Fishing Report | Holding The Line Guide Service

Tough, with a continued chance of tough — 17 July 2015, Stillhouse, 20 Fish

July 18th, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

This morning I was joined by father and son team Beau and Travis Nickel for an “instruction heavy” white bass fishing trip on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.

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Travis Nickel with the 2 largest white bass we took by downrigging this morning on Stillhouse Hollow.

Beau, the operations vice-president with Keith Ace Hardware in the Lorena area, contacted me a few weeks back wanted to do some fishing on the front end of a Belton Lake camping trip he and his family had planned out at Cedar Ridge. As we corresponded by email and spoke over the phone, Beau emphasized his desire to learn how to catch fish over catching fish, so he and Travis could go out in the family boat and be more consistent. Travis, aged 16, is a quiet, hard-working kid. He mows lawns, does odd-jobs on a 400 acre farm for his boss, and works for that same boss at a local pharmacy where Travis makes home deliveries as a service to the community. As I introduced Beau and Travis to the various pieces of equipment on the boat, Beau would ask how much these items cost, and would then divide that cost by the price Travis charges per lawn so as to present the cost in a tangible for to his son. For example, a $180 manually operated downrigger divided by $25 per lawn = 7+ lawns.

Fishing continued to be really tough and sporadic. I thought we had an improving trend headed our way as the releases at Stillhouse have slowed to a trickle, as last Friday’s trip saw an uptick in my white bass catch, as some topwater action was witnessed on Saturday during a sonar training session, and as both high pressure and a new moon dominated the skies. In addition to this, I received very credible reports of topwater action on Belton from two friends early this week. Things were really looking good. On Thursday, I conducted yet another sonar training session on Belton beginning around 6:30am, and, thanks to the cooperation of the fellow I was training, got to use that as a bit of a scouting trip to determine if I’d be fishing Belton or Stillhouse with Beau and Travis.

Around 8p Thursday I made the call to head to Stillhouse based on the fact that I only saw 3 very briefly appearing schools of surface feeding white bass/hybrid stripers in 3.5+ hours on Belton Thursday, and no sustained topwater action around sunrise. Additionally, the winds were supposed to be 9-11 at sunrise, which would make it tough to spot surface feeding fish even if they were there on Belton. For these reasons, I went with Stillhouse.

As we met at Stillhouse at 6:30am, the first part of the instruction was to show Beau and Travis my technique for catching sunfish in shallow cover using bream poles and slipfloats. They caught onto this very quickly including some of the fine points about how best to set the hook, how to use the wind to your advantage for bait placement, and how to bait the hook for a good strike to land ratio. We put 14 fish in the boat in short order, including bluegill, longear sunfish, and blacktail shiners, and retained these for use a livebait for largemouth bass later in the trip. I pointed out that if they chose to pursue hybrid on Belton and could not find shad, or simply did not want to put the effort into collecting shad, that this approach can serve as an alternative to those high-maintenance fish, especially in the heat and/or if a specialized shad tank was not a part of the boat’s equipment.

Next, we headed out to open water where I gave an overview on sonar. Since Beau’s NauticStar center-console is equipped with a Humminbird, I ran my Humminbird 1199 and my Lowrance HDS-12 Gen3 side-by-side so he could observe the difference in resolution between the two. We covered how the sonar works, how sensitivity and colorline adjustments impact the readings on the screen, and we identified bait, gamefish, bottom, the downrigger ball, and the developing thermocline. As we downrigged at the first location, gamefish were in short supply — we managed only 2 juvenile largemouth bass — one on each umbrella rig.

We covered four different areas with the downriggers, seeing bait at all locations, but precious little in the way of gamefish. We made a stop in the vicinity of Area 401/402 and encountered some scattered white bass at 21-23 feet deep over a deeper bottom in open water and worked these over for all it was worth, coming up with the only 4 white bass of the entire trip in that vicinity, consisting of 2 singles and 1 double that came as our baits went through the only solid school of fish we witnessed on sonar all morning — a large, suspended school of about 80-120 fish. I backtracked over our GPS “snail trail” and turned on the Humminbird 360 Imaging after we found that school to try to maintain contact with it, but to no avail.

During the entire morning we saw occasional fish breaking the surface chasing after shad, but never any sustained action in terms of either time or location. The fish continue to be scattered and suspended with pods of baitfish just everywhere from just below the surface down to around 30 feet.

Next, we shifted gears and I introduced Beau and Travis to my style of livebait fishing with linecounter reels as the centerpiece of this effort. We found a few gamefish signatures on a hump topping out in 23′ of water and put some sunfish and blacktail baits down among them. We “jogged” a few boatlengths/boatwidths to cover this area well, but only had 2 attempts on our baits with no serious pulldowns and no fish landed.

We attempted downrigging at several more locations, extending the trip an extra 1.25 hours, but did not add any finny creatures to our count despite the extra effort.

We ended the day with 20 (mostly small) fish landed, but, only 4 of those were the white bass that I had planned to be the lion’s share of our action this morning. In that, it was a bit frustrating, but, Beau really appreciated the detailed explanations I gave as to how and why I did things. After the trip I actually had them follow me back to my home and I supplied them with what they needed to rig up bream poles of their own using some Shakespeare Wonderpoles I had on hand.

For their upcoming week on Belton, I suggested looking early and late for topwater feeding fish, and, to this end also supplied them with some small, shad-imitating baits that would cast well on light spinning outfits in order to help them take full advantage of any topwater action they discovered.

TALLY = 20 FISH (including 4 white bass)

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 86.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: S9-13

Sky Conditions: 5% cloud cover.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.06 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 622.54 above sea level, with 622.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 40

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 239 (sunfish on bream rods)

**Area 207 (juvenile black bass on downriggers)

**Area 401/402 (white bass on downriggers)

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Fishing and Facebook keep Ft. Hood family connected — 39 Fish, 10 July 2015

July 12th, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

This past Thursday, Mrs. Nicole Tyra and her five-year-old son, Cadyn, joined me for a morning of fishing on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.
Due to his young age, I wanted to gauge Cadyn’s manual dexterity and ability to follow directions before we began our trip so I would know what he could and could not do as our adventure unfolded. To do this, I placed a nine-foot bream pole, which is not equipped with a reel, in his hands and gave him some basic instructions about what to do when a fish grabbed the baited hook and pulled his float beneath the surface.
Cadyn did really well. So well, in fact, that in under 5 minutes he had already boated two longear sunfish and a blacktail shiner. As we were working on catching Cadyn’s fourth fish, I overheard his mom, who was in the rear of the boat, say, “Honey, watch this. Cadyn’s catching fish and he’s doing so good!”.

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To my amazement, Cadyn’s father, U.S. Army Specialist Nick Tyra, was watching his son fish in real time from his post in South Korea where he was just wrapping up the day we were just beginning. He did all of this via his wife’s Samsung cellular phone.
Tyra encouraged and praised his son for his accomplishments, got to view a few of the fish we’d placed in the livewell, and then bid his family farewell, but not before “posing” for a photo with the rest of his family as Cadyn proudly displayed one of his fish.
Specialist Tyra is one of a large contingent from Fort Hood’s 1st Cavalry Division now deployed to South Korea. Tyra, a tracked vehicle mechanic originally from Indiana, has been in the Army since 2010.
Using a technology offered through Facebook called “Messenger”, Tyra is able to keep up with his family of five, which also includes two younger children, two-year-old Bentley, and eight-month-old Carson.
During their “date”, mother and son were able to enjoy the outdoors together while Mrs. Tyra’s father, visiting from Arizona, babysat her younger two children. Tyra cheered her son on in landing a total of 39 fish and one turtle. Cadyn was introduced to bait fishing, downrigger fishing, and fishing with a spinning outfit. For his efforts, he landed a total of 7 species of fish including white bass, bluegill sunfish, longear sunfish, freshwater drum, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and blacktail shiners.
As we parted ways in the parking lot following our fishing trip, Cadyn hugged my leg and a very grateful mom thanked me for offering this opportunity to her and other Army families.

Shootin’ You Straight — 4 Fish, Stillhouse, 09 July 2015

July 9th, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

This morning I was joined by returning guest Ray Johnson, a retired U.S. Navy flight surgeon now living here in Central Texas with his wife, Linda.

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Retired United States Navy flight surgeon Ray Johnson with the largest of the white bass we took by downrigging this morning on Stillhouse Hollow.

I let Ray know ahead of time that the fishing was slow, and slow it was. We never caught more than a single fish at any of the 10 areas we tried. and 6 of those areas failed to produce, despite solid sonar returns revealing at least a few white bass at 9 of these 10 areas.

The fish we caught all came on downrigged bait fished at 22-28 feet deep, approximately 2-3 feet above the fish we observed on sonar. Although the exact depth varied from place to place, at each location we fished the fish we saw on sonar were all holding in a 2-3 foot deep horizontal band between top and bottom and typically showed only in small packs of 2-5 fish — not the larger 30-50 fish schools common for this season.

