Would you please pass the Nerds? 74 Fish, Stillhouse Fishing Guide Report, 23 Aug. 2013






Today I fished with my friend and long-time Belton Lake multi-species angler Rodney T. and his grand-daughter, Abby.


Abby caught white bass, and …


Abby caught black bass, and …


Abby is a girl after Grandpa T’s own heart!!


As we waited on the sun to rise to kick off the feed this morning, we took the time to introduce Abby to a few techniques so that when the conditions called for those techniques to be employed, she’d already be prepared to put them into practice. This included how to work bladebaits vertically, how to cast to topwater fish, and how to use the downrigging equipment.

After a quick breakfast of pink and purple “NERDS” candies washed down with a few swigs of Dr. Pepper, Abby was fueled and ready to take on whatever Stillhouse could send her way.

We began the day downrigging waiting on both sun and wind to kick things in gear. We did okay on the downriggers using twin umbrella rigs rigged up with Pet Spoons. The action was moderate but steady in the vicinity of Area 058-1251. After an hour or so on location things stayed pretty flat, so we moved on.

We got in on the ground floor of some topwater action near Area 671/668/495. Both largemouth and white bass were forcing shad to the surface. We ignored the few on the surface and gunned for the many down below and caught fish consistently here for 40 minutes, then downrigged to “mop up” after the action peaked and fell.

Next, it was on to Area 071/883. This produced our best downrigging of the day with multiple doubles and a triple all pulled in short order after we initially approached this area with a vertical tactic that produced only marginally.

Finally, we ended up chasing a few terns that were kind enough to put us onto a nice concentration of white bass (down deep) mixed with largemouth (up nearer the surface). We worked our baits horizontally and vertically for these fish and did very well. A number of boats (very!) near us drawn in by our success experienced poor results as they moved about very quickly chasing after fast moving, surface feeding school-sized largemouth and all but ignoring the hundreds of white bass that were schooled up and more slowly pushing shad down near the bottom.

By 11:25a the fish were really tailing off quickly, so we called it a day. We boated 68 white bass, 5 largemouth bass, and 1 freshwater drum for our efforts.


TALLY = 74 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 11:25a

Air Temp: 76F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 86.1F

Wind: Winds were calm until 10:15, then blew ESE4-5.

Skies: Cloudless fair sky.

Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Salado, Texas