This morning I fished Stillhouse with Steve N. of Temple, TX, his adult daughter, Sarah, and her two children, 8 year old Caleb, and 5 year old Macy.
Here’s the best the “boys’ team” brought to net. 19.75″ and 2.75 pounds
And here’s the largest “Team Girl” brought over the side. 20.25″ and 3.75 pounds
Once again, with high pressure dominating our weather, today’s weather was very stable and very like the weather of the past several days. In the summer months when such continuous, stable weather occurs, the fishing gets very, very predictable. The fish do much the same things, in the same places, and at the same times each day until the stable weather is disrupted.
So, we picked up where I’d left off on Tuesday morning, in the vicinity of Area 1227. We observed limited topwater action which put us on top of some excellent sub-surface feeding activity. At first we found white bass mixed which “schoolie” largemouth and took both species easily and regularly on the downriggers with tandem-rigged Pet Spoons as they presented themselves loosely schooled and suspended on sonar.
After the sun’s angle increased and the winds picked up, the fish began to group more tightly together on and near bottom. This opened up the door to “smoking” for these fish with TNT180 slabs imitating the shad these fish were feeding on. As we used this technique, young Caleb, who has been fishing with me accompanied by his grandpa since he was 4, realized a personal goal — landing a catfish. As long as we’ve fished together targeting white bass and hybrid striper, he’d never landed a catfish. Today, a nice channel catfish hanging right with the schooled white bass smacked his slab and the fight was on. Caleb brought to net a 19.75″, 2.75 pounder. We encountered such activity at Areas 1227, 1228, 1229, and 1230. When this action died around 9:30, we moved on.
We found nearly the same scenario at Area 1231, with both suspended white bass scattered and suspended over the more plain bottom, and fish schooled more tightly and nearer the bottom on the prominent topo feature here (a small hump).
When all was said and done, we caught a nice mixed bag of 1 drum, 1 channel cat, 1 crappie, 5 largemouth (the largest went 3.75 pounds and 20.25 inches), and 62 white bass.
Five year old Macy stayed engaged the entire time as we alternated between jigging and downrigging (with some snacking thrown in for good measure). She also didn’t bat an eye at sticking her thumb in the mouths of the fish she caught to release them once I’d removed the hook — very impressive!!
TALLY = 70 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:25a
End Time: 10:05a
Air Temp: 79F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 84.1F
Wind: Winds were S2-4 at sunrise with a rapid taper up to S7-8 by 8:00a; winds then leveled off there.
Skies: Skies were fair and cloudless.
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas