Alligator Heads & Yellowjackets — 53 Fish, Stillhouse, 21 Aug. 2014

I fished on Stillhouse Hollow this morning with Mr. Steve Niemeier of Temple, his daughter Emily, and his granddaughter, four-year-old Emma. As with most summertime trips involving youth, we targeted white bass today — they are sporty and abundant, cooperative and predictable — just right for kids, and adults, too, for that matter.

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L to R: Steve Niemeier, his 4-year-old granddaughter, Emma, and Emma’s mom, Emily .

This was Emma’s very first time on a boat, so you can just imagine all the things, both fun and scary, running through her head.  As we eased out of the no wake zone near the ramp, Emma gave me the thumbs-up that we were okay to “go fast”. As we arrived at our first fishing area, I slowed down to idle speed to set our downriggers out. There was something about the waves slapping on the fiberglass hull that really drew Emma’s attention.  Emily told her that when she was a little girl she used to think that that sound and feeling of the boat going through the waves was the boat striking alligators’ heads.  Emma probably spent more time during our trip today hanging with her head over the side watching the waves lap on the hull than she did engaged in catching fish, but that was just fine by me!

At our first location we picked up six fish by 8:05 AM by downrigging with a pair of three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons. As has been typical over the past three weeks, the low light bite offered some so-so fishing for scattered suspended white bass.

As we left this area behind and begin to survey the second area we would fish, looking for topwater action on the surface and fish feeding below us using sonar, we found more active fish just turning on at around 8:30 AM. I was just about to deploy the downriggers when I came across a very tight school of bottom oriented white bass on a break line dropping from 25 to 29 feet. The fish were stacked on the slope’s face of this feature, and on the shallower tier. Using the i-Pilot, I hovered right over top of these fish and we all went to work using slabs finished vertically to capitalize on what we had found. We caught fish steadily for about 30 minutes first using the slabs, and then extending our reach beyond the boat by using blade baits fished in the lower third of the water column. At the same time the topwater feeding largemouth quit feeding, the white bass also turned off and we left this area to search for more fish.

Around this same time the wind began to ramp up to well over 15 mph with gusts up over 20 mph, making things a little tougher. We went for about 50 minutes pulling only three more fish on the downriggers, and not really finding congregations of fish in the three or four areas that we searched during that time. Around 10:25am we finally found another bunch of fish again, near a breakline going from 27 to 33 feet deep, and holding at the top of the break. Again we used the i-Pilot to hover, slabs to fish vertically for all the fish we could catch from directly beneath the boat, and then used blade baits to “mop up” from around the boat in all directions. We took our fish count up to 53 at this location.

By 11 AM, and after suffering a yellowjacket sting on her forehead, Emma was pushing the limits of her four-year-old endurance. We decided to call it a good day right there, took a few family photos, and let Emma steer the boat through the no wake zone to wrap up.  For our efforts today we boated a total of 53 fish, including two freshwater drum, and 51 white bass in the one, two, and three year classes.

 

TALLY = 53 FISH

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00am

End Time:  11:00am

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:   77F

Water Surface Temp:   84.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:    S12-16

Sky Conditions:

Other: GT=35

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1435-1436 downrigging early

**Area 668 downrigging to find fish and then slabbing and blade baits to exploit

**Area 907 slabbing and blade baits

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX