Today I fished an evening trip with Mr. John Stephenson, his friend, Bert Smith, and Bert’s son, Adalgis. Our target species was white bass on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.
(L to R) Adalgis Smith, John Stephenson, and Burt Smith with results from our evening outing on Stillhouse, 25 Sept. 2014.
Burt currently serves as the assistant superintendent for the Salado Independent school District. His 21-year-old son, Adalgis, is a student at Temple College and works as a lifeguard and an academic tutor. He has plans to transfer to Texas A&M Central Texas in Killeen. Burt and his wife adopted Adalgis and his sister (who is currently in U.S. Marine Corps basic training at Parris Island!) from Rwanda when they were 15 and 13, respectively. At age 21, Adalgis just had never caught a fish before, so “Job #1” was to make him successful.
This past Monday’s cold front stalled in the Gulf of Mexico and is now returning as a warm front bringing clouds, humidity, and instability with it, along with a south easterly wind. Under such conditions I never really expected to knock the ball out of the park, but, all things considered, we did pretty well tonight.
As we began our trip around 4:15 PM, the fish activity was strongest early and then moderated for the last part of the trip. We actually began by slabbing for schooled fish on the bottom in around 37 feet of water, which is something I rarely do. Usually I’ll put the downriggers in to give an area a good sonar search before committing to one area, but, given tonight’s conditions, when I saw even moderately concentrated fish, I decided to take advantage of the situation while the opportunity presented itself.
As Burt observed the use of sonar, the tactics that we employed, the tweaking we brought to bear on our presentations given what we observed concerning fish behavior, etc. Bert admitted he never knew fishing could be so scientific so as to, literally, get it down to a science. Like many occasional fishermen, we was used to fairly randomly choosing an area to fish at, casting a line as far out as possible, and then sitting and waiting for a result. I introduced him to a much more intentional approach which he appreciated.
We caught 18 fish at this first area fishing vertically, then switched over to downriggers to put another three fish in the boat. Adalgis’ first fish was a nice 1.75 pound largemouth taken on a 3/4 oz. TNT180 slab. After that initial, somewhat strong action died, we made the rounds to 3 different areas, picking up the majority of our fish at the first two of them and adding a final two fish to the count at our last stop as it was just about to get dark, several minutes after sunset.
For our efforts tonight we boated 36 white bass, 3 largemouth bass, and 1 channel catfish.
TALLY = 40 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 4:15p
End Time: 7:45p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80.3F
Water Surface Temp: 80.1F
Wind Speed & Direction: N8-9
Sky Conditions: Grey with 90% cloud cover
Other: GT=0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1441 thru 871 (earliest and best fishing of trip)
**Area 1442-1443 – deep, scattered fish at around 36-37 feet
**Area 913-912 – moderate action for fish on bottom willing to hit downrigged baits as they passed overhead
**Area 1438-1444 – low light fishing for 2 more fish after sunset and with heavy cloud cover
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX