Day: April 22, 2025

White Bass Research by Temple College Kicks Off @ Stillhouse — 107 Fish

by Bob Maindelle

CLIENTS: This morning, Tuesday, April 22, I fished the first of 26 special fisheries research trips taking place between now and April 2026. These trips are aimed at collecting white bass so they can be measured, weighed, and released in support of a study conducted by students and faculty at Temple College comparing the populations of white bass on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir and Lake Belton. This morning my anglers were returning guests Pastor PJ Condit and Pastor Scott Smith.  The researchers aboard this morning included Professor Jason Locklin, Caroline Vanderburg, and Yessenia Edgecomb.

If you would like to be a part of this effort, and get a $50 discount for the (very) minor inconvenience of having researchers aboard, please consider the following dates and contact me ASAP…

June 2025:

18th Wednesday Belton – OPEN  OR   19th Thursday – Stillhouse – OPEN

July 2025:

16th Wednesday – Belton – OPEN  OR   17th Wednesday – Stillhouse – OPEN

August 2025:

14th Thursday – Belton – OPEN  OR   15th Friday – Stillhouse – OPEN

September 2025:

20th Saturday – Belton – Open  OR   27th Saturday – Stillhouse – FILLED

October 2025:

18th Saturday – Belton – OPEN  OR   25th Saturday – Stillhouse – OPEN

November 2025

8th Saturday – Belton – OPEN  OR   15th Saturday – Stillhouse – OPEN

December 2025

06th Saturday – Belton – OPEN  OR   13th Saturday – Stillhouse – OPEN

January 2026

17th Saturday – Belton – OPEN  OR   24th Saturday – Stillhouse – OPEN

February 2026

14th Saturday – Belton – OPEN  OR   21 Saturday – Stillhouse – OPEN

March 2026

11th Wednesday – Belton – OPEN  OR   12th Thursday – Stillhouse – OPEN

April 2026

15th Wednesday – Belton – OPEN  OR   16th Thursday – Stillhouse – OPEN

 

DATE: Tuesday, 22 April 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING:  12 June (AM) 

NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 21 June (AM)

 

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: PJ serves the Community Christian Church in Round Rock, and Scott serves at Crestview Christian Church in Copperas Cove.  They were serving up MALs and Hazy Eye Slabs to white bass this morning, though!!

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  With calm winds in our first hour, we made our own luck putting live shad down after a quick white bass bite turned off.  This resulted in the catch of multiple drum and this 11 pound blue cat.

 

PHOTO CAPTION: The Temple College fisheries research team from left foreground: Yessenia Edgecomb, Caroline Vanderburg, and Dr. Jason Locklin.

 

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

Although we had cloud cover all morning, the southerly wind, which had come up at a nice velocity before sunrise, died for about an hour and during that first hour of effort we had trouble finding fish, and caught none.
By 8 AM, a southeasterly ripple had begun in more exposed areas on the lake , and it was around this time we begin to find and catch fish. The first group of fish we encountered behaved much like those I have recently reported on at Lake Belton. These fish get fired up very briefly, go crazy hitting artificials for all of two or three minutes and then settle down very very quickly.
I have found that following the artificial bite up with bait will help sustain a bite, so that is exactly what we had to do this morning at our first stop. After that, the wind and sky conditions improved, the fishing improved, and we had no problems catching fish on artificials from that point forward.
When I found smaller, isolated groups, fish, I parked on top of them and we worked silver, three-quarter ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs vertically with a smoking tactic. If the fish were spread over a greater area horizontally, I put the boat upwind or crosswind from them and had Scott and PJ cast MAL Heavies out to them using a sawtooth method.
When all was said and done, we had landed 107 fish, including white bass, one largemouth bass, several freshwater drum, one blue catfish, and one bluegill sunfish.

RESULTS:  107 fish, all caught and released

 

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

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO FISH AN MAL LURE USING THE SAWTOOTH METHOD: Click here for tutorial 

 

LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP:  Silver, 3/4 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs & MAL Heavy Lures. Find all MAL Lures and Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/

 

OBSERVATIONS:

  1. Threadfin shad spawn continues.
  2. No helpful bird activity.
  3. Just as fish were first turning on, they quickly got excited and just as quickly lost interest in artificials; live bait was the key to continuing to catch fish during this time

 

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

This is the most up-to-date water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6:55AM on Tuesday, 15 April…

0 feet 68.4F
5 feet 68.4F
10 feet 67.4F
15 feet 65.9F
20 feet 65.1F
25 feet 64.3F
30 feet 63.5F
35 feet 62.6F
40 feet 61.9F
45 feet 60.0F
50 feet 59.2F
55 feet 58.2F
60 feet 58.0F

This was the previous water temperature profile for Lake Belton, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:20AM on Thursday, 10 April…

0 feet 62.9F
5 feet 63.1F
10 feet 62.9F
15 feet 62.9F
20 feet 62.9F
25 feet 68.2F
30 feet 62.6F
35 feet 61.4F
40 feet 60.6F
45 feet 59.4F
50 feet 59.4F
55 feet 59.0F
60 feet 58.0 F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:00A

End Time: 11:15A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 64F

Elevation: 4.25′ low

Water Surface Temp: 66.7F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction:  Calm for first hour, then SSE5-6 thereafter

Sky Condition: Thin, but complete, grey cloud cover.

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 33% illumination.

GT = 5

 

Wx SNAPSHOT: 

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 549 – 24 fish initially on smoked MAL Heavy Lures, then on live shad

Area vic 754 – 28 fish on sawtoothed MAL Heavy Lures

Area vic 140 – 12 fish on sawtoothed MAL Heavy Lures
Area vic 2079 – 14 fish on smoked Bladed Hazy Eye slabs
Area vic B0021G – 22 fish on sawtoothed MAL Heavy Lures
Area vic 755 – 7 fish on smoked Bladed 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

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