WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning I fished with siblings Aron Stano and Alicia Richardson in pursuit of white bass on Stillhouse Hollow. Aron captains private yachts in Florida for a living and Alicia is an art teacher at Belton High School. Aron came in for his fourth visit to Texas a few days ago and his brother-in-law, Alicia’s husband, Robert, set this fishing trip up for the two of them.
I really enjoyed comparing notes on both foreign and domestic fishing venues with Aron; he’s convinced me to take a hard look at South Africa as both a fresh and salt water fishing destination.
PHOTO CAPTION: Aron Stano of Florida, and his sister, Alicia Richardson of Belton, Texas, with four fistfuls of fish taken under tough north wind conditions this morning on Stillhouse Hollow. A combination of downrigging early and vertical work late accounted for our 73 fish take.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: Multi-species
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir
WHEN WE FISHED: 13 July 2019, AM
HOW WE FISHED: We faced our third straight day of north winds with another in store tomorrow before the wind is due to come back out of the south around mid-day on Monday. This really has put a damper on the early morning downrigging bite in that the number of suspended fish which are the ones most easily targeted have been few and far between. Further, a majority of the fish in those suspended groups we found, and even some fish which pulled up off bottom and inspected the downrigger balls, did not pursue and take the trailing baits. We put 10 fish in the boat via downrigging before I called what little “low light” bite we got over and we switched over to vertical jigging.
This turned out a bit better than I expected in that we stopped only one time at the very first deep-water location at which I spotted some scattered white bass along with shad. We worked for a bit before getting our first bite, but once it came, we enjoyed schools of fish routinely coming in under the boat, nearly every one of which would give up at least one fish per angler, sometimes two, before first growing disinterested and then finally dispersing. This is in contrast with typical behavior experienced under southerly wind conditions where the fish typically come in to the baits and then linger for quite some time, all the white remaining able to be caught. Regardless, we wound up boating another 63 fish, including 1, 2, and 3-year class fish, every last one of which came on my prototype tailspinners.
TALLY: 73 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: One more day of north wind is currently forecast. Zero topwater action spotted this morning.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:30a
End Time: 11:15a
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F
Elevation: 0.33 feet high, 0.01′ fall, flow is 200 cfs
Water Surface Temp: 86.8
Wind Speed & Direction: NE8 beginning right at sunrise and slowly tapering up to NE13
Sky Conditions: ~25% white cloud cover
GT = 45
#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Areas vic 481 and vic 258 each gave up a few fish on a tough, low-light downrigger bite impacted negatively by the N. wind
**Area 062-878 – 63 white bass on tailspinners in 38′
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