Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a brief 2 ½ hour trip this evening to stay in touch with the fishing on Stillhouse now that the water is rapidly warming up.

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:00p to 8:35p

Air temp: 91F at launch time

Water surface temp: 79.5F

Wind: SE at 15 and slowly tapering to SE at 8 by sunset

Skies: Partly cloudy conditions the entire trip; quite humid

Fished 3 areas tonight and caught fish at all 3.

First stop was at Area 176. There was not much showing on sonar here, but there was a number of single fish and bait holding suspended over top of this area. I dropped a slab down and began working it and managed to smoke a small white bass and a barely keeper largemouth. No real evidence of a congregation of fish appeared here after spending several minutes, so I continued the search.

Headed to Area 186. Found just 3-4 fish arches on bottom on sonar here, but they were grouped together and were right on the breakline. I dropped a slab down and began using an easing technique, with an occasional opportunity for smoking presenting itself, as well. Caught one fish after another here for the next hour, putting 53 fish in the boat. This catch broke down to 3 drum (each ~2 pounds), 4 largemouth (all solid and right at 16 inches), and 48 white bass, of which all but 2 were keepers, with 2 of these going 15+ inches. At 7:50p this fishery shut down hard and suddenly.

I then headed shallow to Area 159 and encountered some light topwater action from smallish fish. Caught 7 fish here including 3 largemouth bass and 4 white bass. All 7 of these fish were short.

TALLY = 62 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Fished two ½ day trips today, one in the morning from 6:15a to 11:30a and one in the evening from 4:15p to 8:45p. The results of these trips are listed separately.

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 4:15p to 8:45p

Air temp: 92F at launch time

Surface temp: 78F

Wind: Strong from the SSE at 22 with gusts stronger for the majority of this evening’s trip, then tapering off to 12mph beginning around 7:45p.

Skies: Partly cloudy conditions the entire trip

Fished a ½ day evening Kids Fish, Too! trip with Tony, Stephanie, Emily, and Evan B. tonight.

The kids did not have a lot of fishing experience, so we started off “plunking” for sunfish at Area 184 and Area 185 and wound up catching 34 fish including a mix of green sunfish, bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, and blacktail shiners. Each child landed a pending lake record for these diminuitive fish, Emily’s being a longear sunfish, and Evan’s being a blacktail shiner.

By around 5:45p, we gauged the wind and the kids’ interest level and headed out after some larger fish using a slabbing technique that suited the kids’ abilities.

We found a good concentration of fish in 24-26 feet of water, schooled on bottom between Area 164 and Area 165. Over the next two hours the kids steadily slabbed up very solid white bass (some exceeding 14 inches) as well as small hybrids of the same length). In all, aided occasionally by their dad, the kids put 51 fish in the boat.

By around 7:45, the wind was knocking off a little, and I could begin to see white bass pushing bait to the surface here and there. We decided to put topwater gear on and give the kids a shot at seeing fish strike their presentation. We moved to Area 183 and found this area a little more sheltered from the wind than I had anticipated and immediately spotted surface action here, albeit very light. Dad (Tony), Emily, and Evan each caught 2 fish on their surface presentations and were very excited about experiencing that.

We called it a day at that point, buttoned down for the windy ride back and headed in to the dock.

TALLY = 91 FISH, including 2 new Junior Angler Records; all fish were caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished two ½ day trips today, one in the morning from 6:15a to 11:30a and one in the evening from 4:15p to 8:45p. The results of these trips are listed separately.

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:15a to 11:30a

Air temp: 70F at launch time

Surface temp: 74.5F

Wind: Strong from the SSE at 15 until around 9a, then building to 22 with gusts stronger for the remainder of this morning’s trip.

Skies: 100% grey overcast until 11:30, then clearing and brightening with partly cloudy conditions.

Found fish this morning at 3 areas.

Right at the trip’s start, barely discernable in the heavy chop of the waves, there was abundant surface activity at Area 178. These schooling fish consisted of primarily white bass with some small hybrids mixed in, as well as two short black bass. The fish averaged 11.5 inches and were solid, healthy fish. These fish readily hit a popping cork rig. They were spread over ~100 yards in a fairly narrow band parallel to the shore. Picked up 46 fish here over the hour and a quarter that this activity lasted.

When this action tapered to zero, I moved to Area 179 and found fish of the same caliber tight to the bottom, but willing to chase an eased slab and occasionally a smoked slab. These fish were holding at 30-32 feet near the breakline feature located here. I experimented with a chrome slab at one point, but the fish definitely preferred white still. Picked up 29 fish here, bringing the tally to 75 boated by 9:30.

Made a final stop at Area 181 after checking other areas without result. Found larger but fewer white bass on bottom here at about 30′ atop the breakline. Slabbed these fish with a straightforward lift-drop approach and picked up 15 more fish. These fish quit quite suddenly, as they do when they are done for a good long white. Taking that hint, I wrapped up the trip at that point.

