This Saturday morning, Feb. 27th, I welcomed Mr. Brad Bennett and his 11-year-old son, Bret, aboard for a morning of white bass fishing on Stillhouse Hollow.
A few weeks back Brad sent me a note saying, “My son Bret just turned 11 and is starting to get interested in fishing. I would like to see about booking him an afternoon or evening trip with you. We would both love to soak up any fishing tips you have because I haven’t fished in many years, but just got a boat to try to get my son out on the lake. I am afraid he will lose interest if I keep taking him without catching anything.”
So, Brad chose to come along as an observer while I worked one-on-one with Bret to show him the ropes. One of the first questions Brad asked was if we were going to fish for bass. I told him we would instead be targeting white bass. Because of the relative abundance of these fish in Stillhouse, one is likely to land far more white bass in a given period of time as compared to largemouth, and, for those who lack precision and distance in their casting, white bass can be forgiving in these areas.
It all came together as soon as we idled into our first area. Some helpful gull activity pointed the way to fish, and, with some basic instruction, Bret was casting a spinning rod and reel (something he’d never done before) quite well.
The white bass cooperate for about 1 hour, but, after that, the bright skies and calm winds brought that to an end. We worked over the last location we’d seen birds working at with vertical tactics, horizontal tactics, and downriggers and did poorly. It was time for a change of location.
We headed to another area where, what little wind was blowing, would be acting best on the water to ripple the surface. We found fish shallower than I anticipated in only 16-17 feet of water, and worked them over for about a half hour with Binsky blade baits. Once this large slug of fish dissipated, we made short hops in the same general vicinity and very precisely vertically jigged with slabs for small groups of fish, one group at a time.
We pulled fish consistently for the last 45 minutes on the water. Bret hung with the program about as long as most 11 year olds would and eventually tired of the fairly intense concentration level and attention to detail that vertical jigging for sluggish fish requires.
Around 10a, dad observed that Bret had reached his limit. I’d let Brad know ahead of time to communicate this observation to me so we could end on a positive note and not turn this into an endurance contest for the young man. The point was to teach Bret a few things about fishing and have him look forward to his next trip, as well.
We ended the trip a bit early, after 3.25 hours on the water, with 32 fish boated, 100% of which were white bass.
TALLY = 32 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 10:00a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 40F
Water Surface Temp: 57.0F
Wind Speed & Direction: S0-3 for the first 2.5 hours, then slowly increasing up to S10 from 9:15 to trip’s close.
Sky Conditions: Clear and bright.
Water Level: 622.39 with 622.0 being full pool. 0.03 feet of water was released in the last 24 hours.
Other: GT= 0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 531 – Casting blades for shallow whites under birds
**Area 054 – Slow action on blades and slabs for whites as they wrapped up their low-light feed
**Area 094 – Moderate action on blades in 16-17 feet as breeze began to ripple surface
**Area 092 – Moderate action on slabs in 20-25 feet as breeze began to ripple surface
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle