CLIENTS: On Saturday morning, November 30, I welcomed aboard Haniel and Nancy Aglee, ages 9 and 5, respectively. The girls’ mother, Abra Alokpa, is a disabled US Army veteran, originally from Togo. This was the 2024 season’s 23rd SKIFF program trip provided specifically for military kids.
Abra served six years in the military’s supply chain.
ABOUT SKIFF: SKIFF trips have been provided to military families at no charge since May of 2009. SKIFF is funded by donations from Austin Fly Fishers, The McBride Foundation, & Austin Subaru. S.K.I.F.F. provides kids of military members separated from their families by duty commitments with the opportunity to fish. SKIFF trips are also provided to Gold Star families who have lost their service member. In mid-2019, SKIFF began providing trips to kids of bona fide disabled veterans. I conduct these 3.5 hour adventures on Belton Lake and Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir year ’round. Call or text 254.368.7411.
DATE: Saturday, 30 November 2024 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES: 11, 16-20 December (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: Nancy (age 5) and Haniel (age 9) Aglee were treated to a free SKIFF program. The girls’ mother, Abra Alopka, is a disabled veteran who served 6 years in the U.S. Army’s supply chain.
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
After a cold front passed through Central Texas on Thanksgiving Day, this trip began clear, cold, and breezy. The ambient air temperature was 38°, with windchill pushing it a bit lower than that.
The calm conditions which often follow a front existed overnight, and so this morning we were fortunate to have a returning south wind.
Thanks to this wind, which began blowing before sunrise, fish were active right as the sun rose, and stayed that way for several hours.
We fished only two areas with the first giving up 18 fish, despite going through a pretty steep learning curve, which was not aided by the girls’ thick clothing, gloved hands, and donned lifejackets.
Despite that, they both eventually got the hang of cranking the MAL Dense Lures I rigged them up with at an attractive cadence to fish which were located both on the bottom and suspended.
Once the girls had the hang of the technique, I moved to our second and final area, which, thankfully, had more bottom-oriented fish than suspended fish. These bottom-oriented fish are more easily caught, because it is not as critical to get it ahead of their direction of travel as it is for suspended fish.
As we inched past the two hour mark, around 9:40 AM, Abra took some cues from Nancy after sensing she was getting cold. As it turns out, she was quite cold despite dressing well for the conditions and, to play it safe, we concluded the trip at that time.
By this time, we’d seen 54 fish come over the gunwale. Everyone hunkered down with hooded heads ducked, and cold fingers in gloves and pockets for the ride back to the boat ramp and took some photos in an area protected from the wind and cold.
Here is a tutorial on vertically smoking the MAL Lure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE
Here is a tutorial on horizontally “sawtoothing” with the MAL Lure or White Tornado: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ
RESULTS: 54 fish, all caught and released
LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: We used MAL Dense Lures (w/ chartreuse tails) for 100% of our catch today. Find all MAL Lures and White Tornados here: https://whitebasstools.com/
OBSERVATIONS:
1) For a second consecutive day, bird activity kicked in during our second hour on the water and helped us narrow down where we needed to look for fish.
2) We stayed on fish for the entire morning thanks to decent winds from the south following a cold front’s passage over the course of daylight hours on Thanksgiving Day two days prior.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
Here was the water temperature profile for Stillhouse Hollow, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:00 AM on Saturday, 29 Nov….
0 feet 62.0F
5 feet 63.7F
10 feet 63.9F
15 feet 63.9F
20 feet 64.1F
25 feet 63.9F
30 feet 63.9F
35 feet 63.9F
40 feet 63.9F
45 feet 63.8F
50 feet 63.5F
55 feet 63.5F
60 feet 63.5F
65 feet 63.3F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:25A
End Time: 9:35A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 38F
Elevation: 1.68′ low and falling slowly with a 43 cfs flow
Water Surface Temp: 62.0F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: SSE6-8
Sky Condition: Clear blue skies with thin, white cloud cover in the NW
Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 0% illumination.
GT = N/A
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
Area 034 – 18 suspended fish smoking MAL Dense Lures
Area 1691 – 36 fish smoking MAL Dense Lures for bottom-oriented fish
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
