WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Wednesday morning I fished once again with a contingent of the Oliver family, including brothers Joe, Jamie, and Jack, along with one of Jack’s sons, Eli. Due to limited access at Lake Belton offering no real options if high winds are a concern (which they were today), and with few other options to pursue, we focused on white bass on Stillhouse.
Some recent health challenges with these brothers’ parents brought them all to the area at the same time for a bit, and they decided to put a silver lining on their cloud and take in a few hours’ fishing while they were all in the same locale.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Jamie, Joe, Jack and Eli Oliver with a few of the 51 white bass we tracked down today on what was a pretty tough go of it on Stillhouse.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: White bass
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir
WHEN WE FISHED: 22 May 2019, AM
HOW WE FISHED: Once again, tailspinners were the go-to option this morning and they produced well when we found fish to present them to, but finding fish was pretty tricky. The white bass have been difficult to predict. On numerous occasions I’ve worked to find fish and found them, only to go and look at 6 or 8 nearly identical areas only to find them devoid of fish.
Conditions have been far from stable, and that definitely has not helped things. Flow from the dam has been on-again/off-again as the USACE juggles the situation on the Brazos River watershed. Water levels have stayed somewhat constant at just over 8 feet above full pool. The wind and weather has also been very dicey with heavy clouds, light rain, and winds rising to over 16 mph by the afternoon each day this week. It has been hard to get traction and keep it.
Fishing was off again today. We landed a total of 51 fish. We did catch fish in two distinct areas, one right as we began our trip, and again in deeper, clearer water around 10:00 to 10:30am, but, in neither scenario were the fish really fired up. In both locations we didn’t see the number of “fresh fish” circulating and patrolling actively through the area as has been the case in most of my Stillhouse white bass trips over the past several weeks since Belton shut down. I noted also that the fish really didn’t stay actively, aggressively pursuing our baits up off the bottom for any real length of time even when we were catching them. The real thing working in our favor was the Oliver’s four rods working (and mine working part-time) which kept up a constant commotion which interested the fish we found enough to provoke some feeding.
OBSERVATIONS:
TALLY: 51 fish caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00a
End Time: 11:30a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F
Elevation: 8.29 feet high with a 24-hour fall of .03 feet on a flow of 933cfs
Water Surface Temp: 80.1F
Wind Speed & Direction:
Sky Conditions: Grey skies all morning with varying light levels changing with cloud thickness.
GT = 0
#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 116/540 – gave up 25 fish in our first 75 minutes
**Area vic SH0117C – gave up 25 fish from 10-10:30a
**Area vic 1713 – picked up 1 fish and saw potential here, but the bite was over by this time
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