A Little Silver Lining — 54 Fish, Stillhouse, 16 Aug. 2014

This morning I finished with Garrett Jones, the son of Tim and Mitzi Jones of Michigan.  Both Garrett’s mom and his “favorite aunt” Aunt DeAnn joined us as non-fishing spectators/sunbathers.

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Garrett Jones joined me for some multi-species angling this morning all the way from Michigan.  We caught largemouth on topwater baits, and white bass and freshwater drum on slabs, blade baits, and downrigged spoons.

Garrett’s family traveled to Texas to visit a very ill family member, and decided to add a little silver lining to life in the way of a fishing excursion while they were here.

As we got going this morning I did a bit of instruction on fishing vertically with slabs as I anticipated we would find aggressively feeding fish given today’s weather conditions. We have had a return to moderate high-pressure, southwesterly winds, and some haze in the atmosphere, all of which contribute to a strong bite. When we actually got on the water and began searching with sonar, these expectations of finding aggressively feeding fish were quickly met.

We finished only two areas this morning and found a strong feed underway at both. The first area gave up fish on the downrigger for about our first hour on the water, then a few top water largemouth, followed by a strong slab bite from bottom-oriented, heavily schooled white bass in 32 to 30 feet of water.

These fish fed for another two hours right up to 10 AM. When the feed at this first location ended, we were fortunate to drive directly to yet another aggressively feeding school of bottom-oriented fish in 28 feet of water. This school of fish had evidently been feeding for a while and we were lucky enough to hit the tail end of that heavy feed. We finished blade baits in the lower third of the water column to cover a 40 yard area over which sonar indicated these fish were spread.

When the fish begin to turn off they often go from hitting the Cicada blade bait hard and hooking themselves on the forward hook, to just nipping at the lure and getting caught on the rear hook.  While they are still biting hard, the strike to land ratio can be right around 1 to 1; but once the bite gets sluggish it can drop to 5-6 strikes to every 1 landed fish, and shortly after this the bite just dies completely.  Things went flat for us right at 11am today.

As we wrapped up, our tally of 54 fish included 2 freshwater drum, 3 largemouth bass, and 49 white bass.  54, incidentally, is Garrett’s football jersey number.

 

TALLY = 54 FISH

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00am

End Time:  11:15am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:   78F

Water Surface Temp:   84.9F

Wind Speed & Direction:    SSW10-12

Sky Conditions:    Fair with 30% white clouds

Other: GT=40

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1419 downrigging

**Area  1436 smoking, blades, and topwater

**Area  836 blade baits

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

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