SEPTEMBER 2009 RESULTS SUMMARY






I post a monthly summary of results so those looking to plan a trip in advance can have a feel for where the fishing typically has been for that particular month in years past. Note that the cooler months (when bookings often fall off) can offer some of the most productive fishing of the year.

September 2009 was a bit of a let down. Just as the days were getting comfortable and top water was getting consistent on Stillhouse, a lengthy low-pressure system set up right over us and dropped 10-13 inches of rain on the entire area, bring the lake up 3.5+ feet very rapidly. By month’s end, things still had not settled down with fish both mobile and scattered.










Belton Lake Fishing Report – 26 September 2009 – 74 Fish (AM & PM Trips)






I fished back-to-back trips today, both including children. In the morning, I welcomed Doug F., a surgeon at Scott & White, back aboard. We’d last fished in April of 2008. This time his son, Jacob, at age 6 was now old enough to attend and Doug desired that the trip be focused on Jacob’s success. Then, in the afternoon, I welcomed Mrs. Tori A. and her two daughters, Ashley and Mattie, aboard for our 10th S.K.I.F.F. trip of the year. 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.

Young Jacob F. of Temple and proud papa Doug with Jacob’s biggest fish ever, a solid Belton Hybrid Striped Bass

Tori A., mom of Mattie (blue vest) and Ashley (red vest) holds Mattie’s trophy hybrid, a 7.00 pound monster!

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 7:45p

Air Temp: 65F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~80-82F

Wind: Winds were very light from the WNW at trip’s start, going light and variable during daylight hours and settling to near calm from the SE by sunset.

Skies: Mostly sunny all day with thin, wispy, high level clouds.


As we pulled away from the dock with Doug and Jacob raring to go, we headed north of Area 84 and did a quick sonar sweep which revealed little. We then headed to search the bottom between Areas 487 and 488. Here, we found some scattered bait (small shad) in the lower 1/3 of the water column just starting to get active, and some gamefish holding tight to the bottom in and around this bait. Our first fish of the day came about 20 minutes into the trip just as our presentation worked into a congregation of bottom-hugging white bass. Jacob did a great job of fighting the fish, not reeling too fast or too slow and keeping his rod up at a 45 degree angle instead of “pumping” it as so many kids see done “on TV”. He went on to land that fish, then a nice 3.25 pound hybrid, then a short hybrid, and two other white bass before that method of fishing no longer held his attention. He was taken with the prospect of catching sunfish by another means, and so we changed gears and went in pursuit of the mighty bluegill. We fished two areas, Area 492 and 499, and put a combined total of 25 sunfish in the boat, including bluegill and one longear sunfish. Jacob’s bluegill fishing near shore was punctuated with a few transfers into and out of the boat to explore the terrain, eat smoked almonds, and get hands and feet dirty in nature … good boy stuff!! Jacob then requested that we give the “big fish” a try again, so, we spot-hopped hoping to catch a few still-active fish, but, but this time the morning bite was over (no wind, bright sun, no bait, no topwater, no birds, boats packing up and leaving, etc.) and so by around 11am we decided to call it a day. All in all Jacob did great. He and his dad put exactly 30 fish in the boat, and Jacob’s hybrid striper photo is certainly “frame-worthy”!

After Doug and Jacob headed out, I had some downtime until my 3:45pm meeting time with Tori and her girls. Although the conditions were forbidding, I did some fishing and a lot of sonar searching for bait during this time. I had success at between Areas 521 and 522 by downrigging with Pets in 40 to 42 feet of water, pulling 5 whites of various sizes and 2 just legal largemouth on downriggers, and catching one suspended largemouth that went 15.5″ on a bladebait along the same troll path these other fish came out of. I also caught 3 short whites on the ‘riggers between Areas 437 and 171. That was some pretty slow fishing from ~11am to 3pm — just 11 fish in 4 hours — but typical of mid-day on a windless Belton.

At ~3p I headed back to the dock to eat a bite and get ready for the trip for Tori and her girls. I planned to put the girls on sunfish early, then bet on a solid pre-sunset to post-sunset white bass/hybrid bite for the evening. As we headed out, we returned to Area 492 for some sunfish fishing based on the good success we’d had there this morning. We made a couple of short hops along this stretch and boated 4-6 fish on each hop on our bream rods baited with worm. Within 90 minutes we’d boated 20 fish (19 bluegill and 1 green sunfish) and the girls were excited at the prospect of catching some larger fish of a different species. We had a bit of a dry spell until around 6pm, picking only one small white up at Area 307 over about 45 minutes, then things started to ramp up for us. We first encountered deep, bottom-hugging fish at just south of Area 488, and slowly made our way to Area 84. Once we hit the 30 foot contour and shallower, things really started to happen. Schools of bait, white bass, and hybrid began to appear regularly on sonar at ~27 feet with occasional “early risers” found up at 22 feet. As the light faded the fish moved shallower and higher in the water column between Area 84 and 302. Over the final hour and 45 minutes of the trip we boated 13 fish including the biggest of the day, a 7.00 pound hybrid as well as 3 other keeper hybrid and 1 short hybrid. We also put a nice 4.25 pound largemouth in the boat. This fish measured only 18″ but was very thick and “stocky”. The balance of the catch over this time frame consisted of keeper white bass, all right at +/- 11.5 inches. We saw 4 briefly appearing, small schools of whites come up and feed near the top literally for just seconds at a time. By 7:45 things were just about done. We neaten up the boat and headed on in. As we came downlake we passed Temple Lake Park expecting to see some boats out there but there was none. Things seem unusually quiet at Temple Lake Park this season, and on topwater in general. Perhaps a few days of steady weather will help turn things around.

Today’s total was 30 fish in the morning trip with Doug and Jacob, 11 fish in the interim time between trips, and 33 fish during the evening trip with Tori, Ashley, and Mattie.


TALLY = 74 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 – 19 Sep. 2009 – SKIFF Trip #9 — 8 Fish (AM Trip)






I fished a half-day morning trip today on Stillhouse with 2 young men — Lavar Fogle of Belton and Nick Samano of Killeen. Lavar’s dad, George Washington, and Nick’s dad, Thomas Coons, are both deployed to Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division. This was the ninth 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.

Nick S. with twin whites taken a few minutes apart early this morning on Pets.

Capt. Lavar mans the wheel as we search the deep for fishes.


Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 1:15p

Air Temp: 69F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~79F

Wind: Winds were light from the NNW at trip’s start, swinging to the N. by trip’s end. Skies continued to be clouded due to Gulf moisture being drawn in by the persistent upper level low that has dominated our weather for the past 9 days now.

We had a tough trip today, capping off a tough week of fishing all week this week. The low pressure system that has controlled the weather for the past 9 days has maintained winds out of the N to NNW with damp, cloudy conditions. This makes for predictably tough fishing and today seemed to be the toughest of ’em all. But, we took lemons and made lemonade and had a great time on the water even if the wait time between the fish was lengthy. Our trip scheduling today was a bit crazy and gave me some insight on what the wives of deployed soldiers deal with when trying to provide opportunities for their children when dad is away. Today I fished with Nick from 7:30a to 11:30a and with Lavar from 9:30a to 1:30p. Why? Because between the two boys there’s a total of 11 other siblings, grocery shopping to do, a slow leak on a tire to fix, a sleepover to attend, football practice to make, a park to visit, a band instrument to buy, church to get up and get ready for, and the list goes on. One of my goals is to give moms a break, so the least I could do was flex on the trip timing for their sake.

Well, we started our morning looking deep, as that is where life appear most consistently on sonar as we got underway. There was very little boat traffic, zero bird activity, zero topwater activity, and the majority of the weekend bass fishing crowd had cashed in their chips by around 9am and were headed back home. We downrigged the entire trip today and very consistently located gamefish at the 38-40 foot mark in several areas but, so many times, as we passed over fish postured in such a way that would normally guarantee a bite as the baits passed by, the fish just refused to strike. Realizing about 90 minutes into the trip that this was going to be a tough one, I did all I could do to keep the boys engaged, including allowing them to drive the boat from spot to spot, and showing them how to execute a trolling grid over a spot once we got there using GPS. They really did well at that.

