A Little Daddy-Daughter Time – 62 Fish, Stillhouse, 30 July 2014

This morning I fished Stillhouse with Mr. Robert Williamson and his daughter, Bobbie.  Bobbie and her sisters, Mary and April, chipped in for a fishing gift certificate for their dad for Fathers’ Day this year, and today was the day to redeem it.

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Robert and Bobbie enjoyed non-stop action from start to finish today catching white bass on downriggers, slabs, and bladebaits.

There are some days when I show up at lakeside and go through my preparation routine and just know it is going to be a good day, and today was one of those days.  The wind was light and southerly, we had a bit of cloud cover, the fishing has been very consistent for 2 weeks straight on Stillhouse, and the smell of fish was in the air, telling me shad were in abundance.

The good fishing couldn’t have happened for two nicer folks.  Robert and Bobbie have been out with me 3 times now and, despite her being in Alabama for the last 4 years for college, they’ve managed to fish together whenever time allowed on holidays, summer breaks, and the like.  Robert is a high school history teacher for the Killeen Independent School District, and Bobbie is now graduated with her BS degree in Nursing, with her NCLEX-RN exams forthcoming to gain her Registered Nurse status.  She hopes to work with children here in central Texas.

Less than 20 minutes from pushing back from the ramp we brought in our first 3 fish — a double for Bobbie and a single for Robert.  From that point on, we never stopped catching them.  We moved to 4 different areas today, not because the fishing slowed down, just in hopes of a bit of variety.  Downrigging is definitely the go-to technique right now, and it will produce the entire time the fishes’ feeding window is open, however, when I can find white bass near bottom, I like to sprinkle in some vertical jigging using TNT180 slabs and some bladebait fishing using Cicadas.

On the downrigging, a pair of 3–arm umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons selected to match the small shad the white bass were feeding on did the trick.  On the vertical jigging, a 3/4 oz. white slab worked well for us, and an all-sliver slab worked equally well when I experimented with it.  As for the bladebaits, the 1/2 oz. Cicada in white and blue was my choice today.

Along the way today we got to talk about some of the highlights of the pair’s other adventures, including a White River, AR, rainbow and brown trout fishing trip, and a Destin, FL, amberjack and bonito fishing trip.

Our highlights for this trip included Bobbie’s one-and-only triple of the trip — where she landed 3 fish at the same time on her 3 arm umbrella rig.  We also had a “big one that got away” story.  As we fished our third area of the day, we got into heavily schooled white bass and were consistently catching them on slabs.  A large fish (most likely a largemouth) grabbed Bobbie’s slab and pulled her rod tip straight down into the water.  She was kind of startled, as the fish we’d been catching just don’t behave like that, and she though she was snagged, so she didn’t react like she knew she should have.  Oh well — that’s what keeps you coming back again!

We landed a total of 62 fish today, 100% of which were white bass.  We caught fish in the 1, 2, 3, and 4 year class.

TALLY = 62 FISH

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30am

End Time:  10:45am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  75F

Water Surface Temp:  85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  S8-12

Sky Conditions:  A moderate grey cloud bank in the east obscured the sun during both the start and end of the trip, with a ~45 minute window of direct sun around 9:00 – 9:45am

Other: GT=20

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  196 Downrigging  for white bass

**Area  829 and vicinity Downrigging & Bladebaiting, and  Smoking for white bass

**Area 1133 through 912 Smoking for white bass

**Area 1415 Downrigging for white bass

 

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX