Keep Your Eye on the Bird; 28 Fish, Stillhouse, 27 March 2014

by Bob Maindelle

This morning I fished on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with Jeremy Whitaker of Salado.  Jeremy is a kayak owner and regularly successful bank fisherman who typically pursues largemouth bass with artificial baits, but today I welcomed him aboard in pursuit of white bass.
 

We boated 27 white bass and this “lone wolf” largemouth.  Largemouth caught from deep water, like this 16.25″ fish was, are typically much more pale than those taken in the shallows.



Fat and sassy white bass with bellies full of eggs and milt were common today.

Jeremy and his wife have four children, ranging in age from 4 to 13.  Jeremy is a construction worker currently working on a renovation of the famous “Bell Tower” on the University of Texas (UT) campus in Austin.  He works nights, fishes mornings, and sleeps afternoons.

We were blessed today to encounter gulls feeding over top of active gamefish.  Marauding schools of white bass were working over a large, mid-depth flat feeding on shad.  As they do so, they often encounter sunfish still holding deep due to the cool water.  As the hyped-up schools of white bass encounter anything that moves and is smaller than they are, they attack.  This often results in crippled sunfish too big for the white bass to swallow being stunned and floundering on the surface where gulls make an easy meal of them and circle over the scene of the crime hoping for more.

We spent our first 2 hours on the water fishing under such bird activity with jigging spoons, and then, when the birds were done feeding, began trolling to cover more water.  When the birds finish feeding, this usually marks the beginning of the end of the morning or evening feed.  In fact, while the birds fed, we boated 24 fish.  Once the birds stopped feeding, we only boated another 4 fish in the last 90 minutes of our trip.

TALLY = 28 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 8:15a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp: 60F at trip’s start
Water Surface Temp: 57.8F 
Wind: SSW12
Skies: 100% grey and clouded, heavily at times
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**   401 to1364 – slabbing for 23 white bass and 1 largemouth bass
**   684 and NW to 405, and SE to 744 – trolling/downrigging for 4 white bass






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

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