Cold Front Fishing — 44 Fish, SKIFF Trip #17

This past Friday afternoon I ran the season’s 17th SKIFF  (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) program trip, this time doing an after-school trip on Stillhouse (a bit closer to my house in order to reduce my guests’ drive time and maximize our fishing time as the days grow shorter).  I was joined today by Ayden Bouchee and his mom, Amanda Bouchee, of Ft. Hood.

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Just before the last light of day was obscured by a grey cloud deck, we got into a school of white bass willing to hit our downriggers equipped with Pet Spoons.  Ayden’s largest was this 14.00″ white bass.  His mom immediately texted the photo to his grandpa.

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Ayden Bouchee, under difficult cold front conditions, put together a catch of sunfish that had the highest average weight of any single catch of sunfish I’ve seen caught on Stillhouse in 24 years.  Most all fish were at least 5″, with some exceeding 7″.

Ayden’s father, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Bouchee, is an infantryman now deployed to South Korea.  He has been in the Army for 9 years after volunteering right out of high school.

When Ayden and Amanda arrived, I shared with them the fisherman’s rhyme,

“Winds from the west, fish bite best.

Winds from the east, fish bite least.

Winds from the south blow the hook in the fish’s mouth; but…

Winds from the north, the fisherman goes not forth!

I let him know we had a tough job on our hands fishing while a cold front was coming through, but that we’d work hard and would still put some fish in the boat.

After looking far and wide for some white bass to fish for, I went with “Plan B” after sonar revealed little in 40 minutes’ time.  Plan B was to fish for sunfish in shallow cover, and it worked just fine.

Ayden stayed engaged for nearly 2 hours bringing in sunfish after sunfish from one fairly small, protected cove.  All of our sunfish this trip were bluegill, and I commented to Amanda that this was the single best average weight of sunfish I’d had any child catch on any trip over the 24 years I’ve fished Stillhouse.   Nearly every fish was at least 5″, with some just exceeding 7″.

As we drew within an hour of sunset, and with the wind subsiding just a bit, I thought we’d give the white bass one more try.  Ayden was ready for a transition, anyway, so, once again we set out to hunt with sonar.

At the breakline of a submerged point, at about 27 feet down over a 31-33 foot bottom, I saw several small packs of white bass in short succession on the sonar screen, along with ample bait.  We put just one of the two downriggers down at first, equipped with Pet Spoons, and got a single, then another, then a double.

Now that we knew fish were present and biting, we put down yet another ‘rigger and, in the end, wound up adding a total of seven white bass to our catch of 37 sunfish, to finish up the evening with a grand total of 44 fish landed.

 

TALLY = 44 fish, all caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time:  7:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 70F

Water Surface Temp:  79.6F

Wind Speed & Direction:  N15-17mph

Sky Conditions:  Grey clouds persisted as a cold front, which dropped ~.75″ of rain earlier in the day as it passed, continued to move through.

Water Level: ~0.16 feet high following a bit of inflow from the area-wide 1″ rain the previous Sunday/Monday, 26/27 Sept.

GT = 0

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  1098 – Sunfish

**Area  039/041 – downrigging for white bass

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website:www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail:Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

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