June | 2018 | Fishing Report

LOW PRESSURE ROLLIN’ IN — 55 FISH

June 19th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Monday morning, June 18th, I fished with Temple, Texas, native Mr. Luke Bolton, his father, Paul Bolton, and Luke’s 8-year-old son, Lance. Luke is a heavy equipment operator working in the energy industry in Colorado, Paul is a physician with the Veterans’ Administration, and Lance is headed to the 3rd grade when the new school year kicks in.

From left: Luke Bolton, Lance Bolton, and Paul Bolton with a mixed bag we took via downrigging this morning as a low pressure system moved in off the Gulf of Mexico from the southeast.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass and sunfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday morning, 18 June.

HOW WE FISHED: We got off to a 1 hour late start and thereby missed a good portion of the strong low-light bite we’ve been encountering in the first 2 hours after sunrise. We then put in about 3 hours worth of downrigging beginning at 7:30am, and then fished shallow for sunfish in the final hour. The bite was slow this morning as the low pressure system coming in from the SE off of the Gulf began to cause a breakdown in our high pressure and shift winds from SE to E. Once in place, the fishing ought to improve while the low pressure lasts, but today’s change put a bit of a damper on things.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: Once again I measured the temperature profile from the surface down to 60′. It looked as follows.

0 feet 81.7°

5 feet 84.2°

10 feet 84.2°

15 feet 84.2°

20 feet 84.2°

25 feet 84.2°

30 feet 84.2°

35 feet 80.3°

40 feet 72.5°

45 feet 68.2°

50 feet 65.3°

55 feet 63.2°

60 feet 61.5°

TALLY: 55 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 11:50a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 83.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: S5-12

Sky Conditions: 45% white cloud cover on an otherwise blue sky all morning

Water Level: 5.33 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 25

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area SH0024C – downrigged for suspended white bass

**Area SH0005C – downrigged for suspended white bass

**Area 1319 – SH0025C – downrigged for suspended white bass

**Area 1948 – sunfish

**Area 1150-1460 – downrigged for suspended white bass

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

SUMMER IN AMERICA WITH OPA — 45 FISH

June 16th, 2018June 16th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Friday, June 15th, I fished with Killeen native Sid Sims and his 11-year-old grandson, Johny Sims. Sid was born in Killeen, worked at the Fort Hood Post Office for a number of years, then began his own State Farm insurance agency. Johny came with his parents to visit from his home near Ramstein Air Base in Germany where his mom is a counselor in the Department of Defense school system.

Johny Sims poses with his “Opa”, Sid Sims, holding one of the white bass we worked to catch using downriggers this morning. Johny landed 45 fish over the course of our 4 hour trip.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass and sunfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Friday morning, 15 June.

HOW WE FISHED: We put in about 3 hours worth of downrigging and then fished shallow for sunfish in the final hour. The bite was slow this morning thanks to light winds. As the winds increased, the bite increased with them. We had to fish 6 areas, finding a few fish at each to put together the white bass catch we tallied.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: Despite “cookie cutter” high-pressure driven weather, the light winds we had this morning (lightest AM winds in about 2 weeks) really diminished the white bass bite this morning. We had to look high and low for a handful of scattered fish and found no areas where either fish or bait was concentrated.

TALLY: 45 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 83.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: S5-12

Sky Conditions: 45% white cloud cover on an otherwise blue sky all morning

Water Level: 5.10 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 20

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area vic 1961 – a few whites downrigging

**Area SH0017C – a few whites downrigging

**Area 1983 thru 1447 – a few whites downrigging

**Area 1256 – sunfish

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

CELEBRATING 70 WITH PAPA FRED — 84 FISH

June 13th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, 13 June, I fished with Daniel Gonzalez, his father, Fred Gonzalez, and Daniel’s girlfriend, April Krawczyk. Although a native of Belton, Daniel now resides in Reno, NV, as does April. The two flew in through Killeen for a week’s stay in Belton to celebrate Fred’s 70th birthday (tomorrow). Those celebration plans included today’s trip on Stillhouse.

It was only fitting that the the birthday boy caught the biggest fish of the trip this morning. The largemouth Fred is holding weighed 6.00 pounds on a certified scale.

Everyone caught plenty of fish this morning and April officially lost her rookie status as she learned to downrig, vertical jig with slabs, work tailspinners, and fish with live bait. From left, that’s Fred, Daniel, and April.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, largemouth bass, & freshwater drum.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday morning, 13 June.

