This morning I went white bass fishing on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with a trio of fishing buddies from Temple, TX, including MJ Linder, Claude Ross, and Jason Clark. These fellows all first got to know each other as part of the Church of Christ. MJ runs his own physical therapy business called “Mobility Therapies”, Claude works for the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, and Jason is a U.S. Army vet and former City of Temple fireman who now devotes his time to working with the homeless in Temple.
Claude Ross thumbs our largest white bass of the trip – a 3 year old fish going 14.25 inches.
Jason Clark picked up a bonus largemouth from out of 27 feet while we vertically jigged for white bass.
The 3 amigos with a sampling of our catch, including 2 and 3 year class fish.
We had continued fair conditions today with cloudy skies, balmy temperatures (which have actually caused a net warmup of about a degree on the water’s surface this week), and southerly winds. The lack of an early, stiff breeze cost us a bit of action today, but we caught fish from start to finish regardless.
As we got going this morning, we found some light bird action in the vicinity of Area 1310/1312. Although a pair of loons were present and were fueling the gull action, both bait and white bass were present here. We fished about 45 minutes on these fish and boated 9 white bass and 1 drum on a combination of bladebaits worked horizontally, and slabs worked vertically in ~24-26 feet.
Next, we spotted a flock of about 9 gulls working over open water in the vicinity of Area 1034/338. As we approached, a small flock of cormorants flushed out of this area, too. We found fairly active, albeit mostly smaller, white bass spread along the bottom over a roughly 80 yard patch of water and made 3 “short hops” fishing where I found small packs of these fish more heavily congregated. We boated a total of 12 fish from this location and moved on.
Next, I spotted 3 gulls working over an area triangulated by Areas 1493/1266/988. This area is where we spent a majority of our time, and where we caught our best quality fish — most going right at 13 inches, plus a nice “bonus” largemouth for Jason. We vertically jigged here and added 24 fish to our tally, taking our total up to 46 fish before the action tapered to zero.
I searched a few deep, open water areas as the winds picked up to 10-11 mph, but, that was too little, too late. It seems these deep areas only get truly active with a good, stiff 13-15 mph breeze.
We picked up a few fish to the NW of Area 074 including 3 small white bass and 1 drum. We wrapped up the day on top of Area 1492, putting a final 19 fish in the boat from out of 25 feet of water near the old Lampasas River channel. These fish were also mainly small or barely keeper sized fish, but among the most aggressive we encountered all day. Although it was late in the morning, these fish responded to the sudden brightening of the skies as the sun began to break through for the first time all day, and as the winds finally ramped up strongly enough to create some whitecaps (13-14mph).
We ended up the day with 1 largemouth bass, 3 drum, and 65 white bass in the 0, 1, 2, and 3 year classes.
TALLY = 69 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:15a
End Time: 12:40p
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F
Water Surface Temp: 58.4F
Wind Speed & Direction: S4-5 at trip’s start, staying around S7-8 most of the trip, then increasing to S13-14 in the last hour.
Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies with no direct sunlight.
Other: GT=20
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1310/1312 = 10 fish (BA=8G, 2L)
**Area 1034/338 = 12 fish (BA=8G,10C)
**Area 1493/1266/988 spot-hopped several times within the bounds of this area for a total of 24 fish
**Area 074 boated 4 fish
**Area 1492 boated 19 fish
Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)