This afternoon, March 14th I fished the second of 12 planned “Spring Break Week” trips with the Vacula family. Dr. Ben Vacula of Temple, Texas, brought his 3 children, Madeline (age 12), Olivia (age 10), and Gabriel (age 8), along with his parents, Dennis and Amy Vacula, of LaGrange, Texas, out for an evening of white bass fishing on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. Ben and the 3 kids fished, while grandma and grandpa just enjoyed the boatride and taking photos and video clips of the grandkids.
From left: Gabriel, Olivia, Madeline, and Ben Vacula of Temple, TX, landed 127 fish during their 4-hour evening fishing trip on this first day of Spring Break 2016.
The reservoir crested and, thanks to a light flow of water from the dam, is now falling very slowly from ~3.75 feet above full pool thanks to abundant rains all last week.
These rains have muddied the upper 1/3 of the lake and forced us to fish deeper, clearer water that I would normally not be fishing this time of year. This has made our trips a “one-trick-pony” of vertical jigging, but that has been successful.
We fished only 2 areas this evening, with exactly 100 fish landed at our first area at which the fish stayed actively biting for over 2 hours. This area was in 63′. The second area was in ~27 feet of water. The bite was intense, but short lived as the light began to fail toward sunset.
My approach, since I knew vertical jigging was going to be the key to success, was to show everyone exactly what needed to be done before we ever left the dock. Then, I “tested” each person individually while watching their technique, offering pointers where I saw some polishing was required.
Although a lot of our fish were small, the action was very steady, which is just perfect when having a number of youngsters aboard.
TALLY = 127 FISH, all caught and released
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 3:45a
End Time: 7:45a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 84F
Water Surface Temp: 64.5F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSW14, tapering down to SSW8
Sky Conditions: Fair skies with less than 5% cloud cover.
Water Level: 625.64 and falling with 622.0 being full pool. Water being released at 2159 cubic feet per second. Lake fell 0.09 feet in the past 24 hours
Other: GT= 0
Wx SNAPSHOT (a graphical look at the forecast that faced us today):
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1717 — vertical jigging for heavily schooled fish in 63′.
**Area 1716 — vertical jigging for schooled fish in ~27′.
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
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