TALLY = 90 FISH; all fish were caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Stillhouse Fishing Report by Fort Hood Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:25a to 9:05a

Air temp: 70F at launch time

Surface temp: 74F

Wind: Light from the SSE at 1-2 for a majority of the this morning’s trip.

Skies: Fair skies

Fished a short stay-in-touch trip this morning.

Started the morning out with some great, albeit short lived, surface action. Both schooled white bass and largemouth bass were feeding heavily on young of the year shad in a pretty good stretch of water roughly between Area 555 and Area 173. Early on I caught a 6:1 ratio of whites, then, as the skies brightened, the whites tapered off and the catch became 100 % short largemouth. Got 36 fish in about 75 minutes of fishing, although the most intense time was the first 25 minutes following sunrise.

After this action died off, I did some more exploring in the 35-40 foot range and found a fairly widespread, deep school of white bass located at Area 176. Using a ¾ oz. slab, I tried to keep these fish teased up the best I could, and stayed with them for about 35 minutes from around 8:25a to 9:00a. During this time I boated 33 fish, of which 32 were whites (all but 2 keeper size), with a drum thrown in. One time a good ~4 lbs. largemouth pursued one of the hooked whites up to the surface and was nipping at it as I reeled it in. All of these fish came on an easing technique. I specifically stopped successful easing to try standard lift-drop jigging and the results just paled in comparison.

I noted that the Corp of Engineers was working today to right the upside-down courtesy dock at River’s Bend Park. Thanks, Rangers!!

TALLY = 69 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Stillhouse Fishing Report by Harker Heights Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6p to 8:45p

Air temp: 92F at launch time

Surface temp: 76F

Wind: SSE at 6-7 for a majority of the this evening’s trip, then dropping off to S at 3-4 after sunset.

Skies: Fair

Fished a short stay-in-touch trip tonight.

Found fish in two new areas tonight.

First, I identified an area topping out at ~36-38 feet surrounded by deeper water and with abundant quantities of shad in the vicinity. This area, Area 175, was fished with an easing vertical jigging technique with occasional instances where a smoking technique was appropriate. I put 20 fish in the boat here including 16 whites of all sizes up to 12.5 inches, as well as 4 short largemouth bass. By the time the twentieth fish came up, the school had about played out.

I left here and searched the east side of D.E.I. but came up with nothing and saw no manner of sign indicating fish.

Returned uplake and made a stop at Area 177, right at the transition topping out at ~25 feet. With about 40 minutes until sunset, I found fish on bottom (small largemouth) but an unusual occurance of fish suspended at 7 feet or shallower in the water column. Picked up 1 bass on bottom, and 1 bass and 2 whites from up high.

With sunset fast approaching, I headed to Area 159 expecting some topwater white bass action. The S wind, albeit light, put a chop on this area that made both seeing and hearing topwater fish very difficult. I managed only 5 whites here, but was often casting late to old nervous water instead of casting to fresh boils, all due to the wind.

TALLY = 29 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:30a to 1:00p

Air temp: 65F at launch time

Surface temp: 71F

Wind: WNW at 4 to 6 for a majority of the this morning’s trip, spiking briefly up to 10, then shifting WSW and dropping back off to 6-8.

Fished a half day morning trip today with Pat and Lynn T. of North Georgia, and John S. of Salado.

Today’s early morning conditions were a little tough. We started off patrolling in the vicinity of Area 173 looking for some easy topwater. We did find fish feeding on top, but they were well-spread, sporadic, and small. After about an hour’s time spend we’d boated 6 fish, none of legal size. For a brief period about 4 Bonaparte gulls began to work over fish-forced shad, but that was very short-lived.

Our next bit of action came on live bait fished on downlines in the vicinity of Area 61 in 22-28 feet. We caught 7 additional largemouth bass here, 3 being keeper size. We fished this area about 40 minutes and apparently combed out all the active fish during that time as the action then slowed to a crawl.

Our final successful stop came just a few yards SSE of Are 122 at the top of the hump in 38′, surrounded by 40-44+ feet of water. No doubt turned on by the highest winds we would have all day, very aggressively feeding white bass and largemouth bass kept us busy at first on live bait, and then on slabs. Over a period of approx. 90 minutes, we boated 66 fish including 3 drum (one going 4.75 pounds), 1 channel catfish, a largemouth bass weighing in at 5.00 pounds (Lynn’s personal best fish), and multiple other largemouth, as well as (a majority of ) white bass of all sizes from sub-legal to 14+ inches.

Things slowed to a crawl by 12:30p and we called it a day. After dropping the crew back off at the dock, I experimented with shad on the shallow flat to the NE of Area 161. Got 3 shad twanged, and managed one average drum.

