WHO I FISHED WITH: 8-year-old Kennedy Rosario, accompanied by her mother, Mrs. Avonne Rosario. Mother and daughter booked this trip through the Ft. Hood SKIESUnlimited program. Kennedy got “extra credit” from me for being a huge fan of the show “Wicked Tuna”.
8-year-old Kennedy Rosario with one of 60 fish she landed on Stillhouse Hollow during her Ft. Hood SKIESUnlimited “Fishing 101” class.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: Multi-species trip focused on white bass for the first 3 hours, then sunfish in the last our. Our catch included 49 white bass, 1 largemouth bass, 1 longear sunfish, and 9 bluegill sunfish
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow
WHEN WE FISHED: Saturday morning, 09 Sept., from 7a to 11a.
HOW WE FISHED: We downrigged for the first 45 minutes following sunrise as the fish began to become active in response to the unobscured sunrise. We landed singles and doubles on 3-armed umbrella rigs. As the sun rose and penetrated the depths, the bait moved toward the surface and largemouth bass followed, with white bass staying near bottom in large, fairly immobile schools. From around 8am and until 10am, we were able to catch fish continuously from just two locations just yards apart from one another. Given Kennedy’s age, I chose a tailspinner for her to use as the retrieve speed necessary for making it effective is slower. She landed a total of 50 fish through 10am.
Next, we moved up shallow for our last hour on the water for a change of pace and targeted sunfish. Kennedy did well here, too, landing 10 sunfish of various sorts.
OTHER OBSERVATIONS: With Hurricane Harvey seeming to have broken the back of the hot, summer weather, the water surface temperature has come 6 degrees off the summer peak of 86F; today’s white bass schooling behavior on bottom in 37-40′ of water involved a substantially greater number of fish which fed for a longer period of time that I’ve seen since early July. I’ll be observing to see if this trend continues.
ABOUT SKIESUnlimited:
SKIESUnlimited stands for Schools of Knowledge, Inspiration, Exploration, and Skills. SKIESUnlimited offers dozens of activities for military and Department of Defense kids of all ages, ranging from gymnastics to piano lessons, from academic tutoring to various forms of dance, and more. Monetary credit for such courses is available for children whose military parents are deployed. To participate in such courses, children must first be registered with Child and Youth Services. Registration is free and is accomplished by contacting Parent Central Services at 254-287-8029. Once registered, parents may go online to enroll their children for the myriad courses available.
TALLY: 60 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00am
End Time: 11:00am
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 61F
Water Surface Temp: 78.5F
Wind Speed & Direction: Light ENE breeze 3-5mph
Sky Conditions: <10% white cloud cover the entire trip.
Water Level: 0.78 feet low and slowly falling with only evaporative losses; 0 cfs release at dam
GT = 10
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1715-1523-1522 – 49 white bass and 1 largemouth in 3 hours; found them with downriggers and caught them steadily on tailspinners thereafter
**Area 1572 – 10 sunfish on slipfloats up shallow
Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide
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
Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle