WHO I FISHED WITH:    This morning I welcomed Mr. Joe Adcock and his 7-year-old son, Dawson, aboard.  Joe recently retired from the U.S. Army, spending the last several years assigned to Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX, while Joe’s wife and son remained here at Ft. Hood where she continued to teach public school, and where they’d planned to retire to.

Joe expressed several times how some of the more simple things in life are the things he now most appreciates since being back home — spending time with his family even when nothing special is planned, mowing his own grass, and more.

Dawson will head into the 2nd grade in the Killeen Independent School District come August.  He did great for his first time on a boat and during his first time in pursuit of fish.

PHOTO CAPTION:  FIRST FISH OF HIS LIFE!! This 10 7/8″ white bass was taken within minutes of the start of our trip.  The fish would cooperate for the full 3.5 hours of this “Kids Fish, Too!” trip tailored just for younger kids.

WHAT WE FISHED FOR:  Multi-species

WHERE WE FISHED:  Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED:  28 June 2019, AM

HOW WE FISHED:  I suggested to Joe as we planned this trip that we make it a shorter, kid-focused trip given Dawson’s age and limited prior experience.  This is what my “Kids Fish, Too!” trips are all about, and Joe gave the thumbs-up.  In such scenarios, the accompanying parent(s) serve as a “first mate” of sorts to help me help the kids be successful instead of focusing on catching fish themselves.

Today, I planned to do the more technically demanding stuff (downrigging and vertical jigging) early on while Dawson was fresh and the temperatures were lower, then finish up with doing some shallow water sunfishing as a transition later in the morning when I suspected he wouldn’t be quite as focused, nor as patient.

As I shared with Joe, kids under the age of 9 or so will quickly grow tired of any one thing done for any length of time, even if we are enjoying success doing it.  So, this morning, we downrigged for about an hour and three-quarters, then we vertically jigged for about a half hour, then we downrigged again (after snacking) for another 30 minutes, then we wrapped up fishing for sunfish up shallow.

The white bass are finally filtering into their traditional summer haunts and, thanks to some nice, extended grey cloud cover and a westerly component to the manageable breeze, we enjoyed action by aggressive fish right up to around 8:50.  Once the grey cloud cover thinned and it brightened up, the bite sharply dropped off.  We scored over and over again on singles and doubles of fish in the 1, 2, and 3 year classes via downrigging with 3-armed umbrella rigs, and then continued to score on vertically worked tailspinners once I Spot-Locked us atop a solid group of fish.  We ended our white bass fishing efforts at 9:15 with exactly 48 fish landed.

Within minutes of putting our downriggers down, Dawson came up with the first fish of his life, thus earning a TPWD “First Fish Award”.

To cap off the trip, we headed up shallow and put an additional 22 sunfish in the boat, including green sunfish and bluegill sunfish, using bait under slipfloats.

TALLY: 70 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS:  Temperature profile I observed this morning:

0 feet 83.4F

5 feet 83.4F

10 feet 83.4F

15 feet 83.3F

20 feet 83.1F

25 feet 82.9F

30 feet 82.5F

35 feet 82.3F

40 feet 81.3F

45 feet 77.6F

50 feet 77F

55 feet 73.1F

60 feet 71.5F

65 feet 70.2F

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Elevation:.91 feet high, 0.19′ 24-hour drop,  909 cfs flow

Water Surface Temp:    83.4F

Wind Speed & Direction:  SSW7-9 the entire trip

Sky Conditions:   Light grey, low cloud cover resembling a ceiling of fog which did not extend to ground/lake surface level through 8:45a, then quickly clearing to 30% white clouds on a blue sky

GT = 0

#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow

Wx SNAPSHOT:     

 

 AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area = downrigging and vertical jigging for a strong population of fish found within an area bounded by 1246-1969-1241-SH0048C  – 48 white bass in 2.75 hours

**Area 189 – sunfish up shallow – 22 fish in 45 minutes

 

 

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