TALLY = 80 FISH

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 6:00a to 8:45p

Air temp: 65F at launch time

Surface temp: 71.8F

Wind: WNW breeze at 9 at sunrise (obscured) with heavily overcast skies just shy of drizzling, slowly building to 17mph with slowly clearing skies, then a slackening in the wind near noon with clearing skies. Skies stayed clear and the air comfortable and dry for the remainder of the day.

Fished from 6a to 3p with LTC Greg D. of Killeen. Greg is headed to Saudi on Sunday and this was his “last hoorah” fishing trip before heading out. As I awaited his arrival, I observed gamefish crashing the abundant spawning threadfish shad against the shoreline and caught a white and a hybrid on a white blade bait from out of this fray.

Once Greg arrived, our day got off to a quick start with 4 solid white bass landed on live shad in the vicinity of Area 133, directly off the ramp. As soon as good seeing light came up, these fish disappeared. I hoped for birds to point the way to some topwater action but found none.

We struggled for a while to contact fish, but then managed to get into a small school of whites and small hybrids along the slope at Area 174. This was short-lived and so we moved after boating only 4 more fish here.

Headed to Area 155 and picked up 92 fish just a few yards to the S. of the actual waypoint here including white bass of all sizes and some 13-15 inch hybrids. These fish came by a combination of slabbing, easing, or smoking. Keeping the action going was the key to success. Any pause put the fish off and the process of getting them teased up had to start all over again.

After hitting the 100 fish mark, we agreed to focus just on hybrids with live shad. This was a tall order as the winds were now high and the sky bright and clear. We checked a number of quality locations, and, upon checking Area 169, found primarily deep largemouth bass including quality fish. We opted to rock back and forth over the area with me working the trolling motor and Greg working the rods. We ended up with a total of 11 black bass and 1 sunfish (which was subsequently used for bait to catch the largest bass of the day, a 7.00 pound fish – Greg’s personal best!). Greg also landed a 5.00 pound largemouth on live shad.

We concluded the trip round 3 p with 112 fish caught when the action at this area dried up. Although we did catch hybrids, none were of legal size during this morning trip.

After dropping Greg off at the boat ramp, I headed to Area 170 to attempt to net shad for an upcoming trip. I found abundant gizzard shad suspended at 11-14 feet over 22 feet in this area and put 45 in the tank and a dozen more to experiment with myself.

From here, I headed to Area 171 and marked fish, individually and tight to bottom in 23-26 feet of water. Caught 8 consecutive keeper hybrid here in the next hour with a single downline used in conjunction with sonar. These fish went 8.25 pounds (24 7/8 inches), 6.00 pounds, 6.00 pounds, 5.75 pounds, 5.00 pound, 3.75 pounds, 3.50 pounds, and 3.00 pounds. Every one had a moderately full belly and all were healthy. Also put 3 whites in the boat here on live shad. I noted that another angler positioned over the transition area at Area 172 was also doing well on white bass and smaller hybrids fishing with artificials.

When it got within an hour of sunset, schools of surface feeding whites were regularly observed. I first used a popping cork with a Polished Chicken fly behind it, but was regularly having the popping cork struck at and so up sized to a Jr. Spook in clear. This did bring the average size up a bit. By the time the surface action died I had managed 26 fish.

TALLY = 151 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Trip conditions:

Trip duration: 4:00p to 8:45p

Air temp: 75F at launch time

Surface temp: 72F

Wind: Southeast breeze at 7-9 for a majority of the this evening’s trip. Partly cloudy skies, becoming lightly overcast with high thin clouds by day’s end. At and after sunset winds went slack.

Had success at 3 primary areas today, although I also tried other areas, as well.

Upon launching, headed to Area 145 after looking with sonar at the adjacent areas nearby. A large school of white bass was camped out on this area. I dropped down a ¾ oz. slab and caught 16 whites and 4 largemouth in no time, including a nice 6.00 pounder.

I left this area with the fish still biting to try to identify other productive areas while the “window was open”.

I found a few fish on bottom in 23-26 feet in the vicinity of Area 161, but these were of a mixed bag (sunfish, black bass, crappie, and white bass) and no evidence of schooled fish was apparent. Caught only 4 fish here.

At this point I did a little exploring but found little on sonar and during slab drops. Picked up 4 largemouth here and there but no schooled fish congregated on bottom features.

The last run of success came right at and after sunset. As the winds slackened, I fished in the lee of Area 159 and could see schools of small whites working on schools of juvenile shad on the surface. Picked up a total of 27 fish in the last 45 minutes of the trip including 4 largemouth bass and 23 white bass up to 12 inches. All of these came on a popping cork with a Polished Chicken fly behind it.

TALLY = 51 FISH, all caught and released

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Belton Lake Fishing Report by Lake Belton Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fish two half-day trips today. The report for each is listed separately.