Those of you who have fished with me know I’m a stickler for details, including exactly how many fish are caught on your trip. To that end, I have a “clicker” I use to track exactly how many fish come over the side — there is no “about”, “around”, or “nearly” used in my reports. So, when I tell you we caught 204, you can know we caught exactly 204. And, like today, when we caught just 4 fish, that, too is accurate. I post it all, good or bad, so you can know what your are in for, how the fishing is trending, and whether we are on the kind of fish you like using the techniques you like, or not. To me it is a credibility issue that I feel I owe to you, my clients.

There is no other way to put it — fishing is just tough right now. As I try to put my finger on it, I know what differences I am observing right now versus a “normal” summer. Those differences are: 1) murky, brown water caused by flood waters making vegetation (both shoreline and deep hydrilla) rot versus clear, green water of typical years, 2) an abundance of small, 3/4″ long baitfish all over the lake, now found at 21-27 feet deep, and 3) relatively cool water for this point in the season — we were at just 82.9F today near noon, but typically see 85-87F water by now. I’ve also made observations about the fish … 1) the white bass are very scattered and suspended, 2) in the last 4 weeks I have not encountered any white bass congregated on or feeding near the bottom, 3) in what is normally peak topwater season, almost no topwater feeding has been observed so far this summer season, and 4) there seems to be far fewer fish using the deep, main basin of Stillhouse where a majority of summertime activity usually takes place.

I take this as a challenge and a puzzle to be solved, not a problem to fret over. I continue to try different areas, different presentations, different lure combinations, and will eventually fine tune things to maximize the catch as the lake continues to settle, clear, and stabilize.

And that’s the way it was…

TALLY = 4 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp: 82.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: S11-14

Sky Conditions: 70% cloud cover.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.09 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 623.21 above sea level, with 622.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 207

**Area 040

**Area 1431

** Area 1428

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

SKIFF Trip #6 of the 2015 Season — The Darsam Boys

July 8th, 2015July 8th, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

This morning I conducted the sixth SKIFF trip of the 2015 season, taking Evan (age 10) and Johnny (age 8) Darsam, accompanied by their Uncle James, out on Stillhouse Hollow for a morning of fishing.

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From left: Johnny Darsam, Uncle James, and Evan Darsam with the best of the bunch of fish we caught today on a combination of downrigging in open water and slipfloat fishing in shallow water.

SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service, thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S. All it takes is a phone call from a parent to me at 254-368-7411 to reserve a date.

With their father just recently deployed near the end of the school year, the boys’ mom, Jenn Darsam, decided to take advantage of every summertime program she could find in order to fill the boys’ schedule so none of them had time to sit around and sulk and dwell on dad’s absence.

We enjoyed 45 minutes of solid white bass action on downriggers worked over 35 feet of water until this area dried up on us. We looked over another open water area for white bass and found little there. To avoid any long fishless spells, I opted at this point to break out the bream poles, and we went to work up shallow catching sunfish on livebait under slipfloats. Later, we gave largemouth bass fishing a try on livebait over deep hydrilla, but struck out on that. We wrapped up with one more unsuccessful shot at downrigging for whites bass, and, in order to end on a strong note, finished up shallow in pursued of the ever-willing bluegill.

The boys boated exactly 37 fish today.

TALLY = 37 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp: 83.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW11-14

Sky Conditions: 80% cloud cover.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.08 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 623.29 above sea level, with 622.00 being full pool

Other: GT= 0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1570 downrigging white bass

**Area 515 shallow sunfish

**Area 1265 shallow sunfish

** Area 200 shallow sunfish

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Making Memories — Millican Party, Stillhouse, 03 July 2015, 37 Fish

July 3rd, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

This morning I welcomed aboard Mr. James Millican and his sons, 7-year-old Thomas and 6 -year-old Matthew. Megan Millican (mom) was also supposed to join us, but succumbed to a bad case of poison ivy and opted to stay out of the sun and heat. So, it was “just us boys” enjoying the trip Megan presented to James back on Valentine’s Day this year as a gift certificate.

Thomas (left) made some memories today for everyone with the 20+ pound monster smallmouth buffalo he landed with no small amount of effort.

Despite pretty tough conditions, a few white bass still cooperated for us, allowing everyone to hookup on these sporty, line-sided fish of open water. From left: Thomas, James, and Matthew.