HOW WE FISHED:

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: I took the temperature profile at mid-lake today over the Lampasas River channel in 60 feet of water. The data gathered is as follows:

0 feet = 83.6F

5 feet = 83.6F

10 feet = 83.6F

15 feet = 83.6F

20 feet = 83.6F

25 feet = 83.6F

30 feet = 83.1F

35 feet = 74.9F

40 feet = 69.4F

45 feet = 66.8F

50 feet = 64.3F

55 feet = 60.9F

60 feet = 58.9F

TALLY: 84 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 83.6F

Wind Speed & Direction: S5-8

Sky Conditions: 45% white cloud cover on an otherwise blue sky all morning

Water Level: 5.10 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 5

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area SH0021C to SH0022C to SH0023C low light downrigging

**Area SH0021C – vertical jigging with slabs and tailspinners, then mopping up with bait thereafter

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

CHARLIE’S SUMMER VISIT TO GRANDPA’S — 70 FISH

June 12th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, June 12th, I fished with Gary Morton of Temple, TX, and his 11-year-old grandson, Charlie Warren, of Wimberley, TX. Gary is a retired anesthesiologist and is hosting his three grandchildren this week. Charlie’s two sisters were headed to art camp each morning this week, thus providing a perfect scenario to spend some “guy time” with his grandpa.

Gary Morton and his grandson, Charlie Warren, with a sampling of our multi-species catch this morning. We landed 70 fish, including 7 different species of fish. Here, Gary holds a white bass and Charlie holds a freshwater drum, nicknamed “gaspergou”.

Grandpa wound up with the biggest fish of the trip — a largemouth bass taken on a live shad after a fast bite on artificial baits had begun to slack off.

Charlie was all smiles when this solid 2-year-old white bass struck his downrigger rod rigged up with a trio of Pet Spoons.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, largemouth bass, freshwater drum, and sunfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday morning, 12 June.

HOW WE FISHED: As I try to do on most all of my summertime trips involving kids, on this morning’s trip I tried to fold in as many tactics as I could to keep things interesting while still putting fish in the boat. This morning as the fishing slowly tapered to a peak between 8:30 and 9:30am, we did a good bit of downrigging and a bit of live bait fishing and put white bass in the boat slowly but surely. Around 8:30 we found a heavily schooled group of white bass in about 33 feet of water, used Spot Lock to hover atop them, and vertically jigged with slabs and tailspinners. This strong bite lasted about an hour, afterwhich we “mopped up” with a little more live bait. When the novelty of this wore off for Charlie, we had landed a grand total of 50 fish, including 2 drum, 2 largemouth, and 46 white bass. We “left fish to find fish”, leaving these fish while they were still biting to head up shallow for the final portion of our trip to fish for sunfish in shallow water using slipfloats. This produced another 20 fish including green, longear, and bluegill sunfish. We finished up right at 10:30 with 70 fish.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: I noted 2 distinct small schools of white bass sipping young of the year shad off the surface this morning right before sunrise (about 6:25am), and another around 7:10am. Otherwise, surface action has been very limited. I’m sure some action has been obscured by the windy mornings we’ve had, but there is definitely not an abundance of topwater action thus far.

TALLY: 70 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 85.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: S8-12

Sky Conditions: Fully greyed skies at sunrise thanks to a heavy bank of clouds on the eastern horizon, clearing to 30% white clouds by trip’s end

Water Level: 5.00 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1314 to 1961 to SH0020C – low light downrigging

**Area SH0019C – vertical jigging

**Area 1572 – sunfish

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

MONDAY MORNING AWAY FROM THE OFFICE — 90 FISH @ STILLHOUSE

June 11th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, June 11th, I fished with Mr. Guy Fowler and his adult daughter, Brook Fowler. Guy has been in the Belton/Temple area real estate business for many years now and is friends with the Covingtons (Terri, Jim, and sons) who are also in that business. Terri presented the Fowlers with a fishing gift certificate some time ago and this morning is when Guy and Brook chose to redeem it. We caught a mixed bag of fish, both in terms of size and species, tallying 90 fish in right at 4 hours on the water.

Guy and Brook Fowler took a father-daughter trip away from the normal Monday morning office madness and spent some relaxing time on Stillhouse Hollow this morning. Brook holds the first 2-year class fish we landed on downriggers this morning.

As the wind built and the skies brightened, the bite intensified. We started off catching white bass, but saw largemouth and drum enter the picture as we worked slabs, tailspinners, and, eventually, some live bait, to keep the bite going. Here Guy holds one of many just-keeper largemouth we landed this morning.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, largemouth bass, and freshwater drum.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Monday morning, 11 June.

HOW WE FISHED: As is typical of heavily clouded mornings, the bite got off to a slower start which ramped up as both the wind and the light level increased. We began our morning downrigging successfully over a 100 yard long patch of bottom adjacent to the old river channel, finding small groups of white bass holding on or near bottom. We used 3-arm umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons to tempt these fish and consistently landed singles, doubles, and even a pair of triples (3 fish on the umbrella rig at one time). After about 70 minutes of productive fishing, which gave up 18 fish, this first area cooled off and we went looking for more fish. Upon arrival at the second area we searched, I observed a brief flurry of topwater feeding white bass driving shad to the surface. I then knew both fish and bait were present, so we combed over the area until we found the “center of mass”. After picking up one white bass on each of the downriggers, I set the Minn Kota into “Spot Lock” and we hovered atop the school of fish sonar had revealed. We got the fish worked up as we dropped our chrome slabs into the midst of them and began a “smoking” tactic to excite them into biting. We had a 40+ fish run of white bass, largemouth, and drum on these slabs before the fish slacked off. We reignited the bite using tailspinners, and when the fish began to turn their noses up at those, we switched over to live shad and continued catching. We landed exactly 70 fish on this one area during this second stop. By 10am, the fishing slowed to a crawl. We searched several areas, picking up just 2 more small white bass and seeing no organized activity, nor congregated fish. We ended the trip right at 10:30am with exactly 90 fish boated.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: The grey cloud cover and 11-13 mph wind made all the difference today in motivating the fish to start feeding and stay feeding. As far as the white bass were concerned, we did not have fish refuse our offering as we did yesterday under calmer, brighter conditions.

TALLY: 90 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp: 85.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: S9-15

Sky Conditions: Fully greyed skies at sunrise thanks to a heavy bank of clouds on the eastern horizon, clearing to 80% white clouds by trip’s end

Water Level: 5.00 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 938-2023 – low light bite; 18 white bass in singles, doubles, triples via downrigging

**Area SH0018C – 70 fish; found via sonar, then worked over with slabs, then tailspinners, then live bait

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Free SKIFF Fishing Trip for the Readout Family of Harker Heights — 44 fish

June 6th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, June 6th, I fished Mrs. Stacey Readout and her two daughters, 8-year-old Adalyn, and 4-year-old Maryn. Mrs. Readout’s husband, US Army Captain Aaron Readout is a Signal Corps officer currently deployed to Poland. She contacted me after hearing of the free SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips I provide to military children separated from their parents by their parents’ duty assignments, such as deployments, TDY assignments, military schooling, field time, gunnery, etc. Call me for details on a trip for your children if your situation is similar — 254.368.7411. This program is sponsored by the Austin Fly Fishers with a number of individual and organizational donors coming alongside them to keep this going strong since May of 2009.

Adalyn Readout, age 8, caught 2 and 3 white bass at a time just after sunrise as we downrigged for that species on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. Adalyn, her sister, and her mom were all treated to a free fishing trip through the SKIFF program.

Although a bit uncertain of actually holding a fish, 4-year-old Maryn did eventually warm up to the idea of reeling them in after some hesitation in the opening hour of our trip. A little good example-setting by her big sister, Adalyn, went a long way. Thanks for holding the fish, Stacey!!

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, largemouth bass, and sunfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday morning, 06 June.

HOW WE FISHED: We fished with downriggers (using 3-armed umbrella rigs with Pet Spoons attached) to find fish and then took advantage of what we found by using the Minn Kota Ulterra’s SpotLock to hover atop schooled white bass holding on and over a 31′ bottom by working 3/4 oz. chrome slabs with Hazy Eye Stinger hooks affixed to them. When the bite weakened, we continued catching white bass in this same area using live and cutbait. When that novelty wore off on the fish, we changed up once again to tailspinners to add two more fish to the tally before the fish lost interest completely. When the white bass dissipated, we changed up, moved shallow and targeted abundant sunfish now thick in the near-shore hydrilla growth. We took 26 white bass, 1 largemouth, and and 17 sunfish, including bluegill, redear, longear, and greens.