Evening trip conditions:

Trip duration: 4:00p to 8:20p

Air temp: 88F at launch time

Surface temp: 79F

Wind: East breeze at 7-9 for a majority of the this evening’s trip. Fair skies, becoming lightly overcast with high thin clouds by day’s end. At and after sunset, some thunderstorms developed in Coryell and Burnett Counties with the grey skies, light sprinkles, and lightning reaching Belton Lake.

Fished this evening with Craig M. of Salado and Jay S. of Harker Heights. This was a “farewell” trip of sorts as Jay heads to the Mid-West to take on an ROTC cadre assignment at a university there.

After getting settled and going over the plan for the evening, we headed to the S. of Area 165 and set up dual downriggers mainly in order to keep baits in the water as I scanned the entire area with sonar. We made 4 passes parallel to the breakline in this area with the balls set at 21-25 feet, and each time came up with 1-2 smallish white bass. I decided to search further to the NW of Area 165, and as we made our way through Area 164 and to Area 163, the sonar just lit up and stayed lit up with white bass blanketing the bottom over this entire stretch. Around 5p, we buoyed and dropped the slabs and caught fish until the fellows were tired of catching them, about 2 ½ hours later. These fish were nearly 100% white bass and averaged 12″ with many going 13.5+. This was the best quality of fish in that quantity I’ve taken on Belton in quite some time. With 108 fish boated, we shifted gears, put on topwater gear and took advantage of the scattered pods of fish feeding on topwater. We put a quick additional 7 fish in the boat this way, and then took a snack break.

I had hoped that the topwater would increase toward sunset, but nature threw a curve when the dark grey cloud bank began to move in from the SW and the winds went flat in advance of the thunderstorms that affected several towns in the region later in the evening. So, after the snack break, and with no topwater showing, we put on bladebaits and worked them horizontally up shallow and added a final 9 fish to the tally before the distant rumble of thunder to the SW sent us back to the ramp about 20-25 minutes early.

TALLY = 124 FISH, all caught and released.

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing

Belton Lake Fishing Report by Lake Belton Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fish two half-day trips today. The report for each is listed separately.

Morning trip conditions:

Trip duration: 5:20a to 1:15p

Air temp: 68F at launch time

Surface temp: 76-79F

Wind: Very light SE breeze at first light followed by flat calm for a majority of the morning trip. Fair skies, becoming lightly overcast with high thin clouds by day’s end. At and after sunset, some thunderstorms developed in Coryell and Burnett Counties with the grey skies, light sprinkles, and lightning reaching Belton Lake.

Arrived at Ramp Area 166 at 5:20a and found shad much less abundant than over the past 2 weeks. Spent about 45 minutes to net 40 shad of all sizes in the vicinity of Area 166.

With the Waechert and Woodard party of 3 on board by 6:30am, we headed out. First stop, due to lack of any topwater action, was a slow drift from ESE to WNW from the vicinity of Area 46 to the vicinity of Area 84 with live shad. We picked up a few white bass and lost 2 hybrids. There were other boats in the area and they were managing about the same.

As we drifted just E. of Area 84, the bottom 4-5 feet of the water column lit up with fish on bottom in 31-34 feet. We buoyed here and had Keith work live bait while I had Marcus and Brittany work with slabs. Brittany (in her early 20’s) caught the very first fish of her life here!! We managed to bring the tally to 21 before we departed this area.

We then headed to Area 155 and found white bass loosely schooled and patrolling in and around this area, specifically, just S. of the spine. As we first arrived, I had Marcus and Brittany drop live bait down shooting for the larger, faster hybrids and/or larger whites which typically respond first. Keith worked the slab. We managed 13 fish in this area, but it was pretty slow and no hybrids showing.

We made one final move to Area 151/152 and did better here in this deeper water. Whites were schooled and small pods of hybrids were suspended and on bottom. Everyone got a keeper hybrid here and we landed several smaller ones as well primarily on larger live shad, and the white bass responded well to the slab. We also picked up a drum and a nice blue cat here as well. We brought in a total of 26 fish here and, with the heat increasing and the wind offering no hope of increasing any time soon, we called it a day.

All in all we did pretty well given the flat, bright, hot conditions.

Made a run to Area 167 for shad after the trip concluded. Got 3-6 shad per throw in 18-22 feet of water here, and the shad were consistent in their size, all about 3.75 inches, and almost all threadfins. Left with ~65 shad.

TALLY = 60 FISH, all caught and released, with exception of 1 blue catfish

Bob Maindelle, Owner Holding The Line Guide Service and Kids Fish, Too! Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide, Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Lake Georgetown Fishing Guide, Walter E. Long (Decker) Lake Fishing Guide. Offering Salado Fishing, Killeen Fishing and Ft. Hood Fishing