Fishing is still very much “off” versus the normally stable, predictable, consistent fishing that Stillhouse typically affords in the summer months. The water is definitely off-color, having a tea-like brownish cast to it caused by decaying vegetable matter instead of the clear green cast it normally has. White bass seem not to be using the bottom much at all — I suspect this is because much of the bottom they would normally occupy at this point in the season (25 to 35′) still has remnants of dying hydrilla on it. This hydrilla died as a result of the rising water leaving it growing too deep for sunlight to reach.

So, scattered, suspended fish are the norm, and also quite apparent is the abundance of young-of-the-year shad present. The flooding had flushed ample food into the lake for all newly hatched fish, and has offered shallow cover which enhances survivability of cover-loving species like largemouth and sunfish.

Since the fish are scattered and suspended, downrigging is the go-to option, allowing consistent, efficient coverage of the horizontal band of water the fish are using. Today, that band was 21-24′ below the surface over deeper bottoms ranging from 37-50 feet.

We began our day downrigging and, within minutes had both rods bent, allowing both Thomas and Matthew an opportunity to put into practice the “theory” we’d discussed at the dock about how to use the equipment. Not long after this twin hookup, Matthew brought in a single and Thomas countered with a double (2 fish on 1 rod at the same time). Despite seeing abundant fish life on sonar, the fish were relatively inactive — a result, I suspect, of the abundance of natural forage in the area.

Seeing a change of pace was in order, we left the downrigging behind and headed to shallow, protected water and targeted sunfish using slipfloats and live bait. The boys wore out the sunfish population bringing both bluegill sunfish and green sunfish as well as a single juvenile largemouth bass into the boat on their poles.

I appreciated that James showed up with a great, fatherly mindset of being there to help me help the boys versus being there to catch a bunch of fish of his own. This allowed me to focus on the boys’ success and to be on the lookout for opportunities for him to come alongside his sons and enjoy some real highlights. The highlight of the day, by my estimation, came around 9:50am.

We decided we’d leave the successful panfishing behind and head back out to open water where we’d previously encountered abundant, but reluctant, white bass. As we idled into the area, sonar looked good, again showing both bait and suspended gamefish around 24 feet. We got our downriggers in and both boys landed an additional white bass right off the bat. Then it happened … as we reset our rigs and trolled another 50 yards or so, Thomas’ rod sprung up, indicating a fish large enough to pull the line out of the downrigger release clip on its own accord had struck. The rod looked like it was going to be ripped right out of the downrigger’s rodholder before we got our hands on it and began to fight the fish. Several minutes (literally) passed as Thomas battled the big fish, during which time I maneuvered the boat with both the outboard and trolling motor to keep us from blowing aground thanks to the wind now blowing at around 13mph.

James helped move equipment out of the way to keep the fish from contacting anything abrasive, and he also made ready with the net. Finally, we saw “color” off the port gunnel and there it was — a smallmouth buffalo nearly too big to fit in my net. In fact, as James scooped the fish with the handle of the net, I grabbed the front rim for extra support due to the fish’s weight and size. My 15 pound BogaGrip scale maxed out, but, I estimated the fish’s weight at about 23 pounds. Towards the end of the trip James and I both agreed that catching a fish so big while being so young had the potential to spoil a kid!!

When all was said and done, we wound up boating a total of 37 fish today. As we beach the boat, I called out to another long-time Stillhouse angler who is very good at finding and catching both black bass and white bass. He zeroed today, confirming my observations of how mixed up the ecosystem on Stillhouse is right now.

TALLY = 37 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 84.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: S7 increasing to S13 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: 60% cloud cover in the first hour, steadily decreasing to 30%

Note: Stillhouse is at 623.75 and is being held steady due to the need to drain water off of other Brazo River reservoirs

Other: GT=50

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1570 downrigging for white bass

**Area 189 for sunfish

**Area 1430/1435 downrigging for white bass

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Back in the Saddle Again — 40 Fish, Stillhouse, 02 July 2015

July 2nd, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

After returning from our week-long 20th wedding anniversary trip to Maine, I got back on the water Tuesday morning to do some scouting in advance of a host of trips now scheduled for the balance of July. This morning I conducted the first of those trips, a Ft. Hood SKIES program trip with 10-year-old Gweneth Marroquin of Killeen.

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This was Gweneth’s largest fish of the trip, a nice 13.75″ white bass that fell for a 3 armed umbrella rig equipped with Pet Spoons. This was one of a 2-fish “double” in which Gweneth landed 2 fish one one rod at the same time..

I don’t want to reveal too much, as Gweneth should be featured in my Killeen Daily Herald column this coming Sunday, 05 July, but, she did really well, landing exactly 40 fish in her 4 hours on the water, including 7 species of fish. We were primarily downrigging for white bass and fishing slipfloats up shallow for panfish.

TALLY = 40 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 84.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: S11 increasing to S14 by trip’s end

Sky Conditions: 80% cloud cover in the first hour, steadily decreasing to 40%

Note: Stillhouse is at 623.82 and is being held steady due to the need to drain water off of other Brazo River reservoirs

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 239 for sunfish

**Area 1570 downrigging for white bass

**Area 876 downrigging for white bass

**Area 189 for sunfish

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Scattered & Suspended — 24 Fish, Stillhouse, 13 June 2015

June 13th, 2015June 13th, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

This morning I fished with 3 fellows who were all buddies from their high school days — brothers Jordan and Luke Miller, and Dave Garrell.

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Friends since school days — from left, Jordan Miller, Luke Miller, and David Garrell shared a morning on the water in pursuit of Stillhouse Hollow white bass.

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Jordan with an unusually large bluegill for Stillhouse Hollow, and the largest he had ever landed in a lifetime of fishing. This big boy measured 8.50 inches and slammed a downrigged Pet Spoon.

As Jordan called to schedule this morning’s trip, I tried to shoot him as straight as I could, being clear that the fishing is very tough thanks to scattered, suspended fish which have been put off of their normal early summer habits due to the recent flooding and ongoing release of water from the dam on Stillhouse. He appreciated the candor and was looking forward to the trip regardless of the slow fishing.

We met up at 6:45am (a bit later than normal due to the forecast for heavy overcast conditions) and launched out in search of fish. I first found abundant bait in the upper 15 feet of the water column in the vicinity of Area 1184-175, mixed with the occasional gamefish signature. With no topwater action showing whatsoever, and what gamefish we were seeing being both scattered and suspended, we went directly to a downrigging approach and, in the first 70 minutes of the trip, boated 12 white bass and 1 largemouth. we were using umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons.

We then experienced a bit of a lull, which was broken when the sun began to shine through the diminishing cloud cover as we arrived at and began to fish deeper, at around 24-28 feet over a 35-45 foot bottom in the vicinity of Area 1440-1436. We added another half-dozen fish to the count at this location before having to head back to drop Dave off for his 4 year old daughter’s dance recital, complete with a daddy-daughter dance.

Jordan, Luke, and I then headed back out and once again located more scattered, suspended fish in the vicinity of Area 124. We added a freshwater drum, a bull bluegill sunfish, and 4 more white bass to our count before calling it a day at the 5 hour mark, around 11:45am.

I am very hopeful that this coming week’s forecast closure of the floodgates on Stillhouse will bring on much improvement in the fishery.

TALLY = 24 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 8:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 84F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE9-12

Sky Conditions: 80% cloud cover with light drizzle in the first hour’

Note: Stillhouse is at 622.49 and dropping

Other: GT=70

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1184-175

**Area 1440-1436

**Area 124

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Fort Hood SKIES Program Fishing Trip — 23 Fish with Evan & Johnny

June 12th, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

This morning I fished with 10-year-old Evan Darsam and his brother, 8-year-old Johnny Darsam, of Ft. Hood.

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This big channel catfish required a little brotherly teamwork to get in the boat. Great job Evan and Johnny!!

Evan and Johnny are the eldest two sons of U.S. Army Specialist Mattew Darsam and his wife, Jennifer. The boys woke up at 5am this morning and met me at 6:15am for a 6:30 trip start time on Stillhouse Hollow. We waved goodbye to mom and little brother and got right down to business with a brief talk about safety and then a short introduction to the equipment we’d be using today.

While the boys were stationed at Ft. Stewart, GA, they fished unsuccessfully on the Savannah River, so, we had a pair of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department “First Fish Awards” at stake today. The boys had also never been in a boat before.

To allow for some instant gratification, I chose to pursue sunfish with bream poles to start off our morning. This turned out to be a great choice as the boys really liked it and stayed engaged in pursuing sunfish for about 2 1/2 hours, which was longer than I thought that would keep their attention. Indeed, Johnny caught his first fish, a blacktail shiner, and Even caught his first fish, a bluegill sunfish, within 15 minutes of being on the water. Both went on to catch several more bluegill sunfish and green sunfish.

