This morning I fished Stillhouse for white bass with returning guest Ken Wilkins and his friend, Dwain Halm, who joined me for the first time today. I was really looking forward to this morning trip, mainly because Ken is a very enthusiastic fisherman who is not set on any one particular species, lake, or technique. He just likes to catch fish and is flexible in how we make that happen. In preparation for today’s trip, I put in about 3 hours’ worth of scouting around on Stillhouse this past Tuesday and found 4 distinct areas that held fish. I sampled the action, catching just 5 fish at each location and then moving on while the feeding window was open. Today, that scouting paid off as we caught all of our fish on 3 areas, 2 of which were among the 4 I’d scouted Tuesday.
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Ken boated our best fish of the trip today — this nice largemouth was one of two he pulled out of a school of white bass using a slab in ~26 feet of water.
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Just minutes after Ken pulled up his largemouth, Dwain’s rod bowed deeply and he came up with this channel cat no doubt vacuuming up regurgitated shad that our white bass expelled as they were being brought in.
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67 of our 73 fish were white bass, mainly in the 2-year old class with some 1 and 3 year fish thrown in for good measure.
Ken is a salesman for Tex-Mix Concrete and Dwain runs his own small business, a window coverings business based in Round Rock, TX. The two men first got to know one another years ago when their boys, now around age 18, started playing baseball together as youngsters.
Mother Nature definitely tossed us a curveball overnight. Earlier in the week, Thursday’s forecast was for light, easterly 2-4mph winds with abundant cloud cover. What we got was a 15mph NNE blow at daybreak in the wake of a mild cold front’s passage last night. The north wind is always a wildcard in the warmer months. It can kill the fishing, spur the fish into strong feeds, and everything in between. What we found today was somewhere in between. The fish were definitely still willing to feed, but, after an initial blast of enthusiasm spurred on by competition, the novelty of our lures wore off, and we had to go hunt more fish. Of the 3 areas where we found active fish, the first provided moderate action, the second provided the best action, and the last provided short-lived action, as is common at the tail end of the morning bite.
We found all of our fish on bottom in 25-27 feet today, and found fish suspended at that depth out over deeper water, as well. The Redneck Fish’n’ Jigs Model 180 was our go-to bait in 3/4 oz. white. A “smoking” retrieve was the go-to method.
End Time: 11:20a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 66F, falling to 63F
Water Surface Temp: 76F
Wind Speed & Direction: NNE15 for our first 30 minutes on the water, then dropping back to NNE10-11mph for the middle 2.5 hours of the trip, and then ramping back up to NNE13 for the remainder.
Sky Conditions: Greyed over skies on the heels of a mild cold front’s passage last night
Other: GT = 50
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area vicinity 088/129
**Area vicinity 638/639/1565
**Area vicinity 1566
Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)