If you are a regular blog follower, you’ll know there was an unusual 4+ week gap between my last post and this one. That’s because I received a very special gift for Christmas: Rotator Cuff Surgery!! Too much fishing, I guess?!? Well, the good Dr. Lichota at Scott and White cleared me to shift my standard transmission and do “routine movements”. Since I’ve fished for 42.5 of my 43 years of life, I assume fishing is a routine movement and therefore conducted my first trip of the year today on Stillhouse.

I welcomed John, Kelly, and Matthew M. of Temple, TX, back aboard for an “incentive-follow through” trip for Matthew from his mom and dad for maintaining grades and generally flying straight.

Everybody caught lots of fish today after the winds picked up steady and constant from the NNW as a mild, dry front blew in today.

This fish of Matthew’s just couldn’t hold any more shad; his little belly was tightly packed and these two shad were burped up as we unhooked him.

One of Matthew’s reward for playing by the rules of the house.

We met at 7:30 (sunrise) and got on a few fish right away along and down in the belly of the channel at Area 746/754 via vertical jigging as the winds were from the SW. We picked up 5 white bass and 1 largemouth here, all on vertically jigged 3/8 oz. white TNT180’s. About 40 minutes into the trip the winds went slack, then turned N, then went slack, then turned back NW, and then finally came NNW once and for all as a mild, dry front pushed through. This vacillating wind put a damper on the fishing for about an hour and a half, but, after that NNW took over and blew steadily for 20 or 30 minutes, things settled down and the fish went on a significant feed.

By this time, I’d moved us on to another part of the lake as we searched for some bird activity. I spotted some birds working over the trough between Areas 914 & 862 and as we eased into this area sonar just lit up with both fish and bait.

For the next 90+ minutes we used a modified “smoking” technique to target both bottom-oriented and suspended fish using white 3/4 oz. TNT180 slabs. The fish here were solid 13-14 inch fish on average and were all just stuffed full of shad around 2″ in length. Most fishes’ bellies were tight and “football” like given how stuffed full of shad they were. Several fish regurgitated shad at or in the boat as we unhooked them.

By around 11:15 the action was on a downhill slide so, we gave downrigging a try to attempt to keep our baits in front of the few still-active fish suspended up off the bottom. We boated 2 singles on a pair of tandem-rigged Pet Spoons down around 47-52 feet, and, for a grand finale, Matthew managed to land a double (two fish on the same rod at the same time).

In all, we landed 72 fish today, including 2 largemouth bass, 1 drum, and 69 white bass.

TALLY = 72 Fish

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 12:00 noon

Air Temp: 43F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 51.5F

Wind: NNW8-9.

Skies: Fair, clearing to clear.

Tough fishing today!

Despite high winds in conjunction with a stiff cold front’s arrival, we persisted and put a few white bass in the boat today, all on slabs from out of about 27-29′ of water.

I was joined by long-time clients Jim and Shena S. from Austin, TX. We were all in a bit of a scheduling crunch which, long story short, put us in the path of a significant cold front as we tried our hand at boating some white bass today. Jim and Shena had school responsibilities right up until Tuesday with holiday travel planned thereafter. I was hemmed in prior to our trip with pre-op medical appointments in advance of my upcoming rotator cuff surgery through Wednesday, and then faced the surgery afterwards on Friday. So, we let schedules dictate our fishing time instead of allowing weather to do so and this showed in our results as we wound up fishing on this less than ideal Thursday.

I was confident we could catch a few fish as this was still a dry front (hard, wet cold fronts are killers and demand a postponement) so, after talking things over with Jim the night before, we decided to go. You know the old saying, ” A bad day of fishing …”.

It was a blustery day with winds at 18 gusting higher as we launched around 1:30pm. The cold front had arrived hours earlier, the winds had peaked at 22-24 around 11a and were ever so slowly slacking off. The temperatures hadn’t dropped nearly as far as they would in the clear overnight hours, but, it was definitely NOT balmy, either!

Due to the high winds, we were limited to fishing the upper lake of Stillhouse Hollow as boat control in the more exposed lower end would have been an impossibility. We found exactly 3 populations of fish to fish for today and there was some commonality in the locations. All 3 were on the high points of small, open-water flats in 27-29 feet of water, all were tight to the bottom, and all were very sluggish, feeding only for a short while after we initially made contact.

Small and slow are the keys to sluggish fish, so, we geared up with 3/8 oz. slabs (TNT180’s in white) and made intentionally prolonged pauses in our jigging strokes to give fish ample opportunity to get to and inhale our baits.

We connected with fish at Areas 1154, 334, and 1156. I kept a close watch on sonar, especially when Jim and Shena were reeling in hooked fish to see what other commotion this produced. Each time it was much the same — just a few (3-4) schoolmates would pull a foot or two up off bottom out of curiosity, but then settled right back down.

By 4:30pm the winds had knocked down to 16+ mph or so and so I headed as far downlake as I dared. I got to look over two deep humps I hoped were somewhat insulated from the changing conditions, but they were clean — not even holding bait.

We gave downrigging a try at mid-lake as the light began to fail trying to cover a lot of water quickly in hopes of connecting with a few “high riders” using the light up near the surface to feed, but, that didn’t work, either.

We ended our trip with 19 fish boated and look forward to better weather and better results on our next outing when Jim and Shena’s schedules next relent.

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 1:30pm

End Time: 6:00pm

Air Temp: 47F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 52F

Wind: NNW16-18+.

Skies: Clear.