Another skill I introduced them to was interpreting sonar. I was amazed at how quickly the boys’ minds grasped the concept of sonar, and I made mention of that to them, telling them I often have men on board who never really get the hang of sonar even after an entire trip. To that Nick said, “Yeah, old people who are like 50 or 60 are used to things in black and white so they don’t get this high tech stuff.” I about busted a gut after hearing that.

Yet another manly outdoor skill I introduced the boys to was that of snack-swapping. Both boys’ moms packed enough groceries to feed the Chinese Army, but some of the snacks were things the boys didn’t care for. I told them that’s an opportunity to work out a win-win trade wherein you offer something you don’t care for in trade for something you do, trying to find a common ground with your trading partner. They made some good deals and definitely didn’t go home hungry.

After seeing the effort both mom’s made to get the boys to the dock on time, have them dressed appropriately, and pack them lunch, etc., I asked the boys if they appreciated their moms. One of the boys said, “Yes … except for one thing.” I waited for the other shoe to drop … “I really don’t like when I’m at the bus stop with all the other kids and she drives by, slows down and says ‘I love you Nick!'” He continued, “I just lower my head and hope the kids don’t know she’d talking to me, but, that’s when I see my student I.D. around my neck with my name on it in big letters.”

Well, back to fishing. We boated 8 fish today including:

1 largemouth and 4 whites out of 38-41 feet in the vicinity of Area 517

1 largemouth and 1 white bass out of 40 feet between Area 452 and 495. It was in this area that we found the most promising sonar returns with fish appearing every few yards both singly and in small schools of up to 4 fish. There was no bait present and it was really like pulling teeth here.

1 drum from beteen Areas 464 and 191

All of these fish came on Pets.

TALLY = 8 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 – 19 September 2009 – 39 Fish (PM Trip)






Fished an evening half day “Kids Fish, Too!” trip with Andy M. and his kids, Trent (8th Grade) and Molly (7th Grade), all of N. Austin. They’ve just moved to the area from the Cincinnati area and wanted to sample some late summer Texas fishing.

From L to R: Trent, Molly, and Andy. Trent is holding Molly’s fish as she was a bit timid about doing this at first — by trip’s end she was slingin’ ’em back in the water all by herself

Start Time: 2:35p

End Time: 7:45pm

Air Temp: 85F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~80.1F

Wind: Winds were barely moving from the NNW the entire trip at 2-4 mph.

Skies: Skies were finally clearing out as the stubborn low pressure system prevalent the last 9 days finally released its grip on the weather and the fishing. It was partly cloudy with a hazy appearance to the patches of clear sky.

We finally got a break on the weather this afternoon. On the heels of a very slow morning trip on Stillhouse, I moved our afternoon trip to Belton which did not experience a dramatic water rise with the heavy rains of last weekend.

This afternoon we found fish progressively shallower, with our first fish caught in 41-44 feet of water and with fish caught around sunset found in 16-18 feet of water.

As we began the day, We put ‘riggers down and searched out fish. We found gamefish with no bait (not a good scenario) in the vicinity of Area 474. We boated 4 white bass and 1 hybrid and lost another hybrid here, all in the first 45 minutes of fishing. Things looked promising given this action in the early hours of the afternoon.

We then searched a few other deepwater areas without success and then headed to Area 187 and to the NW of it. Right up on the highest part of this feature sonar revealed a nice congregation of fish. No sooner had I mentioned what I’d seen on sonar to the kids than a rod went active. We boated a nice hybrid, then continued trolling and picked up a nice white bass. Another pass and another hybrid / white bass combination. The next 40 minutes we continued to comb over the area and regularly picked up white bass ranging from 11 to 12.75 inches — just nice, steady fishing — just right for kids. After a total of 22 fish pulled off this area, we saw nothing more on sonar and moved on.

We relocated on a similar area (Area 150) and were fast to a hybrid and then a white bass as we made our initial approach. The sonar showed such good readings that I buoyed and set everyone up to vertical jig, but, but the time the jigs got down the fish had gone. We never got another fish by any means on this area.

Within 75 minutes of sunset, we were patrolling a NW to SE swath in the vicinity of Area 84 to 147 and were picking up good sonar returns from abundant suspended fish here in ~25-27 feet of water. We ran the downriggers about 2-3 feet off bottom right above the fishes’ heads and began to steadily catch fish. Although we twice saw briefly appearing schools of whites dimple the surface, the weather still wasn’t quite right for topwater to breakout. We stuck with our downrigging regimen and were rewarded with a total of 10 additional fish in this area by nightfall, including 3 hybrid (2 legal, 1 short) and 7 white bass, all of which went better than 12.5 inches.

TALLY = 39 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 Sep. 2009 – 19 Fish






Fished a morning half day trip with Gary Winters of Frisco, Texas, today. Gary’s step-daughter is to be married in Salado tomorrow. His very wise wife booked him with me to keep him out of her hair during all the pre-nuptial goings-on, and cleverly disguised the tactic as a “present”. Smart, smart lady that Mrs. Jane — or so says my wife!!

Gary’s best of the 19 we boated to today. This one went 3.75 pounds and came out of 25 feet of water.

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 12:15pm

Air Temp: 77F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~78.6F

Wind: Winds were from the NNW the entire trip at about 8-10 .

This doggone low pressure just won’t let up and the fish are in a deep funk. We struggled a bit today in the face of a damp NNW wind that’s been around for 8 days now. The skies were heavily clouded to the point that I moved our start time back to 7:30 to have enough light to spot any bird, bait, or fish activity that might be there to observe. But, even with enough light, there was little to see.

We fished open water first as I was concerned the winds might pick up as they did yesterday. We hit Area 484 and came up with a largemouth and a white bass on downrigged Pets, but after that it got awful quiet.

We worked our way south from here and picked up another white bass at Area 041. These fish were just suspended in the middle of nowhere, not relating to bottom, to bait, or with many other fish.

Next we headed to Area 120 / 142 and were relieved to find some bait here, but found primarily smallish fish relating to that bait. We initially rigged up with downriggers and quickly put 2 fish in the boat and saw what looked to be solid bottom-hugging fish here in 25-27 feet of water. We hovered over these fish with the trolling motor and worked blade baits over them both vertically and horizontally, picking up 2 fish, both of which went ~12 inches and would be the largest white bass we’d take all day. We continued working blade for a few more minutes without success, so we then rigged back up with the downriggers and worked a broader area in this same locale, picking up 9 more fish, including 8 small white bass and the best fish of the trip, a nice largemouth going 3.75 pounds.

After this area played out, we headed to Area 243 and closed out the trip by boating a keeper white, as short largemouth and an average crappie in quick succession, all solo and suspended at mid-depths over 45+ feet of water.

Gary and I spoke in advance of the trip and his goal was to learn a few new techniques for the day he gets his boat lake-ready and takes on nearby Lake Lewisville and Ray Hubbard. By trip’s end he was comfortable rigging the downrigger independently, as well as reading a modern flasher, vertical jigging, and horizontally working a blade bait. To him, the fish were icing on the cake. To me, I guess I just like lots of icing!

TALLY = 19 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 – 17 Sep. 2009 – 38 Fish






I fished a 1/2 day morning trip with James F. of Killeen. James is a U.S. Army retired Vietnam veteran. He’d just returned from a family getaway down at Padre Island where a charter trip he’d book turned up fruitless, so he was counting on breaking his streak of bad luck with me today.

Start Time: 7:00am

End Time: 11:15pm

Air Temp: 67F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~77.6F

Wind: Winds were steady from the NW at ~15 at sunrise (obscured) and slowly crept up to 22+ by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were heavily clouded the entire trip.

