ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DO CPR? – 53 FISH @ STILLHOUSE

WHO I FISHED WITH:  On April 20th I fished with Jason Lange and his son, Andrew (age 16), and Will Sears and his son, Tyler (age 15).  All four were first time guests and came after being high bidders on a gift certificate from a recent Central Texas Christian School fundraiser.

Jason is a cardiologist with the Baylor Scott & White health system based at the Metroplex facility  in Killeen where he works with Will’s wife, a gastroenterologist.  Will is in the residential and commercial construction trade and runs Sears Builders and Development in Temple.  Andrew still attends CTCS, and Tyler recently transferred to Belton High School.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  From left: Will Sears, Tyler Sears, Andrew Lange, and Jason Lange, each with one of the 53 fish we landed in a 4-hour morning white bass fishing trip on Stillhouse Hollow.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  15-year-old Tyler Sears landed this 4.25 pound largemouth on a soft plastic grub on a 1/4 oz. jighead and on spinning gear intended for white bass.  After quite a tussle, we worked together to slide the fish into the net, then did a little C-P-R (Catch – Photograph – Release).

WHAT WE FISHED FOR:   This was a multispecies trip focused on white bass.

WHERE WE FISHED:  Stillhouse Hollow

WHEN WE FISHED:   20 April 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED:  This very clear, cool morning, we began working up shallow first under low light conditions throwing soft plastic paddletail grubs on 1/4 oz. heads to white bass hanging on shallow flats.  As expected under post-frontal conditions, the bite was hindered a bit by the bright skies and relatively calm winds.  We experienced a slow, steady pick of fish through about 8:40a, when the shallow bite died for keeps.  We landed 15 white bass, 1 crappie, and 2 largemouth during this bite.

We immediately headed for deeper, clearer water and searched a number of potential fish-holding areas for fish.  When we found a few fish, I introduced everyone to LiveScope-assisted vertical jigging with 3/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs/Stingers.  Everyone really seemed “wow’ed” by the demo I provided (which resulted in a landed white bass which came racing about 25 feet from off the bottom in 40′ to grab my slab).  From that point on everyone stayed engrossed in properly working their baits so as to capitalize on interested fish.  Due to the post-frontal conditions, the fish were somewhat reluctant, but the time from 10:00 to 10:30 produced well thanks to the peak wind conditions we enjoyed during that span.  We ended up catching 35 white bass via vertical jigging, thus taking our tally to 53 fish.

OBSERVATIONS:    Thanks to 2 solid days of high winds, the upper 1/3 of Stillhouse was siltier than I care to fish; I believe this impacted our bite from fish accustomed to sight-feeding.

TALLY: 53 fish caught and released

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 46F

Elevation: 0.53′ above full pool with a 0.12′ 24-hour rise

Water Surface Temp: ~64F

Wind Speed & Direction:    WSW3 at trip’s start, and staying just barely strong enough to ripple the water until around 10, when it picked up to a consistent WSW9

Sky Conditions: No cloud cover.

GT = 40

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:     

 

 AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area  vic 1697 & 1724 – low-light, shallow bite from 7 – 8:35 for 18 fish on paddletail grub/jighead

**Area 1201 – whites on channel shoulder via LiveScope with Hazy Eye Slabs/Stingers

**Area SH0108C –  whites on channel shoulder via LiveScope with Hazy Eye Slabs/Stingers

 

 

Bob Maindelle

Full-time, Professional Fishing Guide and Owner of Holding the Line Guide Service

Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide

254.368.7411 (call or text)

 

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www/twitter.com/bobmaindelle