Windless, But Not Fishless — Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report, 46 Fish, 23 June 2012






This morning I fished Mr. & Mrs. Raymond S. of Belton, and one of their five children, Logan, age 11. This trip was a gift from Amy to Raymond (for Father’s Day) and to Logan (for his birthday).


Logan (R) and his mom, Amy (L) each lip a nice pair of 13+ white bass that we (really!) worked for today.



Logan holds a pair of largemouth in the foreground while his dad, Raymond, holds a pair of white bass that were landed in tandem on one Pet Spoon rig fished around 29 feet.

If you’ve spent much time reading this blog, you’ll know that Belton and Stillhouse are very tough to fish in dead calm conditions, with Belton being the tougher of the two. For this reason, seeing a windless forecast for this morning, I chose Stillhouse. Additionally, in talking with Amy concerning what she thought would interest Logan the most, we agreed that Stillhouse quantity (white bass and sunfish) over Belton quality (hybrid) would probably be best.

We did find fish today in two distinct areas, but, even when they showed on sonar, and even with bait present, the fish were very reluctant to bite. We had to have the downrigger ball within a foot of the fish to get bit. We had a short “rally” right as the wind finally began to blow around 10:45a, but, it was a case of too little too late to really perk the fish up.

Our first success came shortly after sunrise working double tandem rigs in the vicinity of Area 041/039 with doctored Pet Spoons over white bass at ~27 feet. Our first hookup was a tandem (2 fish on one rig) landed by Logan, and several more fish followed here. Despite a great quantity of bait present, the bait was “blanketed” instead of “balled”, indicating predator fish were not threatening them. We wound up with 7 fish here before things went softer than they already were.

We took a little break from the downrigging for variety’s sake and to allow the breeze of the boatride to cool us off a bit, and wound up doing a bit of sunfishing at Area 1098. With 3 poles going and everyone getting the hang of this technique very quickly, we put 28 sunfish in the boat in under 30 minutes and held some for use as bait in case the opportunity arose later.

Next, it was back to what was working — the downriggers. We hit Area 039/041 again and picked up 4 more white bass and a largemouth over a very small patch of water which we “strained” for all it was worth. After these fish were thinned out, we started looking again.


We checked out a few areas, but, with the winds still calm, it was an uphill battle.

Finally, around 10:45 a light SE breeze kicked in and, at Area 197/042, the fish turned on, albeit briefly. We mangaged 6 more fish here (3 white bass, 1 channel cat, 1 drum, and 1 largemouth) with our balls set around 28-29 feet. After about 40 minutes on location here the bite died.

We wrapped up the trip doing some drifting with live bait but to no avail. The best I’ve been doing on live bait lately has been while using it after topwater action has occurred in an area and then dies. The live bait draws the still active, but suspended, fish out. We never did see any topwater action today, so, we were already pushing our luck as we began.

Logan was a trooper. He did really well, staying enthusiastic and optimistic right to the end of the trip. I let him know as we concluded our trip that this was a slower than average day. With a “glass half full” attitude, he said he was glad that we caught fish that we did managed to find.


TALLY = 46 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 12:30p

Air Temp: 73F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 84.1F

Wind: Calm until ~10:45, then ESE4-6.

Skies: Skies were hazy and cloudless.