The Bronx Basser – 58 Fish, Stillhouse, 20 Sep. 2014

This morning I fished on Stillhouse Hollow with Mr. John Stephenson, his neighbor Dr. Alex Morales, and Alex’s two children, Gabriel and Grace.  Our target species this morning was white bass.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

(L to R) Alex Morales, Grace Morales, Gabriel Morales, and John Stephenson.

John, a former Bell County Commissioner, and his wife, Shirley, are both U.S. Army veterans, both attend Memorial Baptist Church in Killeen, and both are very active in the local Republican Party.  Alex and his wife are also both U.S. Army veterans.  Alex is originally from the Bronx and came on active duty as an enlisted medic, then worked his way up to become a medical doctor and commissioned officer, retiring not long ago, only to continue serving soldiers as a civilian physician, working as an orthopedic doctor at Darnall Army Medical Center.  The Morales’ kids go to Memorial Christian Academy, co-located at John and Shirley’s church campus.  Grace is in Kindergarten and Gabriel is in the 4th Grade.

The Morales family’s fishing experience was somewhat limited when it came to freshwater, and so as we began the trip this morning, I spent some extra time making sure that the kids understood the basics of how to hold and use both a bait casting reel and a spinning reel.  We also went over exactly how the downrigging equipment worked, as well as how we would go about using slabs in situations where we found suspended , heavily schooled fish.

Our weather continued to be influenced by the spinoff from Pacific Hurricane Odile, so abundant gray cloud cover, low pressure, and  an obscured sunrise is what we faced in the first hour or so of today’s trip. Overnight our winds shifted slightly more southerly, and so we had a southeast wind this morning when it began to blow approximately 90 minutes into the trip. The fishing was fairly slow during these first 90 minutes of relatively calm conditions, then as the wind ramped up and the sky slowly brightened, the  fish responded favorably.

During our first 90 minutes we hit two separate areas with the downriggers and passed on two other areas when sonar revealed little in the way of fish and/or bait. Around 8:45 we encountered our first suspended school of white bass well congregated and holding at 32 to 34 feet down over a deeper bottom. As the downrigger balls worked through these fish, we picked up a strike immediately and as that fish was being reeled and as we continued traveling to the south, I noticed many, many more fish holding at the same depth. This looked like a classic situation in which working slabs vertically through these fish would produce, and so we brought in the downrigging gear, dropped the Minnkota i-Pilot in the water, e-anchored over top of these fish, and proceeded to load the boat from a stationary position. As one area would go cold, I’d move the boat a few boat lengths north or south, we would encounter more fish, e-anchor over them, catch until they went cold, and then repeat the process. We did this six times and took our fish count from 8 to 55 over the duration of our for our trip.

The bite begin to dry up around 10:45. So, at this point we brought in the slabs and went back to using the downriggers to put our final three fish in the boat. By this time, the novelty had worn off for Grace, and she was ready to go. Gabriel was also getting a little warm in his life jacket, and so at around 11:15 we decided to call it a very good day with 58 fish boated.

 

TALLY = 58 FISH, all caught and released

 

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE

CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  74.6F

Water Surface Temp:  83.1F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SE8-10

Sky Conditions:  100% cloudy with clouds thin enough to let “squinting” light through

Other: GT=0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 886-1428, a few fish under calm, dim conditions

**Area 1435-1440, a few fish under calm, dim conditions

**Area 1412 thru 871 thru 889 gave up 50 of our 58 fish this morning

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com