TALLY: 44 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp: 83.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SE from 10-13 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fully greyed skies at sunrise thanks to a heavy bank of clouds on the eastern horizon, clearing to 60% white clouds by trip’s end

Water Level: 4.80 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area SH0017C 26 white bass and 1 largemouth – found via downrigging, then worked over with slabs, livebait, and tailspinners

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

SHOOTIN’ YA STRAIGHT — THE FISHING IS SLOW — 24 FISH @ STILLHOUSE

June 5th, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, June 5th, I fished with Mr. Wayne Shelton, a retired Houston firefighter, and his wife, Nancy, who runs a hardware store near the ship channel down on the Texas coast. The two are semi-retired and living near Buckholts, TX. Once an avid wade fisherman in the Galveston Bay complex, Wayne lost his boat in a storage unit fire and has refitted with his and hers kayaks. Today was a bit of a recon of Stillhouse for them to see where and how the kayaks may play in to fishing here.

Wayne Shelton supports our largest fish of this morning’s trip, a 4.75 pound largemouth bass weighed on a certified scale. Fishing was generally slow with a number of scenarios where large schools of transient white bass simply refused our offerings.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass and largemouth bass.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday morning, 05 June.

HOW WE FISHED: We fished with downriggers for nomadic schools of white bass and we fished live shad for white bass and largemouth bass.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: The fish are in that early summer mode that makes fishing tough this time every year. We covered a lot of water today and picked up single white bass just about everywhere we went. What was a bi frustrating was the number of large schools of white bass, numbering from perhaps 20 to 100 individual fish, which absolutely ignored our presentations both via downriggers and with live shad. The white bass we did catch came from smaller groups of 2-5 fish which were hanging just above the bottom, mostly on deep flats in 32-40 feet of water. The live shad definitely drew the attention of the largemouth and we took them slowly but steadily on live baits fished suspended off bottom at about 31-34′. Our largest black bass weighed 4.75 pounds.

TALLY: 24 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:15a

End Time: 12:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp: 83.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: S from 0-9 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 4.78 feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 15310-1312 – most consistent white bass action on downriggers

**Area 1150 – slow but consistent white bass

**Area vic 980 – largemouth on shad

**Area vic 1564 – largemouth on shad

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

FRANK, THE NEW YORK COWBOY – 27 FISH @ BELTON

June 1st, 2018 by Bob Maindelle

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Thursday morning I fished with US Army veteran Frank Killoran and his wife, Eileen. Frank retired from the Army after a majority of his time in spent as a tanker. He went in the Army at age 26 after working from out of high school up to that age on a dairy farm milking cows twice daily. He said he loved the work, but “the retirement plan wasn’t very good.” He and Eileen are both from a small town to the southwest of Syracuse, NY, in the heart of the snow belt. Eileen recalled how one year the snow accumulated to over the top of the telephone pole wires and they had to hand deliver food to the cows because the cows couldn’t get to the food! The Killorans have their own small jon boat but consistency in fishing success has eluded them. Besides catching fish, my hope was to show them some techniques and approaches to fishing to help them do better on their own.

Frank and Eileen with our best fish of the trip — a hybrid striped bass taken on live shad in our first hour on the water. The fish seemed to have a preference for smaller bait today. Neither cutbait nor large baits caught fish this morning.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, hybrid striped bass, largemouth bass, freshwater drum, and blue catfish.

WHERE WE FISHED: Belton Lake

WHEN WE FISHED: Thursday morning, 31 May 2018

HOW WE FISHED: We fished live shad successfully in two distinct locations. The best bite ran 6:45 to 8:30am, then slacked off. We did give downrigging a try and picked up one white bass that way, but I did not find suspended fish as I did on Tuesday’s trip.

OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: There are two distinct 2-week periods each year that I really wish could be avoided. The first is around the first 2 weeks of June, and the second is around the last 2 weeks of October. These are so predictably tough that I normally plan my own vacations around them to let the lakes settle down and return to better fishing. This year I’d hoped my prairie dog shoot in Oklahoma would have overlapped with some of that tough fishing, but, it looks like the first 2 weeks of June are going to see a transition of fish to open water, the setup of the thermocline, and other annual, heat-driven changes that drive fish relocation and a change of fishing tactics.

TALLY: 27 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Water Surface Temp: 80.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE from 0-3 all morning

Sky Conditions: Fair skies, no clouds

Water Level: 1.96feet low and slowly falling thanks to evaporation

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1543

**Area 1079

Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)