Environmental note: The strong low pressure that brought this past weekend’s rains has returned. This upper level low is keeping the winds and clouds firmly in place and is negatively impacting the fishing.

Bottom line: the fishing was tough today. We worked for every fish we caught and had a difficult time finding active bait and gamefish. Low pressure and the northerly winds brought with it always make for a tough time and today was no exception.

We contacted fish at Area 205 by way of downriggers. Fish appeared in a very scattered fashion (actually nearly randomly) with a bit of consistency at the 27-29 foot band. We ran Pets down among them and came up with a largemouth and 2 whites here before the sonar essentially went clean with no fish showing at all.

We moved over to Area 458 and found just a few fish holding tight to the bottom on the steep E. facing slope here. I ran the downrigger balls across the face of the slope in 23-24 feet and we came up with 2 more largemouth and a single drum.

By now we’d fished most of the protected water typically holding fish in this season and, with the wind creeping up past 20mph, decided to leave the lower lake at this point.

We headed to Area 120. There were swells and whitecaps here, but, if you really looked hard, you could see fair sized schools of white bass working the surface. These schools would number 20-50 fish in size, with most fish being just yearlings. We ran 1 downrigger down and 1 flatline out, both with Pets tied on and were immediately hooked up on both lines, both with small white bass.

We continued to see fish working in the churned water and quickly broke out the topwater lures. We put 32 fish in the boat in about 45 minutes’ time before they sounded for good. During that time, we caught fish on the Cork Rig and subsurface bladebaits. When no fish were visible on top, we used the bladebaits to vertical jig and continued catching fish from off bottom, including some more sizeable 11-12 inch fish.

By 11:15, the wind was at a peak around 22+ mph, the fish were done on the surface, and our vertical presentations targeting bottom-oriented fish were no longer producing. We called it a day at that point thankful that some “llth hour” topwater spiced up what was looking to be a tough day otherwise.


TALLY = 38 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 – 14 Sep. 2009 – 37 Fish






I fished a 1/2 day morning trip with Lance R. of Pfluegerville today. Lance’s stated objectives were 1) to have me review his tackle selections so he could better understand when and where to use the right tackle, 2) help him learn to effectively use his new downriggers and relate what he is seeing on the sonar to what he needs to do with downrigger so far as depth and trolling speeds are concerned, and 3) to learn about the lake and where to look for fish now and into the fall and winter. We accomplished all of these objective’s by trip’s end.

Lance with 1 of his 37 fish caught on today’s instructional trip in tough, north-wind conditions

Start Time: 7:10am

End Time: 12:20pm

Air Temp: 68F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~79.5F

Wind: Winds were steady from the NW at ~10-12 at sunrise (obscured) and slowly crept up to 17-18 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were heavily clouded the entire trip.

Environmental note: Due to heavy rains from a slow moving low pressure system present over the last 3 days dropping 10-13 inches of rain locally, Stillhouse has risen nearly 3 feet over the past 4 days.

As we got on the water, we didn’t immediately begin fishing, but rather, I tried to get a feel for where Lance stood in his ability to interpret sonar and rig up a downrigger. With those things understood we then headed out hunting for fish and also looking for opportunities for Lance to learn “on the job”.

We first looked in the vicinity of Areas 70-71 (a deep water breakline). We graphed fish consistently at 33-35 feet. I strung out the first rigger and had Lance do the second. We trolled for a while covering about 80 yards of the breakline and only managed 2 juvenile white bass on the Pet / Licker combo (one fish on each lure at the same time — a tandem). Since these fish were small, I assumed the rest of the fish we were graphing here would also be smallish. This, plus the heavy winds, would make it difficult for us to interpret a strike at these depths, so we moved on.

Our second stop came in the vicinity of Area 196. We again found suspended schools of white bass here, but this time with a bit of bait mixed in. These fish were not relating to the bottom nor the nearby breakline, thus, they were very scattered. We picked up 3 fish here but I just didn’t feel like things were going to come together, so we moved yet again. I was glad to find fish willing to strike given the northern component to the wind and the great environmental changes the lake just underwent.

Our third and final stop came to the west of Areas 484 and 485. We got lucky in that we happened upon fish on the channel shoulder at the very point where we began our search. This has the potential to be a much more lengthy process, having to cover a lot of ground with sonar before finding fish and bait in the same area. We immediately found fish on sonar at 28-30 feet, with most fish hugging pretty close to bottom. We got twin riggers down and put 9 fish in the boat in no time flat including white bass, black bass, and a small drum.

After about a half hour of steady action, I mentioned to Lance that if he wanted to learn a bit about combining the use of electronics in a vertical jigging scenario, we would likely be successful based on the posture of the fish, but that’d we’d need to get right on it as the fish wouldn’t stay jazzed for long today. He was anxious to try this, so, we buoyed some active fish, hovered over them and worked them over with blades. We put a mixed bag of 19 fish in the boat, all on vertical presentations including a 70/30 mix of whites to blacks, as well as a single crappie. We did attempt a horizontal presentation on a number of occasions but didn’t land a single fish or get a single strike that way today.

By around 11:00a the fish began to slack off. We went back to downrigging and polished things off with 4 more white bass, all around 11-12 inches. All but one of our white bass came on the #12 and #13 Pets today. Only one fish struck the Licker.

By noon, we’d seen the best of it and, with skies darkening a bit and the winds nearing a peak of ~18mph, we called it a day and headed back to the dock where Lance got one final lesson on making and using the Cork Rig.

This wasn’t the most productive trip I’ve ever run, but I was very satisfied that, while facing tough wind speeds and direction on top of some great environmental changes (~3 feet of new water in 3 days) we were still able to put together a respectable catch.


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








Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report – 10 Sep. 2009 – 78 Fish






Didn’t have enough time for a guided trip this day (I’m blogging 2 days after the trip) due to travel plans taking me to Rockwall, TX, but I did head out on this morning on my lonesome to stay on top of things and take a crack at some topwater action if I could find it.

A GRAPH OF OUR ELEVATION RISE ON STILLHOUSE DUE TO RAINS FROM THIS WEEKEND’S LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM

Start Time: 7:00am

End Time: 11:20am

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.4F

Wind: Winds were from the SSE at ~7-8 following a calm sunrise.

Skies: Skies were mostly cloudy at sunrise; a light fog came in for about 45 minutes, but then cleared giving way to increasing cloudiness which would turn to rain, which would in turn be the leading edge of a persistent low pressure system which would dump 9-15 inches of rain on the local area through Sunday, Sep. 13th.

I was on the water just a few minutes prior to sunrise and quickly checked out Area 056. There was some light topwater caused by juvenile largemouth and white bass, but nothing much more substantial. I landed the only larger fish I saw break water after quietly looking over this area for a few minutes — a 13.75″ largemouth — on a Cork Rig.

Next, I throttled up to a moderate cruising speed and closely looked as I drove, studying the surface for topwater action, but seeing noting beyond random “static”.

I gave Area 70 to 71 a few passes with the downrigger and came up with 2 solid white bass. As I watched sonar, I saw a fair cluster of fish right on the breakline here in 32-34 feet, on bottom. With the fog about to settle in, I buoyed these fish and decided to hunker down as I waited for the fog to lift. I got a few fish to respond, but didn’t hook or land any with a slab.

As the fog cleared about 35 minutes later, I headed to Area 484. I wound up spending the rest of the trip here as there was ample bait, white bass on bottom and in fairly regularly appearing schools at mid-depth, and, every once in a while when the sun broke through the increasing clouds or at least warmed and brightened the area, schools of largemouth would bust shad on topwater. These are now schools, not just little wolfpacks, which marks a significant change in the season and dictates some different tactics.

For the whites, a smoked slab in silver or white did well early, then a blade was all they’d touch after they got picky. For the largemouth, long, immediate, accurate casts are still the rule using the Cork Rig with a matching forage imitator.

The “routine” was to cast to breaking fish when they presented themselves, and vertically work the slabs and blades when they didn’t.

Following this simple formula here made for a productive morning trip with 78 fish boated by the time I had to wrap it up to head north.


TALLY = 78 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 – 05 Sep. 2009 – SKIFF Trip #8 — 78 Fish






I fished a morning half day S.K.I.F.F. trip (#8) today with Brycen Schmidt, a Harker Heights Kindergartener, and son of Captain and Mrs. Steven Schmidt. CPT Schmidt is an Army aviator deployed to Iraq with 2/227 Aviation Regiment. Miss Grace Lewis, a 3rd grade young lady I know through my church, also participated in this outing. This and all S.K.I.F.F. trips are sponsored by the Austin Fly Fishers. S.K.I.F.F. stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun and is a program available to the families of deployed soldiers wherein their children can participate in an all-expenses-paid, professionally guided fishing trip of about 4 hours in duration.

Brycen S. with a nice schoolie bass he played and landed all by himself.

Grace L. with a big bass and a bigger smile.


During this trip we had two very memorable moments. First, Brycen caught the first fish of his life (he’s 5); it was a black-tail shiner. Then Grace caught a record-setting green sunfish. In all, the kids caught a mixed bag of 45 fish. I continued fishing after this trip, accounting for the balance of the tally today.

Start Time: 7:00am

End Time: 1:50pm

Air Temp: 74F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~82.4F

Wind: Winds were from the NW at trip’s start, swinging through N, then NE, then E, then going slack, and picking up from the SE by trip’s end.

Skies: Fair through 11:30, then darkening and becoming overcast through 1:30, then clearing.


To make things easy on the two moms, we met at the Harker Heights High School parking lot and caravanned to the launch site from there. Grace’s mom went along on the trip, whereas Brycen wanted to take his trip on his own.

By 7:15, Grace, her mom, Nam, Brycen, and I cast off from the dock and our adventure had begun.

Our first stop for these young rookies was at Area 189. There is a sizeable colony of sunfish here including bluegill, longear, and green sunfish, as well as the occasional juvenile bass or shiner.

We baited up with bream poles and worms. I showed the kids how to roll cast to get the line out a distance from the boat, and they picked up on that technique pretty quickly. We fished for a full hour and a half here and the area produced very consistently between snacking and untangling lines. It was at this area that both kids caught their notable catches. We boated a total of 19 fish here before moving on.

By 9:15 or so this area had played out, so we moved to a similar area (Area 231)that was even more protected from the wind. The kids were now well-practiced at setting the hook once the float submerged, and with the decreased wind making the floats easy to “read”, the fish didn’t have a chance. In 30 minutes at this area the kids literally doubled their catch to 38 fish before I suggested that we go after some larger fish with the balance of our time remaining.

By 10:00 we were graphing white bass on sonar over 27-32 feet of water between Areas 196 and 240. The fish were holding in a horizontal band at 24-26 feet and there was scattered bait in the area.

I had the kids participate in preparing to downrig for these fish by stripping out our fishing lines to the correct distance behind the boat. Before long we had 2 lines on 2 ‘riggers working their magic. By 11:00 we had boated two 13-inch largemouth, a freshwater drum, and 4 white bass. The kids did really well at playing and landing these fish and didn’t miss a single opportunity by losing a fish to horsing or jumping. By 11:00 the winds had turned E. and the bite was softening, as it often does when blowing from that direction.

By 11:15 we were to meet Brycen’s mom back at the ramp, so we concluded our trip for the kids at this point, took the required photos for Grace’s lake record and for Brycen’s first fish award and said our goodbyes.

Afterwards, I wanted to experiment with a new dual-rod holder for one of my downriggers which would allow me to fish 2 lines on one ‘rigger. The experiment went so-so, but, while I was idling over open water to do all of this, the winds went slack, we got some good overcast conditions, and some topwater action began to ramp up. After landing 2 largemouth and a white bass on the downriggers and looking over the baitfish situation with sonar as I did, I hung around a little while to see if the topwater was really going to turn on … and it did.

From 12:10 to 1:50 and from Area 056 to Area 425, there was rarely a time when I did not have one or more fish popping up within casting distance. Most were short white bass, with some short largemouth mixed in. Short or not, I love catching fish on topwater and commenced to do just that taking 2 more largemouth and 28 more white bass on a Cork Rig before the skies began to brighten and the wind began again out of the SE.

I called it day at that point.


TALLY = 78 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 – 03 Sep. 2009 – SKIFF Trip #7 — 32 Fish






I fished a morning half day S.K.I.F.F. trip (#7) today with Khayman and Jayden Koop, the children of Jeremy and Hillary Koop of Killeen. Mr. Koop is deployed to Iraq with the 89th Military Police Brigade. This and all S.K.I.F.F. trips are sponsored by the Austin Fly Fishers. S.K.I.F.F. stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun and is a program available to the families of deployed soldiers wherein their children can participate in an all-expenses-paid, professionally guided fishing trip of about 4 hours in duration.

During this trip we had two very memorable moments. First, Jayden caught the first fish of her life (she’s 7); it was a bluegill sunfish. Then Khayman caught a record-breaking bluegill sunfish on flyfishing gear, doubling the weight of the former record. In all, we caught a mixed bag of 31 fish.

Khayman’s pending lake record bluegill taken with fly gear


Is that enthusiasm, or what?!?

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 11:30am

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~83.3F

Wind: Winds were from the SW the entire trip ranging from 6-11 mph.

Skies: Fair the entire trip


Mrs. Koop was right on time at 7:00am dockside, just a few minutes before sunrise. I covered all the safety basics and then, since neither child had much fishing experience, we started our day off fishing for sunfish to get some basics down and to allow for some immediate success and confidence-building. We had our best success at Area 189 on the mix of wood, rocks and aquatic vegetation found there. At this location, we boated 18 sunfish including 17 bluegill and 1 longear. Khayman took 3 of these by flyrod, and the siblings split the rest equally on bream poles baited with worm under a float. One of Khayman’s fish on the flyrod went 0.25 pounds and 5 1/8 inches beating out the current Jr. Angler fly rod record of 0.13 pounds.

After that positive experience, we searched some similar areas (195, 513, 514, and 515) but found only this year’s hatched fish in those areas with no adults or older juveniles evident.

By now it was around 9:00am and the sun had risen and brightened sufficiently to get the deep bite going. We headed over to the stretch of water between Area 460 and 196 and began sweeping with sonar to find some schools of white bass to downrig for. The wind was at its peak for the morning now, around 11mph, and just producing some whitecaps, so topwater was very difficult to see. We did find fish in this area, all at 28-31 feet. We got a combination of lure sizes down on 2 ‘riggers including a single #13 Pet on one and a #12 Pet / Licker combo on another. Khayman really took to the downriggers well and was rigging everything himself after only 2-3 tries. In less than an hour’s time, we boated a nice mixed bag of 7 fish including 2 largemouth bass, 1 freshwater drum, and 4 white bass. Around 10:35 I spotted some topwater action in the vicinity of Area 485. We checked it out, but I didn’t find the action frequent enough or dense enough to put the kids on it, so, we took our act on the road and downrigged once again at Area 056 just out from the 25’ contour. We found fish a bit shallower here in 25-27 feet and ran the same spread in front of these fish. We put 6 more fish in the boat here including 1 largemouth and 5 whites, one of which went 14 1/8 inches. By now our winds were tapering off, the atmosphere heating up, and mom was returning to the boat ramp for the kids, so we wrapped it up, got back to the dock, took all of the required measurements and photos for Khayman’s new flyrod record and parted ways.

The Austin Fly Fishers have been kind enough to provide me with “goody” bags for each of the SKIFF participants including a laminated fish ID card, a fish ID book, a learn-to-flyfish book, a SKIFF t-shirt, and more. The kids really enjoyed receiving this as they departed.

If you follow this blog and know of a family with kids where mom or dad is deployed or if mom or dad died on active duty, please pass along my information so I can get them on the water.


TALLY = 31 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