This morning, Saturday, 17 September, I conducted the 16th “S.K.I.F.F.” program trip of the 2016 season, taking 7-year-old Kaden Burns out fishing on Stillhouse Hollow.
Kaden Burns landed this solid 3 1/8 pound largemouth (just shy of 17″) all by himself on Stillhouse. The largemouth were working in “wolfpacks” attacking shad on the surface, thus giving away their locations.
When the heat got to be a bit too much, we headed up in the shady shallows and worked on our panfishing skills.
Kaden is a student at Memorial Christian Academy in Kileen, TX, and is from an “all-Army” family. His mom, Major Sheila Burns, is part of the Army’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps, and his dad, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Kelly Burns, is assigned to Army aviation. CW4 Burns is currently deployed and shuttles between Iraq and Kuwait in his assignment with a Grey Eagle unmanned aircraft unit.
Although Sheila warned me Kaden might be groggy when I arrived to pick him up, the prospect of fishing overcame the prospect of more sleep and Kaden was actually very talkative on our drive to the boat ramp under cover of darkness.
We got launched and had lines in the water by around 7am, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. As the sky brightened suddenly, thanks to a lack of cloud cover, we began to observe schooling largemouth bass aggressively chasing shad over the 15 to 20 foot breakline we were holding near. Kaden had never cast a spinning rod before, but he learned super quickly and retained what he had learned. He actually hooked the first fish of the day, only to lose it at boatside as he let it “dangle” after reeling it in a bit too far. We discussed a better approach — leaving more line out and quickly swing the fish from the water into the boat — which he did well the remainder of the trip.
We picked up several largemouth in this area casting soft plastics on jigheads before the sun rose sufficiently high to push the fish down.
For variety’s sake, we then went up shallow and targeted sunfish using worms under balsawood floats. Kaden expanded his list of species captured to include bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, and longear sunfish as we did so.
As the sun continued to climb and no breezed developed, it began to get toasty. I asked Kaden if he was up for one more kind of fishing for yet another species — white bass — and he gave me the thumbs-up.
We put the downrigger’s ball down at 25 feet over a 28-30′ bottom and let the small Pet Spoons attached to the tandem rig work their magic. In minutes, we were fast to a largemouth, then a largemouth/white bass double, then another largemouth. Then, as we were working to take that largemouth off the hook, a small school of largemouth began to explode on shad next to the boat. I told Kaden to grab a spinning rod and cast to them. Without hesitation, he grabbed the rod, flipped the bail, made a spot-on cast, held his rod tip low, began the retrieve, and hooked and landed the last bass of the day. What a finish!!
TALLY = 31 fish, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 10:45a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F
Water Surface Temp: 85.0F
Wind Speed & Direction: NNW under 4mph
Sky Conditions: <10% cloud cover.
Water Level: ~0.25 feet high. Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.
GT = 0
Wx SNAPSHOT:
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
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