Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Report – 07 Feb. 2009 – 53 FISH






Windy! Windy! Windy! I fished Stillhouse today and as I sit and write this, my body still feels like it’s on the waves. As happened on Belton on Thursday, the fish didn’t really get into gear until mid-day.

SCREENSHOT SHOWING SCATTERED, SUSPENDED FISH ENCOUNTERED TODAY AND AN ATTEMPT TO DOWNRIG FOR THEM


Start Time: 7:15a (sunrise obscured)

End Time: 2:15p


Air Temp: 63F at trip’s start, warming to low 70’s in the afternoon.


Water Surface Temp: ~53.4-54.2F

Wind: Winds were moderate from the SSW at ~15 at dawn, but steadily built to a peak speed of 25 mph with stronger gust by noon.

Skies: Cloudy grey skies all day.


I launched and gave flatline trolling a try due to the 2 nights of warm weather and wind we’ve had, but little was going on up shallow. I managed 2 white bass on a few passes from Area 999 to Area 127 and saw little on sonar as I trolled.

I spent the next hour searching with sonar and seeing precious little in the way of bait or gamefish. Everything I did find was main channel related.

At Area 362 I found scattered white bass at mid-depth over 41-43 feet of water. These fish were very reluctant to chase or strike but I managed to put 14 in the boat in about 90 minutes. 12 of these were keeper whites, 2 were short largemouth bass. Every fish I caught appeared as a single mark on sonar. When the fish appeared, I reeled the slab (3/8 oz. white TNT 180) up from beneath the fish and, once I was even with the fish, either stopped it dead or slowed it to a crawl, and then slowly eased it upwards looking for a response on sonar. If the fish responded, I continued the lure upward fairly slowly until the fish overtook it and I could get a hookset. By 11:30 this had played out.

My final stop today came at Area 363 (see sonar reading above). This was right off the river channel, and the fish were holding where the flat rolled over into the channel at 38-43 feet. The scenario was much the same as at Area 362 – the fish were more active and more abundant, but that same tedious, one-fish-at-a-time methodology was required. Every once in a while a small school of whites would ramble across the bottom allowing for some straightforward slabbing right off bottom, but, more often than not, the fishing was for individual, sluggish, suspended fish. I stayed on these fish nearly 2 hours, with the peak activity coming around 12:30 to 12:55. Otherwise, it was slow but at least consistent. I boated a total of 37 fish here, including 2 short blacks, 2 keeper blacks, and 33 keeper whites, with the largest of the whites going 12 inches. By 2:00p the wind was gusting over 30mph and I couldn’t hold in place to jig accurately any longer. I let down one downrigger knowing the fish were not active enough to pursue a moving bait, and, to no surprise, didn’t come up with anything on the downrigger. I headed in.

TALLY = 53 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