For the Love of Learning – 20 Fish, Stillhouse, 01 April 2014

This morning I fished Stillhouse Hollow with Mr. Pete Dexter of Cameron, TX.  Pete is a U.S. Navy veteran and retired college professor.  I kidded him that he also looks (and sounds!) a lot like Wiford Brimley (of “dia-beet-us” fame).
 

Pete demonstrated a love for learning new things and quickly got the hang of both sonar interpretation and vertical jigging today with positive results.

Fishing was a bit “off” today, as we had mostly calm winds during the critical first 2 hours of daylight when most of the fish tend to be caught on morning trips.

Even so, with the light winds, warming temperatures and overcast, the fish fed enough to keep us busy.  Pete was struggling with a touch of gout and wasn’t as mobile as he normally is, so, we stuck with a downrigging/trolling routine for a good while to limit the amount of moving he had to do and put 14 fish in the boat before transitioning to vertical jigging shortly after the winds began to move from the SSE and Pete got to feeling a bit better.

As we trolled flatlined baits and downriggered baits we boated 12 white bass and 2 largemouth on a combination of Storm ThinFins, Reef Runner Ripshad 200’s, and Deep Rattlin’ ThinFins.  As we transitioned to vertical jigging, we began with 3/4oz. slabs but found the fish reluctant to strike these.  We then changed over to smaller 3/8 oz. slabs and got results right away.  We boated 4 more white bass, 1 more largemouth, and a freshwater drum on the slabs before the bite died off by around 12:15pm

Thanks to his service in the Navy and having summers off during his teaching career, Pete has had an opportunity to travel so some very nice places AND fish them … from Alberta, Canada down to El Salvador, he has sampled the fishing both near and far.  I always enjoy hearing other tell tales of fishing in ways and for species I’ve never pursued before.  My favorite this morning was Pete’s story of losing a (very expensive) Russelure to a poorly gaffed king mackeral only to recover the lure and land the fish when that very same fish hit another Russelure only minutes later on another trolling pass. 

TALLY = 20 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:45a
End Time: 12:15p
Air Temp: 60F at trip’s start,.
Water Surface Temp: 64.1F 
Wind: Calm for first 2 hours, then winds ramping up quickly to 13+ mph from the SSE.
Skies: 100% cloudy, thinning to 60% cloudy by trip’s end.
Other Notes: GT0

Areas Fished with success:

**   684 and NW to 405, and SE to 744 – trolling/downrigging 
**   540-701 on 4 flatlined shallow crankbaits 
**   036 to 372 along the channel break






Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas