CLIENTS: This morning, Monday, June 2, I fished with returning guests – the father and son team of Dayton and Mike Collinsworth. Dayton works as an architect here in the Central Texas area, and Mike is working his way through high school.
After avoiding the weekend craziness, including a boating-while-intoxicated incident on Lake Belton which saw a pleasure boat driven several yards out of the water with four occupants aboard, it was nice to get back to weekday fishing, with light pressure, uncrowded boat ramps, and plenty of fish to go around.
DATE: Monday, 02 June 2025 (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: 12 June (AM)
NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 14 June (AM)
PHOTO CAPTION: Dayton Collinsworth and his son, Mike, landed 139 fish during their 4-hour morning trip. Three of those fish exceeded the TPWD 15-inch threshold for trophy white bass status. All fish came on the MAL Heavy worked with a vertical “smoking” retrieve.
PHOTO CAPTION: The MAL Heavy Lure continues to produce while being fished vertically through suspended white bass.
FIND LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
With stable weather, southerly winds, and the first three hours of the trip with skies graying over with 90 to 100% cloud cover, the conditions were right for a solid result.
The cloud cover built in just after sunrise, but sunrise itself was unobscured, which triggered the fish to begin feeding a bit earlier than they had all last week when skies were leaden and gray.
Today was one of those neat days when the fish cooperated from start to finish. We never had a lull in the action of more than just a few minutes. Most of our fish were caught in the 30 to 40 foot depth range, with our early fish coming off the bottom, and fish in the latter half of the morning all coming from suspended schools.
Dayton and his son do a good bit of fishing together, especially on Navarro Mills Lake, so they did not have much of a learning curve to work through before they started to connect with white bass consistently. Like a lot of folks coming from bass fishing background, they had to learn to restrain their tendency to do a sweeping, hard hook set, but once they got a grip on that, the rest was gravy. Dayton and Mike used the MAL Heavy with silver blade and chartreuse with a single vertical tactic — that of “smoking“, to catch 100% of the 139 fish they landed today.
Of the 139 fish, two were largemouth bass, and only three were short white bass. Three of the fish were legitimate trophy-sized, 15-inch plus white bass.
RESULTS: 139 fish, all caught and released
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW “SMOKE” AN MAL LURE VERTICALLY: Click here for tutorial
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO FISH AN MAL LURE HORIZONTALLY USING THE SAWTOOTH METHOD: Click here for tutorial
OBSERVATIONS:
- White bass are clearly disassociating from the bottom, choosing instead to suspend.
- No bird action or topwater action spotted today.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
This was the latest water temperature profile for Stillhouse Hollow measured with a FishHawk TD device around 6:30AM on Tuesday, 27 May…
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7A
End Time: 117A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F
Elevation: 2.22 low with a 0.03′ fall in the last 24 hours
Water Surface Temp: 79.6F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: Steady SSE7-11 all morning
Sky Condition: Fully grey skies for 3 hours after a clear, sunny sunrise. Clouds burnt off quickly to a hazy sky by 10A
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 46% illumination.
GT = 25
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
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