This morning I finished with Cody Cooper and Garrett Walker on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir, targeting white bass.
From left: Garrett Walker and Cody Cooper worked up a tally of 54 white bass today using slabs in 25′ on Stillhouse Hollow.
Garrett Walker landed our largest white bass of the trip right around 9:00am as we saw the “beginning of the end” of the morning bite begin to occur.
Cody serves as the operations manager at Cooper & Bright, a long-time, family-owned plumbing business in Killeen. Garrett does tile work both independently, and for Carothers Homes.
I met Cody about 3 weekends ago as I was concluding a trip on Stillhouse. He had just finished up checking some juglines in his jonboat and heard that the party I’d taken had just boated over 50 fish as we took a few photos of the larger ones at the boat ramp. On the spot he gave me a $100 bill as a deposit and said, “I want to go catch 50 fish, too.” So, today my work was cut our for me, and, around 9:30am, Cody’s goal was realized.
The fishing was strongest in the first two hours of the day, tapered off in the third hour, and virtually shut down in the final hour on the water. Our first three hours yielded 51 fish and our last hour yielded only three.
The low pressure which has controlled our weather and brought us an abundance of rain and moisture, continued today giving us an east wind and drizzle the entire time. Although the fish certainly fed, and we were able to do quite well, they certainly were not frenzied at any time, and most all of the white bass we boated had concave bellies, and looked a bit gaunt, indicating they haven’t fed much since the cold front moved through two nights ago. None of our fish regurgitated food or defecated digested shad.
I anticipate that when our winds turn southerly we will see another very heavy feed, but we’ll see.
All of our fish were caught between 25 and 27 feet deep today using a smoking tactic as we rigged up with 3/4 ounce Redneck Fish’n’ Jigs Model 180 slabs in a white color.
As the fellows departed they told me of their weekend plans to head to the Windstar Indian Casino just across the Texas/Oklahoma border. We’ll see if their good luck holds up.
End Time: 10:45a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 69F
Water Surface Temp: 75-76F
Wind Speed & Direction: E9-10 the entire trip
Sky Conditions: Greyed over skies with constant light drizzle.
Other: GT = 0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1563
**Area vicinity 1567/312
**Area vicinity 804/1156
Bob Maindelle
Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
Belton Lake Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)