I started off August of 2017 on the water at Stillhouse with Yvette Garcia, her soon-to-be 4-year-old daughter, Lilee, and a friend of the family, 9-year-old Lilli Moss.
From the left: Lilee, Yvette, and Lilli with our first fish of the trip.
Lilli Moss putting 3 fish at a time in the boat and gripping them like a pro!
Lilee Oliver with her own triple which she landed just seconds after Lilli Moss landed 3 fish at once as our pair of 3-armed umbrella rigs went through a very large school of very hungry white bass!
Yvette is a KISD teacher excited about the upcoming school year in the new Smith Middle School which relocated this year from Ft. Hood to Bunny Trail in Killeen. As we volunteered together recently at Memorial Baptist Church’s Vacation Bible School, Yvette mentioned to me that she’d like to take her daughter fishing before school went back in session and life got busy. Today, we made that happen!
With near-calm conditions, a bit of thin cloud cover, and the coolest morning we’ve enjoyed in weeks (76F before sunrise), we had ideal conditions for spotting fish and bait and took full advantage of that.
Where fish appeared at the surface pursuing bait, we worked with downriggers presenting 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with 3 Pet Spoons each for a total of 6 baits in the water at any given time.
We put exactly 30 fish in the boat in just under 2 hours before the fishing slacked off and the girls began to lose interest in the repetition of this technique.
Yvette and I agreed it would be a good time for a transition to shallow water to fish for sunfish, which we did very successfully to the tune of 14 more fish added to our count, including blacktail shiners, bluegill sunfish, and longear sunfish.
After the sunfish at the second of the two areas we fished at grew wise to our tricks, I asked the girls if they’d like to spend our last 30 minutes or so pursuing more sunfish or going after more large white bass. 9-year-old Lilli was all about pursuing the big ones, and little Lilee just wanted to use my bait net to return fish to the water, so, we helped Lilli catch white bass on the downriggers, and put those captured fish in Lilee’s net to meet her desires.
After landing another 4 white bass, the calm winds and increasing heat were about all the young ladies could stand, so, we called it a great day right there and then with 48 fish landed, lots of photos taken, and good memories made to last for a long time.
TALLY: 48 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 10:05a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F
Water Surface Temp: 84.9F
Wind Speed & Direction: ENE breeze under 10 mph the entire trip
Sky Conditions: 30% cloud cover
Water Level: 0.08 feet low and slowly falling with only evaporative losses of ~0.02 feet per day; 0 cfs release at dam
GT = 0
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 444 to 484 to 909 to 1238 – strong fishing for 2 full hours under low light and cloud cover; downrigging a 3-armed umbrella with Pet Spoons; 30 fish
**Areas 195 and 189 – sunfishing in the shallows; 14 fish
**Area 1436 – a strong presence of fish; only landed 4 and left them biting
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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