CLIENTS:  This morning, Thursday, June 26, I fished with Mr. Ken Deweese and his nine-year-old grandson, Dane Deweese, who is visiting for a few weeks from Colorado, along with his two older sisters.

Ken now resides in the Salado area after retiring from 51 years of coaching basketball.  Dane calls him Pappadeaux.

TODAY’S DATE: Thursday, 26 June 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING:  Wednesday, 09 July (AM) 

NEXT OPEN DATES FOR SONAR TRAINING: 12 July (AM)

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION:   Ken and 9-year-old Dane Deweese teamed up for a multi-species fishing trip which resulted in the catch of white bass, largemouth bass, and bluegill sunfish.

 

PHOTO CAPTION:   Dane captured our largest fish of the trip.  This largemouth bass was 17″ long and right at 3.00 pounds.  It was caught on a MAL Heavy Lure worked vertically with a “smoking” retrieve.

 

FIND LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

The summer heat and young of the year shad are heavily and negatively influencing the fishing now. I have begun to see this play out on both Belton and now on Stillhouse. The millions of young of the year shad ranging now in size from 3/4 of an inch to 1 1/4 inches in length are suspended just about everywhere. These little fish are slow and abundant and are so easily fed upon, game fish really need not be interested in anything else.

We put in our first 3 1/2 hours in pursuit of white bass this morning. We started off smoking MAL Lures, but, given the scenario I’ve just described, the fishing is quite technical with no guarantee even a well-placed, well-worked bait is going to get bit. Ken caught a few fish this way before I decided to switch us over to downrigging. The downrigged #12 Pet Spoons caught fish slowly but consistently, and provided us with good quality fish, as well.

After the area we were downrigging in failed to produce any longer, the next fish I found were in timber, so downrigging was not an option. We re-doubled our efforts at getting Dane working his MAL Lure very well when fished vertically, and both he and Ken added fish to our count, taking us to a total of 23 fish landed with about 30 minutes left in the trip. I wanted to leave Dane with some skills he would be able to use if he was not able to be in a boat, so we headed up shallow and closed out the fishing trip catching 8 bluegill sunfish on telescoping rods under floats using live bait. We wound up the trip with 31 fish boated.

 

OBSERVATIONS:

1. Fishing is getting “summertime tough” with white bass suspending more than using bottom, and focused on young-of-the-year shad which are hard to imitate with live or artificial baits.

 

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, 17 June…

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:40A

End Time: 10:40A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Elevation: 1.56′ low’ high with a 0.02′ fall in the last 24 hours

Water Surface Temp: 81.8F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: Under S6-10 all morning

Sky Condition: 40% white cloud cover on a light blue sky

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 2% illumination.

GT = 55

 

Wx SNAPSHOT:  

 

 

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area 484 – 3 white bass smoking MAL Heavy Lures

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