This morning I welcomed returning guests Charles C. and his kids, Madison (10) and Mason (8) aboard for some white bass action on Stillhouse Hollow.
With high pressure continuing to dominate the weather, fishing was pretty easy today. L to R, Madison, Charles, and Mason with a sampling of our catch.
Charles is one of eight men on one of the four shifts that make up the fire-fighting team at Houston’s Hobby Airport. He’s originally from this area and returns often to visit his parents and tries to sneak in a little fishing whenever chores are done at his folks’ place.
We had a fun, productive trip today. As often happens, the bite rose with the winds. We started the morning with light winds and a light bite, but, as the morning went on and winds increased, the bite got more consistent right up until the 10 o’clock hour when things began to tail off.
We started our day on a great note with Madison landing a double (two fish on one rod) within minutes of getting our lines out. The kids took turns landing fish over the next hour in this area (Area 1230/842/250) landing singles and doubles, taking our total to 26 fish by the time the bite went soft here.
Next, we hit Area 1246/1240/1233 and found even more abundant sonar returns down around 28-29 feet. We got the downriggers working and boated fish very consistently for about 30 minutes at which time we encountered our first of two run-ins with densely schooled fish suspended near the top of the lower 1/3 of the water column. This scenario just screams for the use of slabs fished through the fish from a hovering position. We “smoked” our slabs in and around these fish and caught fish consistently for another 40 minutes using TNT180 slabs.
Once this aggressive bite died down, we returned to downrigging and again consistently boated fish from among the many suspended but more scattered white bass still using this area. Before long, we encountered another bunch of deep, suspended fish that were tightly schooled. Once again we set up over top of them, but, this time only managed to pull a few from the school — a sure indicator that the bite was about to be over. We finished up the day doing a little more downrigging and closing out the day with a “double-double” in which both kids caught two fish at a time just seconds apart as our downrigged baits (Pet Spoons) worked their magic just above the thermocline.
At age 10, Madison tried her hand for the first time at lip-gripping the last 10 or so white bass we caught and removing the hook herself, then turning the fish over to Mason to release them using a Boga Grip tool (he’s not yet sold on touching fish any more than necessary).
By 10:30 the bite was done. We took a few photos and enjoyed the breeze as we headed back to the boat ramp.
Our catch of 80 fish today consisted of 1 largemouth bass, 1 drum, and 78 white bass.
TALLY = 80 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 6:35a
End Time: 10:45a
Air Temp: 79F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 87.0F
Wind: Winds were SSW8 at sunrise, tapering up to S11 by trip’s end.
Skies: Cloudless fair sky.
Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service
254-368-7411
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas