Today I fished a morning trip on Stillhouse Hollow with Mr. Jack Sims and his two grandsons, Jackson and Kyle. Jackson and Kyle are visiting for about a week from the Houston area before heading back to school.
L to R: Kyle, Jackson, and Jack with 3 of the 57 fish we had to work for today. Heavy clouds kept the activity level fairly subdued today.
Jack makes his living in Temple, TX, working for Vanguard Contractors, a general contractor and construction management firm. Jackson is headed into 8th grade and will soon be old enough to accompany Jack on his annual trout fishing trek to the Arkansas River; Kyle is headed into 6th grade.
The temperature at sunrise this morning was 77°F under very heavy, grey, cloudy skies and humid conditions with a 10 mile-per-hour wind already blowing. Days on which the sunrise is greatly obscured by cloud cover tend not to fish as well as days with a nice clear sunrise, and today was no exception.
The fishing started off okay for scattered, suspended white bass willing to hit our presentations on the downriggers. However, the strong midmorning bite that we’ve enjoyed over the past few days never really developed, as the sun never really brightened and got the food chain going up at the lake’s surface.
I have noticed that right around the time the sun gets bright enough to make you want to put on sunglasses, that level of brightness seems to turn the fish on, and largemouth bass feeding on shad seem to be the first ones on the scene. Today, sunglasses were never really a necessity as the cloud cover stayed very thick and the direct sun never shown through it. There were no instances where I felt we could have successfully thrown topwater baits.
We wound up catching exactly 57 fish, just one fish less than my catch from yesterday, but we really had to work for every fish and we spent an extra half-hour trying to do so. The fish never really got into a groove. We wound up fishing four different areas and having to switch back-and-forth between techniques to stay on top of the action the fish at each location would offer.
Fortunately, the boys ware pretty good with a spinning reel and the change ups of equipment were no big deal for them. Our catch of 57 fish consisted of 3 largemouth bass and 54 white bass. Our white bass catch included fish from the 0 to 3 year classes.
TALLY = 57 FISH
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00am
End Time: 11:30am
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F
Water Surface Temp: 84.5F
Wind Speed & Direction: S10-15
Sky Conditions: 100% greyed over with heavy clouds enough to cut the light to below ‘sunglasses requirements’
Other: GT=35
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1436 thru 1435 thru 465 downrigging
**Between Areas 1255 thru 822 limited success smoking despite heavily schooled fish on bottom
**Area 668 thru 1265 thru 1224 downrigging for scattered fish
**Area 1259 thru 070 fair fishing via smoking, blades, and downrigging for the most active fish of the day 10:05 to 11:20.
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX
