Trish (L) and Jessie (R) with our first 2 of 34 fish taken. The fish Trish holds is the first fish of her life and won her a Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. “First Fish Award”.
The S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Program exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families as a way of showing our support for our troops and providing a respite for their spouses. The following is a note to SKIFF supporters about this most recent outing…
Monday, 28 Jan. 2013
Dear Friends of SKIFF,
This morning I fished on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with two young ladies– Jessica Casper (age 16) and Trish Reeves (age 11).
Jessica is the daughter of the late Major Mike Casper and Mrs. Susie Casper. Mike, a former Army Kiowa helicopter pilot passed away while on active duty. Carrying on the military tradition, Jessie just won 1st place in the female division of the Physical Training (PT) competition at a big ROTC event up in Dallas this past weekend. The Harker Heights High School team she represented also took 1st place in the team competition there!! Way to go, Jessie and fellow Harker Heights Knights!
Trish is the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Dwayne Reeves and Mrs. Nita Reeves. Dwayne is currently stationed at Ft. Belvoir, VA, while his family remains here at Fort Hood. Trish is half-way through her 6th Grade year at Nolan Middle School in Killeen.
The day was humid, and heavily overcast with the lightest of an occasional drizzle falling now and then. A strong S. wind pushed at 13-16 mph all day. The pre-dawn temperatures were an unseasonable 66 degrees, and, due to a lengthy warming trend, our water surface temperatures were at ~56F, up from 50-51 just a week ago.
We got going around 8am and immediately found helpful bird activity that put us on our first 16 fish of the day. We used a flatline trolling technique to find the active fish and then used a vertical approach to take advantage of what we’d found. Trish had been fishing before but had never landed a fish, so, first fish honors went to her when the first white bass smacked one of our crank baits. After that, 15 more were caught on TNT180 slabs in 3/4 oz. white using a slow smoking technique in the vicinity of Area 1054.
After the initial aggressive feed, the rest of our action came using a combination of downrigging for suspended fish holding very definitively at 18-21 feet deep over the old Lampasas River channel in the vicinity of Area 371 to 1163. Based on what we saw fish chasing and regurgitating, the forage size was pretty large in this area, so, I fished with one double rig of Pet Spoons on one downrigger and a single Storm ThinFin on the other. We also found fish on bottom at Area 1162 and 1163 at 25-30 feet and used an easing tactic and a deadstick tactic to attract these fish, again, on the TNT180’s.
By 11:45am things began to play out and by 12:15 the fishing, which got off to a late start due to the cloud cover, came to a close for the morning.
In all, we caught 34 fish, including a “First Fish Award” 14.25″ white bass for Trish.
It is such a pleasure to be able to offer such trips to our Army’s kids!! Thank you for your support of S.K.I.F.F.!!
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 4:20p
End Time: 7:45p
Air Temp: 83F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: ~66.7F
Wind: Winds were stiff from the SE at ~13, increasing to SE16 by trip’s end.
Skies: Skies were fair with cloud cover increasing from 10 to 25% over the course of the trip.