught a total of 7 fish using a combination of light slab spoons fished vertically and Cicada bladebaits fished horizontally.

After about 90 minutes, we moved just as the north wind was picking up and the temperature began to fall.  As we were fishing another deepwater location, I observed gulls and terns working tentatively over a patch of water spanning ~60 yards.  We quickly ran to the “scene of the crime” in time to see exactly where these birds were working and run sonar over the area before the birds dispersed. 

Sonar revealed multiple, small schools of white bass holding and moving at 7-12 feet down over a 15-20 foot bottom.  We first attempted to target these fish with Cicada bladebaits used both vertically and horizontally, but, when I saw how mobile these fish were (again, thanks to the increasing water temperature), I decided a trolling regimen would work better.  And it did!!

We put out 4 flatlines with ShadRap RS’s and Rip Shad 200’s and went to work trying to keep these baits above the fish.  Eventually we transitioned to 2 flatlines and 2 downriggers.  On the downrigger lines we ran ThinFins, again, to limit the depth at which our lures ran in an attempt to keep them running over top of the fish.

We stayed on these fish for over 2 hours, putting an additional 36 fish in the boat as they hit everything we trolled by them.

TALLY = 43 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:45p
End Time: 8:05p
Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start, falling to 64F as the N. wind pushed in
Water Surface Temp: 61.4F 
Wind: Winds today swung from SSE through W, NW, then NNE as a mild cold front arrived
Skies: 100% grey and clouded, heavily at times
Other Notes: GT10

Areas Fished with success:

**   036 to 372 along the channel break – 5 whites, 1 drum, 1 crappie
**   684 and NW to 405, and SE to 744 – 3 crappie, 32 white bass, 1 drum






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas