WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Friday morning, June 29th, I fished a “Kids Fish, Too!” trip with Mr. Utah Harris’ grandsons, Andrew Harris (age 10) and Austen Mangan (age 13), both from Toledo, OH. The boys are visiting their grandfather who lives in Temple. I first met Utah when he came on a spring fishing trip with the boys’ uncle, Jeremy Crawford. Today’s efforts were focused exclusively on the boys’ success. When all was said and done, they had boated 56 fish.
Andrew Harris with a largemouth bass we took via downrigging. Fish were holding around 32-34 feet deep over a deeper bottom..
Austen Mangan holds one of the white bass we took while working tailspinners vertically after seeing a large, bottom-oriented, and aggressively feeding school of white bass as we downrigged.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: This was a multi-species trip in which we caught white bass, largemouth bass, and sunfish.
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow
WHEN WE FISHED: Friday morning, June 29th.
HOW WE FISHED: We started the morning downrigging, but quickly changed over to a vertical presentation when sonar showed abundant numbers of white bass aggressively moving from off bottom toward our downrigger ball, thus indicating a strong willingness to chase. We Spot Locked over top of these fish using the Minn Kota Ulterra and quickly caught several white bass on tailspinners, but, that frenzy was short-lived, so, we went back to downrigging until this first location we stopped at tapered to nil. We fished two other areas with downriggers, catching a few fish at each, but not really finding a nice concentration of fish at either. By this time, the boys needed to do something different, so, we rigged up for sunfish on hydrilla beds in the shallows. This allowed for easy pickings of bluegill, green, and longear sunfish. Once the boys had their fill of that, we had about 30 minutes remaining in our planned 3.5 to 4 hours out, so, we once again put the Cannons to work and used the 3-armed umbrella rigs to catch a few more white bass on the Pet Spoons we had tied on to them.
OBSERVATIONS/NOTES: NOAA reports that dust from a Saharan dust storm is supposed to make our central Texas skies appear hazy late today and all day tomorrow.
TALLY: 56 FISH, ALL CAUGHT AND RELEASED
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 10:20a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F
Water Surface Temp: 82.8F
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE9 at trip’s start, tapering up to S15 by trip’s end
Sky Conditions: <10% cloud cover on a blue sky
Water Level: 5.7 feet low
GT = 15
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area vic 832 downrigging and tailspinners worked vertically for white bass
**Area SH0038C – sunfish on hydrilla
**Area 1496-SH0037C-1310 – downrigging for white bass at late morning
Bob Maindelle, Central Texas Fishing Guide
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
E-mail: Bob@HoldingelleTheLineGuideService.com
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