Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report – 31 July 2009 – 62 Fish






Fished a 1/2 day morning trip on Stillhouse today with Wills Point ISD Superintendant Mr. Joe O. and his 79 year old dad, Billy Joe O. — both really decent men who have both devoted their lives to teaching and coaching others.

Joe (L) and Billy (R) work on one of several downrigging doubles today

Billy holds a colorful longnose gar

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:53a

Air Temp: 75F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~83-84F

Wind: Winds were NE at 7 at trip’s start, slowly coming E, then SE by trip’s end following some turbulent weather the previous day, and in advance of strong thunderstorms later this day.

Skies: Skies were mostly cloudy due to a high moderate layer of clouds that began to clear by around 11am.



As we began our day prior to sunrise, I checked a few areas to see what kind of bait concentrations were present so as to hit those areas later in the morning following any topwater action we might find.

I found solid bait in the vicinity of Area 444 and just made a mental note of that. With it still being a bit too dark to expect topwater, I showed the fellows the basics of downrigging so when we switched over to that technique later in the trip, the learning curve would be lessened. We put 2 juvenile whites in the boat as we were learning.

Next, with sunrise and skies brightening, we looked for topwater and, thank the Lord, drove right to some strong action — in fact the strongest I’ve seen since late June. I attribute this to both the weather and the fact that the surface temp. has dropped a bit from its high of 88-89. Between Area 222 and Area 468 we cast spoons at the surface feeding fish we found from about 7:10 to exactly 9:23 and caught 29 fish during that time. The key was quick, accurate casts followed by a brisk retrieve. Of these fish, 27 were largemouth and 2 were white bass.

After the action died here, I hoped we could find more surface action continuing over some deeper water near Area 333. We scooted over there and did find widespread surface action. The fish seemed more easily duped here, but we only were casting now and then due to how spread out the fish were. We added 5 largemouth to our tally here and called it quits on the topwater for the day.

By 10am we were set up with downriggers in the vicinity of Area 217. There was a lot of bait here, but it was spread like a blanket and not balled up, indicating a lack of predators in the area. We did catch a longnose gar with some pretty colors, but not much else. So, we moved on and downrigged from Area 481 to Area 444 and contacted fish at Area 484 to Area 444, right where that bait appeared pre-dawn. We worked these fish over pretty good and managed exactly 25 more fish here before the bright sun and calming wind put an end to the show. Of these 25 fish, 4 were black bass, 2 were drum, and the rest were keeper whites up to 13.5″. On 3 occasions we had both rods working at the same time, and on 2 occasions Mr. Billy had on a double on his tandem rig (a Licker/Pet combo).


TALLY = 62 FISH


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








Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report – 30 July 2009 – 59 Fish






I was scheduled to fish a 1/2 day morning trip on Stillhouse today with Mr. Barry C. and his 13 year old son, Hunter, of Desoto, KS. I picked them up at the Holiday Inn in Salado and we headed to the boat ramp pre-dawn, but the weather did us in. No sooner did I get the boat launched than the wind turned NW at 20+, the skies darkened and the temperature dropped. A mild thunderstorm with lightning and rain persisted through 9am and by then we agreed to postpone and try for the afternoon, but plans just didn’t work out.

The weather did clear by 1:30pm, but the boys had to head back to Kansas. Not one to be “all dressed up with nowhere to go” I just went on and fished by my lonesome.

This was actually the first time I’ve been out in over a week. I took some down time to invest in our church’s Vacation Bible School and put the boat in the shop for some scheduled maintenance at the same time.

Start Time: 2:30p

End Time: 8:30p

Air Temp: 94F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~ 84F

Wind: Winds were calm with a slight W. ripple until around 4:30, then the skies darkened and a NW wind came in with rain threatening. After that threat passed, the cool front filled in behind with NE breeze and cooling, drying air.



As I got on the water, the sky and air just had that right “feel” for topwater largemouth activity to be present somewhere. I did a good bit of running and looking with optics and finally found some strong topwater in the vicinity of Area 333. I found schooling largemouth chasing shad from 1.24 up to 3.75 inches in length here, and they were really chasing hard. Due to the grey skies, the fish were pretty easily fooled and over the next 2 hours I landed 31 fish, all on the Cork Rig, and, the best thing — never saw or heard another boat for 2 solid hours!! As they say, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

By 4:30 this action began to taper. Not 20 minutes after the last fish broke water did the NW wind began to blow in another little disturbance that threatened rain. Leary, I headed back a little closer to the boat ramp and did some more looking. I found a few small bass and some schools of juvenile whites working the surface between Area 75 and Area 135 and picked up 3 more fish here.

Once the skies began to clear following the disturbance, I headed back for some downrigging which accounted for the balance of the fish caught this trip — mainly white bass at 11 to 11.75 inches.

I contacted fish and bait at Area 217 and again at Area 471 to Area 459. I didn’t fish either area hard as I planned to bring tomorrow’s guests to these areas. At Area 459, at around 7:15 to 7:40p, I hit into a school of active, bottom hugging fish and pulled 8 nice whites out of that congregation with a blade worked lift-drop style.


TALLY = 59 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








Belton Lake Fishing Guide Report – 18 July 2009 – 44 Fish (PM Trip)






Fished a short evening trip on Belton with both my mom, Charlotte, and my brother, Andy, visiting from Kentucky.

Andy M. landed his first hybrid ever on this post-frontal Lake Belton evening trip.


Start Time: 5:30p

End Time: 8:55p

Air Temp: 93F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85-86F

Wind: Winds were NE at 8-11 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies had cleared following the passing of a mild cold front earlier today.

Given we were facing post-frontal conditions with bright skies, I anticipated the fish would be sluggish, and, indeed we found a lot more fish than we did active fish. Fish that, based on their posture, I would normally expect to strike often did not react at all to our presentations. I went with a downrigging approach so as to get some baits in front of a lot of fish hoping to trigger a few. We enjoyed some initial success putting a total of 17 fish in the boat in the first 70 minutes. This included 1 small largemouth, 2 short hybrids (including the first hybrid Andy had ever landed), and 14 white bass of all sizes. By 6:45p things had gone quiet. The best producing areas were from Area 483 and to the NE and from Area 181 north, out over the deep trough.

We moved on and checked a few areas without seeing much notable on sonar. At Area 478 I graphed a school of white bass in about 31 feet relating to a sloped bottom. We hovered and jigged over these fish and pulled 1 white bass, 1 drum, and missed a largemouth.

By 7:30, things were pretty quiet. I’ve seen oftentimes in the summer when a late afternoon bite is on, and then dies, that a good sunset feed often ensues. I was hoping we’d see this, but wondered if the NE wind and frontal situation was going to mess this up.

We pressed on, looking with sonar in the vicinity of Area 147 and found, around 8:00p, fish beginning to school up, rise up in the water column, and move slowly shallower. These fish first appeared over 31 feet, and gradually moved up as shallow as 11 feet by sunset. I just kept an eye on sonar and once the fish got shallower than 15-17 feet, we put up the downriggers and began fancasting blades and connecting regularly. We boated 5 fish in quick succession on the ‘riggers here. Just after sunset we witnessed some very light topwater over a 120 yard span with fish averaging 11 inches out of this school. We boated exactly 20 more fish in the last 15 minutes of the day — an exciting end to a trip that was a bit slow in the wake of a mild change of weather.


TALLY = 44 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








Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report – 18 July 2009 – 41 Fish






Fished a half-day morning trip today on Stillhouse with Jeff Oliver (of Oliver Brothers’ Transmission fame), Jeff’s adult son, also named Jeff, and grandson, Dylan.


Jeff, Jeff, and Dylan worked the rods hard for 41 fish today in advance of a mid-summer cold front.


Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:35a

Air Temp: 77F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85.7-86.2.1F

Wind: Winds were calm until 9:00am when they went NE at 8 for just 20-30 minutes, then tapered off to flat calm by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were grey this morning with the approach of a mild cold front. By 10:45 skies had begun to clear.

We started this morning’s trip off looking for a little low light topwater action. The flat calm conditions and breakdown of our lengthy high pressure system pretty much reduced our chances to slim on this, but, we gave it about 30 minutes beyond sunrise before going to Plan B. During this time I got to work with Dylan to familiarize him with closed-faced casting gear, where and when to cast, how fast to reel in, etc. We made a total of 8-10 casts at single fish popping up here and there between Area 479 and 032, but there was no sustained feed on top.

Next, we got all three fellows trained up on how the downrigging equipment works and how to set it up properly. We ran a Pet on the port side and a Pet / Licker combo on the starboard. We found fair quantities of fish strung in a north – south orientation from Area 481 to Area 471. There was not near as much bait here as there was Thursday. The fish were once again sandwiched between 22 and 26 feet, and were most prevalent over 27 to 35 feet. There simply hasn’t been a lot of fish hanging off the deep side of any breaklines lately. We downrigged for a good while, boating a total of 26 fish including 2 largemouth, a drum, and 23 white, with 3 of the whites going 14.5 to 15 inches. At 9:30, I spotted a tight congregation of fish in a confined area in 25-26 feet of water. These fish were on bottom with bait in their midst on Area 482.

This scenario was just perfect for casting blades and using a lift-drop retrieve. I threw out a buoy and backed off a good cast’s length after showing the boys how to work the blade. In short order the 2 Jeff’s caught 6 fish, Dylan got one, and I got 2. Grandpa Jeff actually caught 2 fish on the same lure at the same time — one on the front hook and one on the back. After ~20 minutes these fish settled down and we returned to downrigging with 35 fish bagged thus far.

We stayed tight to this same area with the downriggers running and immediately came up with two white bass and then a double on the Pet / Licker combo (one largemouth, one white bass) and then picked up two more whites on the solo Pet. By this time Grandpa noticed that Dylan had that “had all the fun an 8 year old can have at one time” look and suggested we call it a real good morning at that point.

We took a few photos, neaten up the boat and had a safe, dry ride back to the dock


TALLY = 41 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








Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report – 16 July 2009 – 49 Fish






Fished a half-day morning trip today on Stillhouse with Ron N. of Round Rock and his 13 year old son, Spencer. This trip was in honor of Spencer’s 13th birthday, but we had a secondary purpose which was to get the two fellows where they could use a downrigger on their own so as to transfer what they learned on their trip to their own boat and on their “home” lakes of Georgetown and Granger.


Sonar screen shot showing tightly schooled, suspended white bass relating to bait with our downrigger ball (horizontal blue line) headed for paydirt


These white bass were so jazzed and aggressive they followed the 10 pound downrigger ball up halfway to the surface thinking they were going to miss a meal!!




Downrigging student Ron N. and birthday boy Spencer N. show 3 of a mixed bag of 49 fish taken under high pressure conditions today.


Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:30a

Air Temp: 77F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 86.7F

Wind: Winds were SSW the entire time at around 8-9 mph.

Skies: Skies were clear and blue under the influence of strong, continued high pressure that has made for some very stable fishing conditions.

We started this morning’s trip with some casting lessons for Spencer so he could use spinning gear to target any topwater fish we might encounter. Then it was off looking for a little topwater action in the chop of the nice SSW breeze. We found multiple schools of small largemouth bass feeding on topwater on and around Area 479. Ron was very quick and accurate with his casts and very quickly put 3 just-short bass in the boat. Spencer was going through a learning curve with the spinning gear in a pretty demanding situation and never did come up with a fish off topwater, but he was casting smoothly and with good distance by the time we changed tactics.

By around 8:00 or 8:15am it was clear that topwater was going to be short-lived, so we began to focus on downrigging. As Ron really wanted to learn how to do this, I spent extra time explaining in detail what we were doing and why we were doing it. I also tied in observations made on sonar as the downrigger and sonar unit are really an inseparable combination.

We began to pickup some good baitfish readings on sonar in a triangular area defined by Areas 480, 481, and 209. We put ‘riggers down and literally had a fish on in less than a minute. The fish were sandwiched at ~25-26 feet and a well-placed bait got bit just about every time. We had a solo Pet on one rod and a Pet / Licker combo on the other. We caught fish for an hour solid and had landed a total of 33 fish when I noted some bottom-hugging fish relating to bait in 25-28 feet at Area 481. We backed off downwind and fired blades into the fish picking up 4 whites and a black in short order. Once the fish dissipated, we got back in contact with the suspended fish by downrigging once again.

By 10am, this area went soft. We moved to Area 217 and the game was back on, albeit with less intensity. There was a lot of bait here, but the fish weren’t as thick or as active. We put 3 largemouth and a drum in the boat, taking our tally up to 43 fish and decided we’d try one more spot to see if we could break the official family record of 45 fish caught in one trip long ago by Grandpa Leo.

We headed to Area 458 and found a very small, but active, bunch of fish right at 25-26 feet on bottom. We kept our downrigger balls set at 23 and 24 to just skim over these fish without creating a silt plume. We picked up a drum on our first pass (fish #44). We picked up a largemouth on our next pass (fish #45 – now tied for the family record!). The go-ahead fish actually turned into a double as both Ron and Spencer brought in white bass (#’s 46 & 47). With the record broken, we sat on our laurels as we policed up the boat (with baits still in the water) and, just before calling it a day, picked up two more white bass to close out the trip on a great note.

By trip’s end, all I was doing was steering the boat and keeping our downrigger balls from striking bottom. Ron and Spencer were doing the rest as they really picked up on the whole concept of downrigging to the point that they were confident they could do it by themselves — Mission Accomplished!!

TALLY = 49 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








Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report – 13July 2009 – SKIFF #4 – 41 Fish






Fished a half-day morning trip today on Stillhouse with 3 siblings, Brandon, Maddisen, and Kayleigh, all of Killeen. This was the fourth SKIFF Program trip that I’ve run. SKIFF stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun. SKIFF trips are funded by donations both given by and collected by the members of the Austin Fly Fishers. AFF has commissioned me to take the children of soldiers deployed in harm’s way and the children of soldiers killed while on active duty on guided fishing trips. The children’s dad, SGT Ron S. is currently serving in Baghdad with the 1st Cavalry Division on his 3rd tour in that country.

(L to R) Kayleigh, Brandon, and Maddisen proudly display their catch

Kayleigh with our largest white bass of the trip – 14 7/8 inches


Maddisen with our largest black bass of the trip 1.75 pounds


Start Time: 6:55a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86.1F

Wind: Winds were just right from the SSW at around 8 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were bright and clear the entire morning.

As we started off this trip, little Miss Kayleigh arrived convinced she was not going to catch a fish. I assured her that the sooner she walked from mom’s minivan to the courtesy dock the sooner she’d catch a fish. In fact, I told her she would catch a fish in less than 6 minutes if she’d give it a try. Not being a real patient little girl, this appealed to her. Making good on my promise, we marched to the dock, I put bream rod (already baited) in hand — in went her bobber, down went her bobber, and up came her first fish of the day, about 4.7 minutes after leaving mom’s minivan.

And so it went today, we enjoyed catching sunfish around cover near Area 239 and tallied 14 of those before we set out for open water in pursuit of some larger quarry.

We used a few of the sunfish we’d caught as live bait hoping to hook into some largemouth, and got 2 hits but both of those didn’t result in a catch.

After 2 unsuccessful drifts across Area 222, it was time to break out the downriggers and go to work on the resident white bass population. I showed Brandon, a soon-to-be 10th grader how to work the downriggers and he was a great asset in helping me keep lures in the water for all 3 kids. We had down a Pet Spoon and a Pet / Licker combination for all of 50 seconds when the first white bass hit on the combo. From that point on we caught fish non-stop for the remainder of our trip and tallied a catch of 41 fish on the day. The best action came from between Areas 468 and 070, with lesser but still consistent action coming from between Areas 217 and 460. The open water fishing gave up 2 largemouth, the largest going 1.75 pounds, 2 drum, and 23 white bass up to 14 7/8 inches. It was interesting to note that although only 2 of the fish caught today struck the Lunker Licker spoon, a majority of the fish we took on the downriggers struck the Pet Spoon that trailed that Lunker Licker. That’s something I now intend to experiment with a bit more.

By around 10:30 the girls (Kindergarten and 2nd grade) had just about played out (as had the snacks!) so we brought in the gear, headed for a sheltered area and took some nice photos out of the wind. The kids were very proud to do “show and tell” for their mom and had her come down to the boat to peer into the livewell at the several largest fish we’d caught before we released them.

I want to let you know, Brandon, that your a good young man with a selfless heart … you gave up a number of opportunities to catch fish yourself so your little sisters could have that experience, and you helped me and them the entire time. Thank you for that!


TALLY = 41 FISH, all caught and released (except the sunfish we used as bait)


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








Belton Lake Fishing Guide Report – 09 July 2009 – 37 Fish (PM Trip)






Fished a short evening trip with my mom, Charlotte, who is here from Kentucky on her yearly visit with us for a few weeks.

MY MOM, CHARLOTTE, WITH A PAIR OF NICE WHITE TAKEN 2 AT A TIME ON A PET / LICKER COMBO


Start Time: 6:15p

End Time: 8:45p

Air Temp: 98F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~87F

Wind: Winds were from the SSW at 4-5 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were clear and blue the entire trip under the influence of a strong high pressure cap.



We fished just 3 areas tonight and found fish at two of them.

First stop came at Area 478. The fish we suspended over 35+ feet at 24-26 feet deep, and were concentrated right on top of Area 478 with a few fish breaking the surface on occasion, all generally over water shallower than 25′ and up as shallow as 12′. We caught these fish both via downrigger with a Pet and a Pet / Licker combo, and via casting with blades worked at all depths as dictated by sonar and fish activity. We stayed here until nearly sunset (at 8:34) and boated a total of 29 fish, including 4 just legal hybrid.

We moved to Area 473 and took a hard look up against the S. shore for topwater and saw nothing. Bait was abundant but gamefish few. After a few downrigger passes we could only come up with a single stray blue cat.

We finished up at Area 147, again, looking for topwater, but finding none. Sonar did reveal active, bottom hugging fish from 17 to 12 feet deep here, so we used blades in both horizontal and vertical presentations and quickly added 7 more fish to the tally — all average white bass.


TALLY = 37 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








Belton Lake Fishing Guide Report – 09 July 2009 – 50 Fish (AM Trip)






Fished a half-day morning trip with Marty and Kyle W. of Killeen and their family friend, Ray, on leave from the USAF stationed in Japan.

Marty and Kyle have fished with me previously and decided to try a little something different this go ’round in the way of pursuing hybrid stripers.

Hybrid can get a little tough in the summer, but we boated 4 today, as well as a good take of white bass with a few largemouth and crappie thrown in for good measure.


RAY WITH A SPOON-CAUGHT BELTON LAKE HYBRID

3 OF 50 CAUGHT TODAY – TYPICAL HIGH PRESSURE WEATHER CONDITIONS MEAN STEADY, RELIABLE RESULTS

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 1:15p

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~86-87F

Wind: Winds were from the SSW at 8-9 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were clear and blue the entire trip under the influence of a strong high pressure cap.



After meeting at the courtesy dock and exchanging pleasantries, we did a little practice casting on the off chance that we’d encounter some topwater action in the chop. We then headed out and looked over Area 348 to 302 for topwater, but found none.

