This morning I met Don and Jan W. of Belton for a husband-and-wife fishing trip on Stillhouse Hollow.
Jan shows 2 of our best 4 white bass. The grey skies and stiff south wind had these white bass feeding long and hard today.
Don shows a pair of 14+ inch white bass. Our best success came on downriggers used to target suspended schools feeding on shad.
Back around this time in 2011 Don and Jan’s grown children presented them with a combination birthday/Mother’s Day fishing gift certificate, and today was the day they chose to redeem it.
The weatherman called for south winds 15-20 in the morning, increasing to 20-25 in the afternoon with gusts to 30. I woke early to see how things looked and, around 5am the winds were every bit of 15+ mph, but I thought we could manage if the forecast held.
We began our day covering lots of water looking for some topwater action amidst the waves and saw one short-lived bit of schooling action lasting not even long enough to set up and cast to.
We then began looking for suspended or bottom-oriented fish by searching with sonar.
We found abundant and fairly heavily schooled white bass and bait from Area 1085, through Area 453, and on to Area 822. These fish were on the move and were primarily using the band of water from 17 to 24 feet over a deeper bottom.
By far the best success in targeting these fish came on the downriggers. We could simply do no wrong on them. Literally, every time we rigged and made a pass we caught one, if not, two fish on doctored Pet Spoons. We tried a few times to stop over top of some of the larger schools we found and cast to them. We used Rattle Traps, blade baits and slabs in different sizes and colors, but the fish just didn’t go after these presentations with anywhere near the enthusiasm that they did for the downrigged baits.
Don got the hang of the downriggers early on and was basically operating on his own catching fish after fish as quickly as he got his fish off, and his line down and set on the ‘rigger. Jan maintained that there were too many steps involved in the downrigging and stated that she now understood why Don had left her at the dock in years past when he was going to give downrigging a try at their old stomping grounds at Richland-Chambers Reservoir. Actually, she did just fine and was a good sport about it when an occasional misplaced hand or too-tight drag caused an anomaly.
We occasionally saw a fish or two from among the various schools of white bass come up and pop shad on the surface, but then refused to look at a surface presentation.
Between 9:45 and 10:30, we did have a bit of success more slowly working slabs among the suspended white bass, but still nothing to hold a candle to the downrigging.
By the time 10:45 had rolled around, the fish were still hitting, but we on the downhill slide of the morning feed. To this point we’d boated 51 white bass, most right at 13″, as well as 3 average largemouth. We decided to change the pace of things and hunt some outsized largemouth with live bait.
Unfortunately, most of the productive hydrilla beds that have been giving up largemouth for me lately were being slammed by the wind which was now going 18mph+. Fishing live bait from a boat pitching up and down on the waves is a difficult proposition. The bait never looks natural when it is being jerked up and down by the wind’s impact on the boat.
We tried several locations over top of hydrilla and one gentle hump without hydrilla, but all of these failed to produce in the hour or so that we set aside for this tactic.
So, we ended our day with the 54 fish we’d taken as of 10:45. The photos of the largest 4 white bass shown above are all fish over 14 inches — all very healthy looking fish. Along the way we got to talk about duck hunting, vegetable gardening, and a dozen other topics, and got to compare notes on how the white bass fishery at Stillhouse compared and contrasted with that of Richland-Chambers. I really enjoyed my company today!
TALLY = 54 FISH, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:45a
End Time: 12:05p
Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 77F
Wind: Winds were S15-18.
Skies: Skies were 100% clouded at trip’s start, slowly clearing to 20% clouds on a hazy sky by trip’s end.