Best Buddies from Belton — 109 Fish, Stillhouse, 20 June ’17

This past Tuesday morning I fished Stillhouse with high school friends Daniel Gonzalez and Rob Borman.

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While jigging over the top of a large school of white bass, Rob pulled out this 5 1/3 pound largemouth on the same shad-imitator the white bass found attractive.

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Daniel poses with a 2-year old and 3-year old white bass he caught early on in the trip as we worked slabs in 35-45 feet of water for aggressive, tightly schooled white bass using Redneck Model 180 slabs with Hazy Eye Stingers attached. The bite was so aggressive that at one point, Daniel actually landed two fish on one lure at the same time.

Both fellows grew up in Belton – – Rob stayed local and now drives a truck for McLane’s, and Daniel headed west to Reno, Nevada, where he now manages a casino. Both men have six-year-olds and, on his annual visit home, one of Daniel’s plans was to bring his family to Rob’s daughter’s birthday party, and of course the two fellows needed to do a little fishing along the way.

We experienced a third day of winds from a northerly direction with some gray cloud cover in the early part of the trip out to the east, with partially cleared skies for the second half of the trip.

We found our first fish right around 6:40 AM on a breakline that drops from 35 feet down into much deeper water. We stayed in this general vicinity for three hours making just three “short hops” over this span of time, and landed over 100 fish comprised mainly of white bass with a few largemouth and freshwater drum thrown in for good measure. The fishing was very straightforward and very effective. We used three-quarter ounce Redneck Model 180 slabs, in white with a Hazy Eye Stinger hook attached. We used a “smoking” tactic in order to tempt fish located from bottom up into the water column some distance off bottom.

By 9:30 these fish had lost interest and we had to move on.

With the winds now the lightest they had been all morning, and clearing, bright skies, the fishing really dropped off sharply. We only landed five additional fish in our final hour on the water via downrigging as we covered three distinct open water areas.

We wrapped up this trip with exactly 109 fish boated for our efforts.

TALLY: 109 FISH, all caught and released

 

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 83.8F

Wind Speed & Direction: NNE7-9

Sky Conditions: Grey cloud bank to the E which obscured sunrise, then clearing off by 9:30

Water Level: 0.08 high and falling; 40 cfs release at dam

GT = 30

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1951-1305 – short hops for 105 fish

**Area 190 – 1301 – just 2 whites via downrigging

**Area vic 129 – just 2 whites via downrigging

 

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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