We then headed to Area 155 and looked it over with sonar and found a few fish hanging right on the fault. We picked up a single largemouth and a small white on subsequent passes and noted a bit of bait in the area. Continued downrigging didn’t yield much, so we gave live bait a try as some of the sonar signals appeared to be hybrid. We had 2 teases on the bait, but nothing in the boat.

Next we headed to Area 473 and downrigged from there to 472 for nearly 2 hours boating mainly white bass very consistently on Images. The action started strong at Area 473 and tapered off while Area 472 then picked up and went quiet a little more quickly. Two times during our visit here we picked up 2 white bass on the same lure at the same time!

After these fish had all but shut down we headed to the expanse of water bounded by Areas 474, 475, and 477. We found ample bait here, but few interested gamefish, and only managed a white bass and 2 crappie after multiple passes.

We then gave livebait another try at Area 168 and had 2 takes resulting in one fair largemouth boated.

We checked Area 155 again with live bait, but found no bait and few gamefish here.

We wrapped up our trip right over top of Area 181 and found some shallow, active whites there willing to take a lift-dropped bladebait. We worked these fish over boating 5 on the blade, and then continued working them for another 45 minutes with the downriggers until we caught our 50th fish of the day. By then it was after 1:00p and the fellows were ready for lunch.





TALLY = 50 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








Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report – 06 July 2009 – 34 Fish






Fished a half-day morning trip on Stillhouse today with a grand-dad, Don C. of Temple, his son-in-law, Scott, and Scott’s boys, Spencer (14) and Austin (12) of Carrollton, TX. We had a delayed start this morning on account of weather – lightning and rain on a a NE breeze – and so didn’t hit the water until 8:00am, but made up for lost time soon thereafter.



This is a really cool sonar shot. This shows 2 downrigger balls working at the same depth. As the balls pass over bottom-oriented fish, those fish (13 of them to be exact) swim upward to check out the ball and swim along with it for a few feet.


Grandpa Don and Spencer


Scott and youngest son, Austin


Start Time: 8:00a (rain delay)

End Time: 11:30a

Air Temp: 72F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~85F

Wind: Winds were from the NNE at 8-9 from pre-sunrise through around 7:15am with lightning and rain. By 7:15 the winds began to calm, the rain lessened, and the lightning ceased.

Skies: Skies were heavy grey the entire trip.

As we waited for the rain to pass, I parked so as to be able to observe the lake’s surface. During the stretch from 6:30a until 8:00a, I didn’t see a single fish break water. As the wind died to calm, we launched out at 8:00a, and, as I was heading out to search for fish, began to see fish beginning to break the surface here and there. We headed to Area 471 and, due to a lack of aggressive surface activity and the fact that baitfish were beginning to band together at mid-depth, decided to go with a downrigging approach right off the bat.

As it turned out we were right at the lead edge of a feeding ramp up that went strong until around 10:45 and then began to taper off. During this entire time we fish twin downriggers with twin Pets tied on and fished at 22-26′. The boys did real well working together to keep our lures in the water by quickly re-rigging after a fish was brought in. We had multiple instances where we took doubles. By the end of the feed, we’d boated 30 white bass up to 15 1/16 inches, as well a 2 largemouth and a drum. All of these fish came between Area 471 and Area 476.

As the fish activity was starting to weaken, I graphed a solid school of white orienting to bottom in 22′. I buoyed them hoping to put the boys onto some fish they could cast to. I did a demo cast to show them how to work the blade bait back to the boat in a lift-drop fashion and hooked a solid white immediately. I then coached the boys to try to duplicat the success, but the fish moved off by the time the boys got their casts landing in the right spot. We never did come up with any more fish from that area.

By now it was about 11:30a and the fellows needed to hit the road on this last day of their trip to grandpa’s, so we took some photos, released our catch and headed back to the dock with 34 fish caught for the effort today.





TALLY = 34 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