Four Boys Land the First Fish of their Lives — 80 Fish

by Bob Maindelle

CLIENTS:  This past Saturday afternoon, Feb. 8, I welcomed two sets of brothers and their moms aboard for the 2025 season’s second Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (SKIFF) trip.

Joining me were Alex and Devin Yang, the sons of Warrant Officer 1 Yining Yang and his wife, Ziyu.  The boys are 12-year-old twins.

Also joining me were Tim and Ryan Chen, the sons of Specialist Kenny Chen and his wife, Leann.  The boys are ages 15 and 12, respectively.

Both fathers have been recently deployed to eastern Europe

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.  Just call or text 254.368.7411 to set one up.

 

DATE: Saturday, 08 February 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATES:  18-21 February (AM)

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  From left: Ryan Chen, Alex Yang, Tim Chen, and Devin Yang all proudly display a few of the 80 fish they landed during their 3.5-hour “SKIFF” trip provided at no charge to military kids during times of separation from their parents.  Before this trip, none of the boys had ever caught a fish before.

 

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

This afternoon trip came on the heels of a tough morning trip wherein the majority of the catching took place in the first 90 minutes of light.  After high winds and bright skies dampened the fishing by mid-morning, I was not sure what to expect this afternoon.
I came prepared to do some flatline trolling for suspended fish up off bottom making use of the much warmer layer of surface water created by this 8-day warming trend, and I came prepared to take advantage of a sunset bite (which I saw multiple times while conducting sonar training for several individuals last week).
Once again, the results this evening were skewed, with the majority of our catch coming as the sun got low enough in the sky that there was a felt reduction in heat and light.
We fished from 2:30P to 6P.  The boys landed 14 fish in the first two hours, all taken on crankbaits fished on line-counter reels so once we figured out a depth which was productive, we could get the lures reliably back to that depth.   I kept the lures working about 12′ beneath the surface to get bit.
Remember, none of the kids had ever landed a fish before, so, when that first crankbait rod connected, pandemonium erupted on the boat with the boys’ mothers possibly even more excited than the kids.
That scene would repeat many times as each of the boys landed three fish as we fished in this manner before the low-light evening bite kicked in.
In the final 90 minutes, we really made up for some lost time.  I search for and found schools of white bass moving from the channel up onto deep, adjacent flats to feed. We made just two stops, got the thumper going (doubling as a metronome so the boys would not reel too fast or too slowly), and these fish came to and stayed beneath our Spot-Locked position very well, allowing the boys to put another 66 fish in the boat before the bite began to wane as the sun set in the west.
This final blast of success came on the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab which has just been a sweetheart of a lure for matching shad size this winter, putting several thousand fish from Stillhouse in the boat for me and my clients since mid-November to present, with easily more than 50% of those fish coming on the stinger hook.

RESULTS: 80 fish, all caught and released

 

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO DO “SLOW SMOKING”: Click here for tutorial

 

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO SNAP-JIG:  Click here for tutorial

 

LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: We used crankbaits and the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab to catch our fish this trip. Find all MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/

 

OBSERVATIONS:

1) At times this morning and again this afternoon I saw fish up in the middle of the water column where the water is much warmer than near bottom, thanks to an 8-day warming trend.

2) As was the case in the morning, the majority of our fish this afternoon were caught as the light level was low.

 

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Here was the water temperature profile for Stillhouse Hollow, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:00AM on Monday, 03 Feb. …

0 feet 51.7F
5 feet 51.7F
10 feet 51.6F
15 feet 51.4F
20 feet 51.3F
25 feet 51.3F
30 feet 50.9F
35 feet 50.8F
40 feet 50.5F
45 feet 50.0F
50 feet 49.5F
55 feet 49.0F
And here was the reading around 7:00AM on Saturday, 08 Feb. …
0 feet 56.7F
5 feet 56.5F
10 feet 56.5F
15 feet 56.1F
20 feet 54.2F
25 feet 52.8F
30 feet 52.2F
35 feet 51.9F
40 feet 51.6F
45 feet 51.4F
50 feet 51.3F
55 feet 50.9F
60 feet 50.5F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 2:30P

End Time: 6P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 82F

Elevation: 2.78′ low

Water Surface Temp: 56.7F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW13 at trip’s start, falling off steadily to SSW8 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: Light blue sky all afternoon with <10% white cloud cover

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon at 85% illumination.

GT = N/A

 

Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 118 – 14 fish flatline trolling

Area vic 234 – 27 fish on slow-smoked white 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area vic 754 – 39 fish on slow-smoked white 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

 

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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