This morning I welcomed father & son team Kelvin Reynolds and Kelvin Jr. aboard for a morning of white bass fishing on Stillhouse Hollow. Little Kelvin is only 4, so, I knew I’d need to keep things moving and keep things interesting for him. As I’ve learned over the years in fishing with hundreds of children, even on the best days of fishing, young kids’ attention spans run out, the novelty wears off, and, no matter how good the fishing may be, if you don’t change things up, boredom will set in.
Kelvin and Kelvin Jr. both caught plenty of fish and learned a lot on today’s 4-hour trip on Stillhouse Hollow. Here, Kelvin holds 2 of our largest white bass of the 45 fish we boated today.
CUTE FACTOR: Very high. This was Kelvin Jr.’s first fish ever caught!
And now looking a bit more relaxed and confident…
“Big” Kelvin is a transportation officer in the U.S. Army and it originally from the northern Virginia/Washington D.C. area. He had an opportunity to fish for big catfish on the James River in Virginia, but, other than that his experience was fairly limited, so, he learned a lot today.
Fortunately, I had an opportunity to do some scouting yesterday and found a shoal of fish that stayed active for a full 3 hours beginning just before sunrise and going until 10am. Just like clockwork, those same fish were back feeding on shad again this morning and allowed us to immediately get a good mess of fish in the boat and engage young Kelvin in spotting fish, retrieving the spinning outfits we were using, reeling in the fish, putting them in the livewell for photos, and holding and releasing small fish. During the first 20 minutes on the water, Kelvin Jr. landed the first fish of his life!! We snapped photos and will submit all the necessary paperwork to get him a Texas Parks and Wildlife “First Fish Award” for that accomplishment.
After our initial success on bladebaits began to wear thin after about 90 minutes of fishing, we changed over to downrigging. Young Kelvin’s favorite part was pushing all the buttons on the electronic downrigger to set it to depth and then to automatically retrieve the ball after a fish was hooked. We did well on the downriggers for another 30 minutes, then we noted the tell-tale signs of “fidgetiness” setting in and decided another transition was in order.
I moved us several miles from where we’d been fishing to another area where I suspected we’d encounter larger, 2 and 3 year class fish. Upon arrival we picked up 4 fish on the downriggers right away and spotted heavily schooled fish holding on bottom. Big Kelvin and I went after these with bladebaits as Kelvin Jr. napped after being lulled to sleep by the drone of the outboard on our ride to this area. We double-teamed these fish and took our fish count from 29 fish up to 43 fish before departing after Kelvin awoke in a bit of a grouchy mood thanks to the hot sun beaming down on him and the windless conditions causing us all to sweat and be a bit uncomfortable.
We took another boatride to cool down a bit, put Kelvin Jr. on a few sunfish up shallow near some isolated hydrilla beds, then called it a day right on the 4-hour mark.
TALLY = 45 FISH
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00am
End Time: 11:00am
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F
Water Surface Temp: 84.4F
Wind Speed & Direction: Light and variable
Sky Conditions: Fair skies with 20%
Other: GT=0
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1439 thru 1172 — active fish under birds from 7:00 to 9:00am
**Area 070 thru 1255 thru 867 — solid fishing for about an hour via downriggers and with blades
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX
www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com