So, what do fishing and music have in common? Here it is … are you ready … scales!! Okay, that’s hokey, but music and fishing did come together this morning as I finished with Ray Johnson and Stephen Kirkpatrick on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir in pursuit of white bass. Ray and Steven first got to know one another through Ray’s participation in the Central Texas Master Singers choral group which is conducted by Stephen. Ray invited Stephen out for a relaxing morning of fishing, giving him a break from his many roles as husband, father, conductor, math teacher, worship leader, and golf coach.
L to R: Ray Johnson and Stephen Kirkpatrick with a sampling of the white bass action this morning.
We departed the boat ramp around 7 AM and were hooked up on our first fish by 7:20 AM. The first fish of the day we found suspended between 24 and 28 feet over a deeper bottom. Such fish are particularly prone to a downrigging approach, and that’s exactly what we used. We had a pair of three-armed umbrella rigs tied on, each equipped with a set of three Pet Spoons selected to imitate the size of the young of the year shad which the white bass are feeding heavily on at this point in the season.
As we continued downrigging the action continue to intensify, and, eventually we began to see largemouth bass and white bass feeding on shad at the surface and terns begin to dip down and feed on crippled shad. This was our indicator that things were about to get really good, and so as we down rigged I look even more closely at sonar in an attempt to find heavily schooled white bass holding tight to the bottom. Such bottom oriented fish typically respond well to a vertical jigging tactic. By 8:30 we were into our first large group of bottom oriented white bass, and they struck our TNT 180 slabs in silver, three-quarter ounce size very well. We caught the majority of our fish at this one stop over about a 40 minute span.
Eventually, the wind went slack in advance of the wind shift to the northwest on the lead edge of an approaching cold front. When the wind went slack the fishing went downhill quickly and never did bounce back much. We put about 10 more fish in the boat in the last 90 minutes just picking up a few here and there at a milk run of about three different areas.
We called it a day right at 11:00am with exactly 50 fish boated this morning, including 48 white bass, 1 largemouth bass, and a single channel catfish.
TALLY = 50 FISH
CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S HOME PAGE
CLICK TO RETURN TO FISHING GUIDE’S FACEBOOK PAGE
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00am
End Time: 11:00am
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F
Water Surface Temp: 86.4F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSW5-6 @ trip’s start and until ~9:00am, then going slack for ~30 minutes, then picking up from the NW at 8-10 on the lead edge of a mild cold front.
Sky Conditions: Fair with no cloud cover.
Other: GT=0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area triangulated by Area 1134, 196, 863 gave up suspended fish early on the downriggers
**Area 883 smoking for bottom-oriented white bass
**Area 829 – 869 downrigging
**Area 1419 – 907 downrigging
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX
