WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, July 18th, I fished with two of the sixteen grandchildren of Mr. Charles Simmons of Salado. Joining me this morning were Caden (age 8) and Chloe Kimpel (age 11).
Chloe and Caden live in Brunei, nestled between the northwest coast of Australia and the southeast coast of Vietnam, where their father works in the oil industry.
Fishing was on the short list of special events the kids planned to take in while back in America for a few weeks.
Here’s how the fishing went…
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Next available dates are July 31 & August 21 (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: That’s Charles Simmons with two of his sixteen grandkids — Chloe & Caden Kimpel, each with a solid Stillhouse Hollow white bass taken from deep, open water.
PHOTO CAPTION: Caden managed a coveted “Triple Triple” today, catching three sets of three fish as we downrigged with 3-armed umbrella rigs and Pets Spoons.
PHOTO CAPTION: Chloe landed the largest of the two largemouth bass which occasionally mix in with large schools of white bass to feast on the abundant threadfin shad in the lower third of the water column.
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir
WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 18 July 2023 (AM)
HOW WE FISHED:
As I left the house this morning about 70 minutes before I was due to meet Charles and the kids, all was well. I fueled up and continued on toward our meeting point on Stillhouse Hollow. I noticed a car some distance behind me in my drivers’ side mirror. As I glanced at that car’s headlights, something wasn’t right. I looked a bit more closely and saw what, at first, looked like a spray of water coming out of the boat. A few seconds later, it became clear that was actually smoke coming from a failed bearing on the driver’s side wheel of my trailer. Long story short, I did a hasty hub change on the side of a dark country road using the spare hub I’ve learned to carry along for just such “occasions”.
We got going about 20 minutes later than I’d planned, but, by pushing the casting lessons I’d planned to do until later in the trip when they were actually needed, we got lines in the water at the time I’d hoped to.
I’d planned to kick off the trip with downriggers and then transition to other tactics as the fish allowed and as the kids interest level dictated.
No sooner did we set the second of the two downriggers to depth than Caden’s ‘rigger went off. He hauled in the first of three sets of triples he (and only he) would land on this morning.
The kids enjoyed the downrigging, and Charles was a very capable first mate, assisting Chloe in rigging her downrigger after each catch as Caden took pride in rigging his own gear. This allowed me to focus on sonar and steering the boat.
By the time I saw enough aggressive fish activity (and the kids’ interest in downrigging was beginning to wane), we’d landed 31 white bass and 1 largemouth bass.
With fish chasing bait all through the lower half of the water column, I placed the trolling motor on Spot-Lock, fired up the Garmin LiveScope, explained to everyone how to interpret what they were seeing, and then got them catching fish using a “smoking” tactic with MAL Heavy Lures (white tails) wherein the kids let the lure fall to bottom, then raced it toward the surface.
Eventually, the fish directly under the boat and in the general vicinity grew accustomed to this presentation and lost interest. At that time, I explained to the kids, one at a time, how to cast their MAL Lures horizontally and work them back to the boat using a sawtooth method. The fish were really drawn to this presentation today and thus we had very few casts go ignored.
When the sawtooth method began to no longer produce, I downrigged for another spell, located a second group of aggressively feeding fish, and, with Chloe now in early retirement, watched Charles and Caden duke it out with the fish in what would be our final round of catching before even Caden had enough.
When all was said and done, my crew landed 79 fish, including 2 legal largemouth bass and 77 white bass, with not a single short fish in the bunch.
TALLY: 79 fish caught and released.
See a tutorial on the Smoking Method here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
Here is a tutorial on the Sawtooth Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ
Find the entire family of MAL Lures here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS: This morning’s bite increase with the wind right up until the bite began to shut down just after 10AM.
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 6:40A
End Time: 10:20A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 81F
Elevation: 15.10 feet low, 1 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 84.0F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: SSW9-19 thru 9:20, then slowing tapering up to SSW13
Sky Condition: 0% cloud cover
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 0% illumination (new moon was yesterday).
GT = 65
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area vic SH0032G – early downrigging only
Area vic 880/931 – downrigging leading to smoking/sawtoothing MALs
Area vic 878 – downrigging leading to smoking/sawtoothing MALs
Area vic SH0033G – downrigging leading to smoking/sawtoothing MALs
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
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