WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning I fished Stillhouse with Jason Earles of Temple. Jason received a gift certificate from his in-laws this past Christmas and wanted to redeem it this weekend. As we spoke by phone I laid out the pros and cons of fishing Belton and Stillhouse on a weekend, and the reduced traffic on Stillhouse appealed to us both.
Jason works for McLane’s in Temple, grew up in the Houston area and hasn’t done as much fishing as he’d like to since job and family responsibilities have come along. Despite the slow fishing, Jason commented a number of time about how nice it was to be outside of an office environment and in the relative quiet of Stillhouse’s 6,500 acres.
PHOTO CAPTION: Those are definitely NOT fishy sky or wind conditions!! Fishing was tough today, but, we persisted and pulled a few healthy white bass regardless of the weather. That’s Jason Earles with a pair of 2.5 year old fish.
WHAT WE FISHED FOR: White bass
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow
WHEN WE FISHED: 14 September 2019, AM
HOW WE FISHED: With bright skies and calm winds, there was zero natural sign to leverage on — no birds, no bait working, and only gar sipping on the surface here and there. We did a lot of downrigging to cover water, and I kept at least one ball near the bottom hoping to pull up fish laying belly-to-bottom that we could then hover atop of and jig for. We therefore alternated between downrigging and working tailspinners assisted by LiveScope.
Between 9:30 and 10:30 am, over a patch of water perhaps 2.5 acres in size, we found repeated incidents of small (young of the year) white bass feeding on shad they trapped at the surface. I worked over this area intensively, hoping to find larger fish nearer the bottom in this locale (and did see 2 such schools on sonar), but ultimately caught only small fish here.
Between 10:30 and 11:15 I returned to one area where I’d seen larger white bass showing on sonar earlier in the morning, but which refused to go for our vertical presentations. When we got to this area, fish were still present, and we picked up 2 solid white bass on downriggers while witnessing more “belly-to-bottom” fish rise 6-12 feet off bottom to investigate the downrigger ball. I changed over quickly to working tailspinners to try to excite a school of fish and draw other fish beneath the boat, but the fish were not having it. We pulled only one fish on the tailspinners here and wrapped up at 11:15 with 10 fish landed.
Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to the change of seasons. The idea of grey skies, wind, and not sweating through my clothes by 8:30 am seems almost foreign at this point!
TALLY: 10 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: N/A
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:45am
End Time: 11:15am
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F
Elevation: 0.77 low, 0.0′ 24-hour fall, 1 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 85.4F
Wind Speed & Direction: Light and variable the entire trip
Sky Conditions: 0% cloud cover
GT = 20
#WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 1708 thru SH0133C thru 645 – a few quality fish here at ~35′
**Area 1146 – topwater action by Y.O.T.Y. whites
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