Boy from Moody Earns Big Fish Award — 78 Fish, Stillhouse, 06 Dec. 2014

This morning I went white bass fishing on Central Texas’ Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir with Isaiah and Joshua Glenn, accompanied by their grandparents, Lonnie and Linda Glenn.  This trip was in celebration of the boys’ birthdays which both occur in December.  Joshua will be turning 10, and Isaiah will be turning 11.

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Isaiah Glenn of Moody, TX, earned a Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. Big Fish Award by landing this 15 1/16 inch long white bass.

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Not to be outdone by his big brother, Joshua boated our largest fish of the trip, this 4.75 pound channel catfish.  That’s proud grandpa Lonnie lending a helping hand.

Lonnie and Linda live near the Leon River in Moffat, Texas, and the boys live in Moody, TX.  Linda retired from lab work at Scott & White and now works at the Belton Wal-Mart, and Lonnie is a retired corrections officer who now does a bit of remodeling and carpentry work.

We had great weather conditions for about 3.5 of our 4 hours on the water as a mild, dry cold front moved through the area after a spell of very mild, damp weather over the past several days.  Under grey skies and with winds pushing at 11-12 mph, we found fish very willing to feed.

We first encountered fish in ~25 feet of water under actively feeding gulls over a 120 yard stretch of lake right at sunrise.  Although we were successful in putting a few fish in the boat on slabs, these fish were moving a lot and were aggressively feeding throughout the water column, so, despite water temperatures being in the high 50’s, we downrigged for about 45 minutes, putting a total of 13 fish in the boat during this time, including 2 “doubles” that tagged our 3-armed umbrella rigs.  I took the umbrella rig off when I saw the forage that the gulls were plucking off the water was fairly good sized, replacing the rigs with a Storm Thin Fin on one rod and with a White Willow spoon on the other.  When the birds stopped feeding, the fish went on feeding about 15 more minutes and then settled down.

I next headed shallower hoping we could get a few fish on a flatline trolling approach, and, at Area 103, we immediately connected with a nice white bass, but, that was the only fish we connected with in that manner, so, we left the trolling routine behind and headed to deeper water to work slabs for more heavily congregated fish.

We arrived at what would be our final area of the day around 9:50 and saw a spattering of fish on sonar, most near a breakline dropping from 24 to 35 feet.  We e-anchored right over top of this breakline and I proceeded to give the boys instructions on how to execute an “easing” tactic.  I felt this tactic would serve us best since fish fish were still aggressive and they showed to be holding well off the bottom and down to the bottom, as well.  No sooner did all 3 of our slabs contact bottom than we were all hooked up on a fish.  This strong action continued for right at an hour as we pulled 64 fish from an area directly beneath our boat and never moved.  As the skies began to brighten and the clouds began to clear from north to south, the bite slacked off and finally stopped around 11:25a.

For our efforts today, we boated 77 white bass and 1 channel catfish.  The channel catfish, caught by Joshua, weighed 4.75 pounds.  One of Isaiah’s white bass taped in a 15 1/16″ and earned him a TPWD Big Fish award by exceeding the threshold length set for this species, which is 15.00 inches.  Isaiah will received a certificate for this accomplishment complete with a gold raised-seal of the State of Texas affixed to it.

TALLY = 78 FISH, all caught and released

 

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time:  11:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start:  55F

Water Surface Temp:  57.8F

Wind Speed & Direction:  N11-12

Sky Conditions: 100% grey skies with no direct sunlight until 10:30a when skies began to clear from the north.

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1310/1496 = 13 fish via jigging and downrigging (BA=20G, 1L)

**Area 130 = 1 fish on the flatline (BA=8G,10C)

**Area 074 ~20 yards to the NW =  64 fish via easing and smoking

 

Bob Maindelle

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide

Belton Lake Fishing Guide

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

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