This evening, immediately in the wake of a severe Texas hail storm, I fished on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with father and son team Robby (father) and Brian (son) Doherty. .
With white bass suspended and on the move, flatline trolling was hard to beat as the technique of choice this evening. The Doherty’s boated 26 white bass and 2 white crappie (L to R: Brian and Robby).
Robby and I first got to meet in person in early March this year at the Cabela’s “Great Outdoors Days” in Buda, TX, where I was presenting seminars on both sonar use and basic dock fishing for kids. Robbie had viewed my website and had seen that I’d worked with a lot of children and felt I might be a good fit for offering a trip to him and Brian (who has some special needs associated with Down’s Syndrome). Robby is an Air Force veteran now working as a contractor with the Texas Workforce Commission out of Austin. Brian is a citizen at the Brookwood Community in Brookshire, Texas, where he resides in one of eight group homes arranged especially for people with autism spectrum disorders; intellectual disabilities; developmental disabilities, traumatic brain injury, and other adult special needs. He is a sports enthusiast (basketball, baseball, and football, in that order), and works in the “Horticulture Enterprise” at Brookwood, helping to propagate over a half-million plants each year including poinsettias.
After driving through quite a hail-rain-thunder-and-lightning storm to get to the ramp, we all linked up around 3:45p, and, undeterred by the weather (which was now clearing from west to east), we launched right at our planned start time of 4:00p.
Fishing was best in the first 90-120 minutes as the pressure was climbing following the storm’s passage. After calm, bright, warm conditions set in, the fishing got very tough until right at sunset when a short, low-light feed took place.
I had planned for a very low-tech approach today by using downriggers and flatlines to troll crankbaits amidst loosely schooled congregations of white bass slowly making their way up the little current now flowing in the Lampasas River.
We used Storm ThinFins on the downriggers, a #5 Rapala ShadRap RS on one flatline, and a 2″ Storm Deep Rattlin’ ThinFin on the other. As a result, we were fishing with 4 lines down, and covering 4 different depths until trends emerged on what depths were producing the action. I then changed up baits and downrigger depths to zero in on what worked best.
We boated a total catch of 28 fish this afternoon.
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:00p
End Time: 8:10p
Air Temp: 65F at trip’s start, rising rapidly into the low 80’s as the skies cleared following the storm.
Water Surface Temp: 61F
Wind: ESE6-7 as storm cleared, then calm, then N11-13 just before sunset, then going calm again as the sun set.
Skies: Clear blue cloudless skies following clearing of hail storm.
Other Notes: GT100
Areas Fished with success:
** 684 and NW to 405, and SE to 744 – trolling/downrigging for 24 white bass & 2 crappie
** 074 for 2 white bass on downriggers
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas