Christmas Eve, Huckleberry the Bull, & a Bona Fide Trophy White – 106 Fish
CLIENTS: This Christmas Eve morning, I fished with a dad and his twin, 16-year-old sons from the Midland area. Joining me was Jay Florence and his boys, Austin and Wyatt. The three joined me during the same Christmas week last year and did quite well then, too.
The boys are “all boy” — they love racing motorcycles and riding bulls and have the scars and broken bones to prove it. Now, concerning that bull riding, if you ever run into the twins, just don’t mention the name “Huckleberry”. We’ll leave it at that!
NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: Tuesday morning, 30 December.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Austin, Jay, and Wyatt Florence with a few of the 106 white bass they worked for on this Stillhouse Hollow Christmas Eve morning white bass trip.
PHOTO CAPTION: This is a 16.25″ Stillhouse Hollow white bass which fell for Wyatt’s MAL Dense. The 6-day warming trend has pushed water temps back up to near 60F, and the fish are much more willing to chase versus just a few days ago when temps were lower.
FIND LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
We began this morning’s trip at 7:45 and concluded at 11:45 with a nice catch of 106 fish, including 102 white bass and four largemouth bass.
At a glance, today’s weather conditions looked very similar to yesterday‘s, however, there was just enough additional light filtering through the clouds today to allow for a full, four-hour feed.
Southerly winds taper steadily from 2 to 12 mph over our time on the water, but the nearly 100% cloud cover remained constant with only a few moments of direct sun coming through breaks in the clouds.
Thanks to a warming trend, which began six days ago, the surface temperature was back near 60° this morning and as I observed fish activity on sonar, I could see a markedly greater, more energetic appearance among the fish I spotted. Fish were grouped together and moving/patrolling along the bottom. Seeing this, I changed back over from slabs to the heaviest MAL Lure, I make – – the MAL Dense.
I chose the silver body and chartreuse tail version for everyone and emphasized the importance of getting the blade spinning as close to the bottom as possible, then reeling the lure as slowly as possible while still keeping the blade spinning.
Our approach was to find fish with sonar, get the splasher going (because it was fairly quiet on the surface. I chose not to use the thumper), fish vertically with the MAL Dense lures aided by LiveScope until the fish lost interest, then, if the area was clean, we would cast horizontally with 3-inch white grubs on half-ounce jigheads until the fish quit, or, on a bottom with debris, we would simply pack up and move to another group of fish.
It certainly paid to move around today as some schools we found were fired up while some would barely acknowledge our presence. As was the case yesterday, gulls were present, but not feeding very heavily. Just three or four gulls hesitating over a patch of water for any length of time typically meant fish were beneath them.
Unfortunately, many of the gulls we had blew south with the hard winds which accompanied one of our strongest cold fronts two Sundays ago.
When all said and done, the fellows landed 106 fish, including 102 white bass up to 16.25 inches, and four largemouth bass up to 2.75 pounds.
RESULTS: 106 fish, all caught and released
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO FISH THE MAL LURE WITH A SAWTOOTH METHOD:
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON FISHING AN MAL LURE VERTICALLY USING THE “SMOKING” TACTIC:
OBSERVATIONS:
-A film of green algae was seen blooming on the surface this morning thanks to the warmup we’re in the midst of.
– We are in the midst of a warmup, having broken temperature records on 19 and 22 December. 6 days and counting with three more warm days still to come until our next cold front.
-Fish were markedly more aggressive today thanks to the additional light coming through the 100% grey cloud cover.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
Temperature profile measured on Stillhouse around 7:25A on Tuesday, 23 December…
0 feet 59.8F
5 feet 59.4F
10 feet 59.2F
15 feet 59.2F
20 feet 58.9F
25 feet 58.7F
30 feet 58.7F
35 feet 58.7F
40 feet 58.7F
45 feet 58.7F
50 feet 58.6F
55 feet 58.4F
60 feet 58.3F
65 feet 58.0F
Temperature profile measured on Stillhouse around 7:00A on Thursday, 11 December …
0 feet 59.6F
5 feet 59.6F
10 feet 59.8F
15 feet 59.8F
20 feet 59.8F
25 feet 59.8F
30 feet 59.8F
35 feet 59.6F
40 feet 59.4F
45 feet 59.2F
50 feet 58.7F
55 feet 58.4F
60 feet 58.2F
65 feet 58.0F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:45A
End Time: 11:45A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 65F
Elevation: Stillhouse is 1.20′ low with a -0.02′ change in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 1 CFS.
Water Surface Temp: 59.8F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: Calm at trip’s start and for a full 2 hours, then picking up due S12 by trip’s end
Sky Condition: Moderate grey cloud cover at 100% all morning.
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 20% illumination.
GT = 85
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH MOST SUCCESS:
Area vic 201 – 5 fish on MAL Dense w/ slow-smoking retrieve
Area 2249/1043 – 24 fish on MAL Dense w/ slow-smoking retrieve
Area 209 – 20 fish on MAL Dense w/ slow-smoking retrieve
Area 464/2320 – 4 fish on MAL Dense w/ slow-smoking retrieve
Area 2330 -25 fish on MAL Dense w/ slow-smoking retrieve
Area SH0213G/SH0124C – 7 fish on MAL Dense w/ slow-smoking retrieve
Area SDH001 – 21 fish on MAL Dense w/ slow-smoking retrieve
Bob Maindelle
Full-time, Professional Fishing Guide and Owner of Holding the Line Guide Service
Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide
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