Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Lake Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished an evening scouting trip tonight just to stay in touch with fish movement prior to my next bookings. At launch time the air temp was 79 F and the water surface temp was 68.5F. The skies were fair and the wind was pushing 14-16 from the SSE putting a nice chop on the water.

I planned to make a run of areas that typically produce in a north wind as that is what is being called for on Friday when I have both AM and PM trips booked.

I stopped at Area 120 first in 22-26 feet of water. Things looked very good on sonar with plenty of fish on bottom and suspended both near bottom and in schools well off the bottom. As soon as I got a slab down among them they tore it up. Put 10 fish in the boat in less than 6 minutes and then left this group of fish alone. The ten fish included 8 barely keeper whites, a short black, and a healthy, spawned out largemouth going 6.00 pounds even on the certified Boga Grip (photo appears in Adult Gallery).

Moved to the NW and into 25-27 feet of water and worked over Area 142 after seeing nearly identical sonar reading there. Again, as soon as the slab went down, the fish just got all over it. 10 more fish were added in no time flat. I left these fish biting and went elsewhere looking for active fish.

Moved to Area 88 in a little deeper water (34-36 feet) and again found solid sonar reading with fish spread over a fair radius from the actual waypoint plotted here, all the way over to Area 129. All of these fish were tight to the bottom, and no bait was seen. Again, no problem at all quickly catching and releasing 10 more fish and moving on to check yet another area.

Moved to Area 87 in 27-28 feet of water and had to jig here a little while to coax the fish into a feed after seeing fewer fish on sonar here to start with. As soon as the fish fish was hooked, up came numerous schoolmates showing on sonar, and that little bit of action was enough to provoke the school into a feed. Again, in 15-20 minutes here I added another 10 fish to the count and moved on, this time uplake.

Gave Area 78 a try with nothing but single suspended fish showing on sonar. Didn’t expect much and didn’t catch anything here.

Got to Area 142 and slowly motored into the wind to really be able to watch sonar well. There was definitely bottom-hugging fish here, so down went the slab and up came two white bass. After the second one was played in, the rest of the fish became harder to tempt (I suspect the feeding window was closing – and the wind had begun to swing further east which never helps). I put on a smaller slab and was able to jig up 8 more fish for a total of 10 fish here, too.

That was where the winning streak ended. I tried two more locations further uplake (Areas 100 and 888) and zero’ed at both of them.

Finally, after sunset, I found a small school of whites in a shallow area near Area 116, and worked them over with a blade bait for 3 more whites and a redear sunfish.

TALLY = 54 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing