Hard Wind … Hot Bite!! 114 Fish on Stillhouse, 20 Feb. 2012 – Austin Fishing Guide Report






Following a 4.5 hour trip this morning, I returned to waters at approximately 2:45p with a party of 4 … Andy M. and his son Trent from north Austin, and Andy’s brother-in-law, Coby D., and Coby’s daughter Brynn, in for a visit from Atlanta, Georgia.

(L to R) Brynne, Coby, Trent, and Andy… everybody caught fish today and plenty of them. We boated a grand total of 114 fish, most of which were white bass measuring right around 11 to 11.5 inches. Very few went smaller, and perhaps 10-15 exceeded 12 inches.


All but our young lady guest had extensive prior freshwater fishing experience, and all were quite capable with spinning gear. This alone would increase their potential as the day unfolded.

Keying off of this morning’s success, we began this afternoon’s hunt in deeper water (35-45 feet). It seems the stability this deep water offers during this time of flux with an elevation increase underway is preferred by the fish. I located very few fish today in less than 32 feet of water.

We located fish on 5 distinct areas this evening …

Area 1005 sat in 42 feet of water and produced our first 44 fish for us. These fish were heavily congregated and were in that traditional feeding posture just 6-9 inches off bottom. These fish readily struck our 3/4 oz. slabs fished with a simple jigging technique. Eventually, these fish lost all interest. They still clearly showed on bottom on sonar, but they were now totally disinterested.

Next, Area 935 produced only 4 fish for us, despite seeing a school of 30-40 fish showing on the leeward side of the feature as we idled through and marked the are with a buoy.

Next, we fished Area 1042. This area produced well for us this morning, and the fish were in the exact same place where we’d encountered them in the morning. I noted that as we caught our first few fish, many fish rose up off the bottom by 2-3 feet and then stayed there for quite some time. Seeing this, I had my party switch over to an “easing” tactic. That did the trick and kept our strings stretched for a solid 35 minutes, taking our count up to 96 fish. Eventually these fish moved on.

We moved to just west of Area 259/260 and found the only fish of the day situated in less than 32 feet of water. We found smallish white bass here holding tight to the bottom in 25-26 feet of water. We put a total of 8 fish in the boat, too a break to take photos before the light failed, then went right back to catching fish again, in all putting an additional 6 fish in the boat, taking our tally up to 110 fish.

As the shadows got long and the air began to cool, we headed back towards the boatramp, making one final stop at just north of Area 679-785. We saw fish here at the 30 foot level, but, they were mostly suspended. We broke out our “easing” tactic again on these fish and wound up boating our final 4 fish here before calling it a day and taking a brisk ride back to the boatramp.

TALLY = 114 FISH all caught and released

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Start Time: 2:45p

End Time: 6:25p

Air Temp: 60F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 54.9F.

Wind: Winds were SSW15, slowly tapering to SSW9.

Skies: Skies were fair and 30% cloudy.








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