03 MAY 2008

05/03/08 9:03 PM

Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a half day morning trip from 6:30a to 11:30a.

Today’s conditions:

Air temp: 54F

Surface temp: 69F

Wind: Hard from the NNW at 22 at dawn, slowing dying down to 16mph by trip’s end

Weather: High pressure building in following yesterday’s cold front passage. High, clear blue skies, becoming fair with high thin clouds by day’s end.

As I launched pre-dawn, I was going to try to locate shallow whites stalking on windblown points, and did find such activity at Area 162. I found fish scattered around this point in 6-9 feet of water and very willing to hit a bladebait work lift-drop style. Picked up 9 solid white bass up to 14 inches and 2 largemouth bass here in about an hour. This action died as the sun climbed higher.

Next, due to the wind, I headed way uplake and tried to use the north shore as cover from the wind, but the whites have vacated this area, and I found nothing at Area 999, Area 144, Area 116, and in the Area 54/108 complex.

I returned downlake and found a small flock of helpful terns pointing the way to some light schooling action by largemouth and white bass amid the whitecaps at Area 161. I saw a lot more at depth on sonar than I did with the naked eye on the surface, and so went with a slabbing & smoking approach here beginning around 8:30am and stayed on fish here for 3 straight hours resulting in a catch of 60 fish, mainly consisting of 11 inch white bass with larger and smaller ones thrown in, as well as several 2 pound largemouth and several 1 ¼ pound drum.

TALLY = 71 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

Fished a half day afternoon trip from 3:30p to 8:30p with Jason and Melissa G. of Lewisville as they took a break from work, kids, and scouting for a weekend in Salado by themselves.

Today’s conditions:

Air temp: 82F

Surface temp: 72-73F

Wind: Light and variable from NE to E at 0-4

Weather: High pressure building in following a turbulent morning with a cold front’s passage accompanied by thunderstorms and brief, high wind gust. Skies were high, blue and clear, sun was hot and brilliant.

We started deep first, due to the lack of wind and the bright sun. Came up with 11 fair white bass at Area 129 and then gave a little downrigging a try to create some breeze for Melissa who was getting uncomfortably warm. We wound up with only 3 small fish on Pet Spoons while downrigging, but, this wasn’t really an ideal time/location for that technique. These downrigged fish came within a 100 yard arc to the NE of Area 129 in 25 to 37 feet of water.

We pulled in our lines and headed uplake a little ways to looked at sonar at Area 131. It was completely lit up with white bass both suspending, chasing bait, and tight to bottom. We set up here with the nose into the slight ENE breeze that had developed and put 61 fish in the boat in about 90 minutes. These fish were mostly barely keeper whites, with drum, largemouth, and a crappie thrown in for good measure. We could have kept right on catching fish here, but, since they were smallish, I offered the option of leaving them in pursuit of larger quarry. Jason and Melissa were willing to roll the dice on that, and the gamble paid off.

After looking over several areas and doing some “trial jigging” without success, we finally hit into another big bunch of larger white bass at Area 122, located just to the NW of the waypoint by about 70 feet. These fish literally swam up to meet the descending slabs as they fell. We landed 26 fish here in no time, including primarily 12-14 inch fish, with several shorter fish and 3 15-16 inch largemouth thrown in.

By now it was around 6:50p, and we had planned to search for some twilight topwater downlake, so, with their permission, we left these fish biting to go look for some topwater action. Melissa had never cast with the equipment necessary for this, so we got her trained up and casting well, but never encountered topwater in the vicinity of Area 222, as I thought we might. So, we headed to Area 159 in (slim) hopes that we’d find topwater there. We found none, but did manage one final drum and one final largemouth bass here while fancasting bladebaits waiting for topwater action.

TALLY = 104 FISH, all caught and released except 2 drum that didn’t make it

APRIL 2008 SUMMARY

29 APRIL 2008 (AM)= 41 FISH

26 APRIL 2008 (PM)= 110 FISH

24 APRIL 2008 = 78 FISH

21 APRIL 2008 = 22 FISH

17 APRIL 2008 (PM)= 69 FISH

17 APRIL 2008 (AM)= 77 FISH

14 APRIL 2008 = 78 FISH

11 APRIL 2008 (PM)= 133 FISH

11 APRIL 2008 (AM)= 50 FISH

08 APRIL 2008 = 35 FISH

07 APRIL 2008 = 54 FISH

05 APRIL 2008 = 65 FISH

03 APRIL 2008 = 93 FISH

TOTAL FISH CAUGHT: 905 FISH

AVERAGE CATCH PER TRIP: 69.6 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

Stillhouse Fishing Report by Stillhouse Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a 4 hour morning trip this morning from 6:30a to 10:30a. Winds were up from the SW before sunrise and climbed even higher as the day warmed. I fished in 14-17 mph winds during this trip. The recent cool snap (including a record low for the date of 41 degrees on 28 April) has knocked the surface temps back to 68.5. At launch time the air temp was a wind cooled 54F.

Decided to experiment in the lower lake today and so I headed first to the shallow shelf at Area 159. Due to the high winds, no surface activity could be seen even if it existed. I dropped a slab along the dropoff and came up with one drum.

Moved along further down lake to Cove 160. Saw nothing on surface or sonar. Then ran sonar over Areas 70, 61, 59, 57, 58, and 26 and saw no gamefish or bait.

Moved back uplake a bit and looked with sonar over Areas 65 and 63 with no result.

Moved further back uplake to Area 157 and at between 30-34 feet on a subtle drop, found concentrations of white bass and shad on sonar. Dropped a slab down and found very tentative, reluctant fish here that would respond only to a tedious tease/smoke type retrieve. The first 8 fish came hard, then, as the morning advanced, brightened, and got even windier, the fish loosened up a bit and I wound up catching 20 fish here and then leaving them biting during the “open window” of opportunity to find other fish-holding locations.

Moved to Area 158 and found nearly the exact same scenario as far as bait and depth. Caught 10 in no time and left them biting and moved again to seek out active fish.

Moved to Area 77 and caught another 10 whites in no time and concluded the scouting effort satisfied that there was a reliable abundance of bait and whites in this area.

TALLY = 41 FISH, all caught and released

Belton Lake Fishing Report by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a ½ day trip today from 6:30a to 2:30p with Doug and Paul F. of Belton and Friendswood respectively. Doug is a doctor at one of our local hospitals and his dad, Paul, is retired from the airline industry. They had some good stories to tell, especially the one about the life raft! We launched pre-dawn and noted abundant shad in the shallows both in and around the boat ramp and in the shallows around Area 153.

The winds turned and stayed NE overnight. This morning was cool and damp with lows in the low 60’s, heavily overcast skies and a light and dying NE wind at 8-10.

Our first stop was at Area 153. I was hoping the few remaining birds on the lake would give some indication as to fish whereabouts, but most of the birds I saw (Bonaparte Gulls) were simply patrolling and not feeding. We boated one small white bass here on a Gulp! Shaky Shad and moved on with little showing on the surface and on sonar.

We headed to Area 147 where we covered some ground going several hundred yards to the N and S of this area with downriggers in while searching with sonar. There were dribs and drabs of fish here and there, but nothing worth stopping to slab for. We put an additional 8 fish in the boat on Pet Spoons and moved.

At Area 154 we found fairly abundant schools of white bass, all on bottom in 22 to 25 feet of water at the minor breakline there. Once a fish was hooked by a traditional slabbing approach, schoolmates would follow it up off the bottom and remain active for a few seconds allowing another 1 or 2 fish to be hooked, then the cycle would have to start over again. On a few occasions suspended schools of whites would cruise through and we were able to hook up on these with a smoking technique. We wound up with 27 fish at this location before things petered out when the winds went nearly flat.

We gave drifting with live shad a try in slightly deeper 28-30 foot water in the vicinity of Area 156 with drift path the the NW toward Area 153 . This yielded 3 whites and as many “hit and misses” from small whites that just stripped down the shad.

We then headed to Area 155 and tried the live shad up shallower. This yielded 2 more white bass and as many “hit and misses” from small whites. The fish we graphed and/or caught were all on the high spots here.

We made one final move at around 12:00 noon over to Area 151/152 and, in the middle of the day, in flat calm conditions, and on the heels of a cold front’s passage proceeded to catch 69 fish in the next 2 to 2 ½ hours. The best 3 fish were hybrids going 3 lbs, 3.25 lbs, and 5.5 lbs. The rest of the fish were a mix of whites of all sizes and ~13 inch hybrids. All of these fish came on my customized TNT180’s in ¾ oz. Fish were all tight to the bottom in 41-45 feet of water at first, but then began to suspend throughout the bottom 15 feet of the water column as we caught fish after fish and they began disgorging their stomach contents.

TALLY = 110 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 Lake Fishing Report by Stillhouse Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished from 4:45p to 8:20p on a shad-netting and scouting trip this evening. This week has been unusually warm (highs in the mid 80’s) and windy. Today’s winds were up to 18 mph from the SSE with surface temps at 70-72. I was able to find shad pretty easily (54 shad in 6 throws and in 3-4 feet at Area 999, of which all but 2 were gizzards). I then backed off into 10-14 feet of water and was able to come up with 3 small white bass on a ½ oz. white blade bait. This area just didn’t feel like it was going to hold a lot of fish, so I moved on looking for concentrations of fish in deeper water.

Found nothing doing from Area 54 to Area 102.

Found abundant schooled white bass at Area 148 and used a straightforward slabbing approach to catch exactly 40 fish here, and then left them biting to find other active areas.

Found nothing doing at Areas 33, 88, 129, 124, and 125.

Made one final stop with about 40 minutes of daylight left at Area 149. The wind was coming right into this feature and the whites bass were piled onto the windward side of it. As I dropped a slab down the very first time, the fish rose up to meet it. I caught the largest fish first, a nice 16.25 inch white bass, followed by several 14-15 inch fish, then settled in and caught up a bunch of 11 inchers. The darker it got, the more prevalent suspended fish became up in the top 12 feet of the water column. By trip’s end, I’d added 35 more fish to the count at this location.

TALLY = 78 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

Fished a quick scouting trip this morning to see what the wind, heat and overcast skies have done to the fishing. I fished from 6:30am to 10:00am. At launch time the air temperature was 68F and the water temperature was 68.5 to 68.8F. The winds were slack the entire time with just a puff from the SW from time to time. I’m sure this lack of wind is what negatively impacted the fishing, as all other conditions (clear water, warming temps, and overcast sky) were ideal.

I spent the first hour or so just slowly cruising, occasionally stopping to look and listen for topwater action, but spotted nothing but rolling rough fish, and an occasional single, small largemouth bass chasing shad. The Bonaparte gulls were present at midlake, but they, too were patrolling and did not find schooling fish driving bait to the surface. As I moved about slowly, I kept a single downrigger ball in the water set at 20 feet with a small spoon trailing and got a small largemouth on that.

After concluding that topwater wasn’t going to happen this morning, I headed to a series of areas, starting shallow and working deeper, to see what I could find.

My first stop was in the vicinity of Area 116. I fished from 12 feet out to 21 feet here and encountered the best action at 17-18 feet on this slow slope. Small schooled white bass were holding here tight to the bottom and were very reluctant to chase. I downsized my ¼ oz. slab to a 1/8 oz. slab after repeatedly seeing their lack of reaction, and did better on that presentation. Wound up with exactly 20 fish here including 16 smallish whites, 2 small largemouth, and 2 crappie right at 11 inches each.

Made a final move to Area 102 and searched it with sonar. One high area showed promise, so I began slabbing and managed only one white here, albeit a nice 13.5 inch fish. I quit fishing at around 9:40 and experimented with a new size of drift sock in the little wind their was, and then headed in.

TALLY = 22 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

Fishing Report for Belton Lake by Belton Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished half day trips today in both the morning and the evening. The morning trip was on Belton Lake, the evening trip was on Stillhouse Hollow. Reports for each trip appear separately in the Fishing Reports Board.

Fished a half day morning trip on Belton Lake with retired first sergeant Mike L. of Killeen. Mike’s interests lie in trying to better understand the use and interpretation of sonar. He owns his own boat with sonar, but knew he was not getting the most out of it by just reading the owner’s manual and doing what it suggested.

We headed to Belton Lake as it is getting to be the time, based on water temperature, that the shad begin to spawn in the shallows, which, in turn brings gamefish up shallow, as well.

At the start of our trip, around 6:30am, the air temperature was 66F and the water surface temp. was a surprisingly cool 64.5F, following a cool snap that came in a week ago. The skies were heavy and grey, with a stiff SSW wind at 16mph building to around 20 mph by trip’s end at 11:30am.

Prior to sunrise, and before the birds lifted from the surface and began to work, we headed to Area 147 and found abundant smallish white bass and identically sized hybrids tight to the bottom and rather inactive on the slope. We began working slabs over these fish, and the activity level increased as the light and bird activity increased. We managed 14 fish here in the first 45 minutes, mainly via a smoking retrieve, but noted no significant bird activity in the area, and so looked around and spotted heavy bird uplake. Fishing with slabs allow Mike to see his presentation directly beneath the boat, and see how the fish responded to various jigging techniques. I showed him how I preferred to adjust the various settings (primarily depth and sensitivity) on my sonar unit, and we got to see plenty of individual fish, schools of fish, structure, and baitfish schools on electronics so he could leave with more confidence in interpreting signals on his own unit.

We next got into and stayed in heavy surface activity from both hybrids and white bass for approximately 3 hours in a stretch from Area 22 to Area 83, and about 300 yards out to the NW of these areas. During this time schooling activity would come and go, but it never completely stopped until about 10:30. Over this time of peak activity, we first cast Zara Spooks and did well on them, and later switched over to Storm Wild Eye Shad as the skies brightened a bit and the fish got shy on the topwater bite. We boated 59 fish here, with about 1/3 of them being legal hybrids, another 1/3 being solid 13-14 inch whites, and the balance made up of smaller whites and hybrids. In this situation, intentionally using large baits kept the smaller fish (which were present) off so that the larger fish could be singled out and caught.

Around the time that this action began to wane, the wind took a noticeable increase up to 20+ and made it more hassle than it was worth to control the boat.

We headed even further uplake and tried Areas 146 and 138 . We found nothing at Area, and managed 3 white bass and a short hybrid at Area 138. By 11:30 the morning feed was over and we packed it in.

TALLY = 77 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

Fishing Report for Lake Stillhouse by Lake Stillhouse Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished half day trips today in both the morning and the evening. The morning trip was on Belton Lake, the evening trip was on Stillhouse Hollow. Reports for each trip appear separately in the Fishing Reports Board.

Fished a half day evening trip on Stillhouse Hollow with restaurant owners Rodney and Sharon R. of Salado. This couple had moved to the area a short time ago and simply wanted to understand the lake and the fishery that lie in their backyard, and to unplug from the office, phone, and computer for a while. They had some infrequent saltwater fishing experiences in the Laguna Madre, and some live shad fishing experience in freshwater, and so came ready to brush off the cobwebs and learn some new techniques.

We launched at 3:15pm after I reviewed with them the essentials of vertical jigging with slab spoons at dockside. The air temp was a cool feeling 72 F due to the damp breeze, and the water surface temp was at 68F. We hit an area which really wasn’t showing a whole lot on sonar, but it gave them a chance to go through the vertical jigging process for real one time before we really got on fish. Once it appeared that they got the hang of things, we moved and looked for schools of whites on humps.

The wind posed a real challenge today. It blew 22mph+ with gusts up to 26. I chose to backtroll with the outboard instead of pull with the trolling motor, and that worked very well. We found ample fish strung between Area 145 and Area 77 and stayed on these fish for nearly 3 hours, bringing 68 fish over the gunnels. These fish consisted primarily of smallish keeper whites, with 3 going over 13.5 inches, as well as some pound-and-a-quarter drum and some smallish largemouth bass.

By 6:15 or so, the bite had died down here and we moved uplake to Area 100. Due to the heavy winds, there was noticeable siltiness to the water which never helps things. Although we marked fish on sonar in the right places, we only came up with a single largemouth landed here, and one missed at boatside.

By 6:45, the couple had totally relaxed and unwound and were just enjoying the change of pace. Sharon got the longing to see their baby boy before the sitter put him to bed, and so, with the sun getting low, the temperature dropping a bit, and 69 fish boated, they decided to call it a very good day, and we headed back to the dock, all happy campers.

TALLY = 69 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

Stillhouse Hollow Lake Fishing Report by Stillhouse Hollow Lake Fishing Guide Bob Maindelle

Fished a brief evening trip this evening from 5:15p to 8:20p just to stay in touch with the movement of the fish in this spring season.

One seasonal milestone to note: the Bonaparte gulls are present and were displaying their mating habits as they frolicked over open water today.

A cold front which began to move through the area 3 days ago has been reinforced with a “northwest flow” which has resulted in north winds, and clear, cool, cloudless conditions ever since. This morning’s low temperature was a record low for this date of 35F.

At launch time the air temp. was only 68 and the water surface temp had fallen to 68.5 from a recent high for the year thus far of 70.

Winds today were beginning to turn to the east and were E at 8 during the majority of the trip.

I was hoping to capture sonar images today in preparation for a March 2009 In-Fisherman magazine article on slabbing, and so searched with sonar looking for a concentration of fish.

Found little at Areas 54 and 107, but then moved to Area 102 and the sonar lit up.

I dropped a heavy slab down and got an immediate response and went through 28 fish, all white bass, in about as many minutes. I captured all the images I was hoping to, and then left that area to look for active fish elsewhere. I checked the spine at Area 78 and pulled one black crappie off of it. I also checked just to the northeast of Area 35 and got 1 small largemouth on topwater after seeing several small fish feeding on shad on the top. I returned to Area 102 and found the fish again right where I’d left them. Caught 45 more fish here bringing the trip tally to 75. Fished here until about 20 minutes prior to sunset and then moved over to Area 116 hoping for some shallow water white bass action. Caught only 1 small crappie and 1 small white bass on a blade bait and so moved over to Area 144 where I got one small largemouth bass just beyond sunset.

I packed it up and headed in at that point

TALLY = 78 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