After the novelty of sunfishing wore off, we set out in pursuit of larger quarry — the white bass. For this hunt, we used umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons on downrigging gear to present these small baits at between 27 and 31 feet down where we found these fish suspended and scattered using sonar equipment.

Johnny’s rod was lucky and he wound up catching a white bass first, but, not to be outdone by his little brother, Evan bounced right back and landed a double — two fish on one rod at the same time. Somewhere in there the boys also landed our largest fish of the trip, a nice 3.5 pound channel cat.

This fishing trip was conducted as part of the Ft. Hood SKIES Program. SKIES stands for Schools of Knowledge, Inspiration, Exploration, and Skills and falls under the larger banner of the Army’s Children, Youth, and Students Services (CYSS). It took a good bit of work to become qualified to conduct such trips, including a lengthy background investigation, providing proof of liability insurance, and going to CPR, First Aid, and Child Abuse Awareness classes, etc., but now with all that behind me, I’m looking forward to focusing on the fishing.

TALLY = 23 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:20a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 77F

Water Surface Temp: 84F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW9-13

Sky Conditions: 80% cloud cover.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.14 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 622.49 above sea level, with 622.00 being full pool. Gates expected to shut early/mid next week

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1258

**Area 200

**Area 1440

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Make It Happen, Cap’n!! — 28 Fish, Stillhouse, 11 June 2015

June 11th, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

This morning I fished a father-and-son trip with Mr. Joey Rogers and his son, Coleman, on Stillhouse Hollow in pursuit of white bass.

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Under tough, rapidly falling water conditions, Joey and Coleman Rogers were able to downrig a nice catch of 28 white bass on Stillhouse this morning.

Coleman was given a fishing gift certificate by his mom this past Christmas and decided to cash it in in conjunction with his dad’s visit to central Texas from Utah, where he works and resides. Coleman, who has fished with me a few times since he was in middle school, just graduated from high school and has his sights set on attending Colorado University to study computer science.

Fishing continues to be tough as the Corps of Engineers continues to let water out of the reservoir working to get it back to full pool after recent minor flooding. In a recent conversation with USACE Lake Manager Ronnie Bruggman, the Corps expects to shut the gates sometime next week, barring anymore rain.

Fish are scattered and suspended, hence, we fished the entire trip with downriggers set from 25 to 32 feet deep with umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoon behind the downrigger balls to land every last fish we landed this morning.

The first hour of the day was very slow under bright, near-calm conditions. As the breeze and cloud cover increased, the bite escalated right along with it. Our peak period of success came from 9a to 10a, when we took our tally from just 6 fish up to 24 fish. The last hour of downrigging kicked in just four more fish as the morning bite tapered off.

One nice thing about downrigging is that for those who prefer to make their fishing trip more social, this technique allows for that. Coleman definitely coveted this time with his dad, and we all got to chip in some good fishing stories. I believe Joey’s took the cake — he described how two “city slicker” with a big, fast ski boat plopped their boat in the water inside the no-wake zone and, once the tow vehicle driver returned to the boat, prepared to water ski. The driver tossed a ski rope to his buddy who was now in the water with skis, and shouted to him, “Ski King, are you ready?!?”. The skier shouted back, “Make it happen, Cap’n!!!”, at which time the driver gunned it and pulled the skier up on plane. Moments later the game wardens patroliing the no-wake zone pulled King and Cap’n over to issue citations!!

By the end of our trip we’d put together a catch of exactly 28 white bass and had a lot of fun doing it. I even got a good recommendation on a BBQ joint down in Austin!

TALLY = 28 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:20a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Water Surface Temp: 84F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW2 until 9am, then increasing swiftly to SSW13

Sky Conditions: 30% cloud cover.

Note: Lake has dropped 0.13 feet in the last 24 hours and now stands at 622.59 above sea level, with 622.00 being full pool. Gates expected to shut early/mid next week

Other: GT=0

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 650-858

**Area 208-454

**Area 1569-458

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

First Fish Triple-Header — 18 Fish, Paton Family

June 10th, 2015June 12th, 2015 by Bob Maindelle

Last week I got a call from Tony Paton of McKinney, TX. He and his wife and family were planning a bit of vacation time at a cabin near Lake Georgetown and asked if I could take them on a guided trip during their stay. Due to recent flooding on Georgetown, and subsequent, ongoing release of water there, my preference was to bring them to Stillhouse, which they agreed to.

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As the sun began to set and the afternoon heat let up, the white bass began to feed, allowing all the kids to cash in on some fish larger than the sunfish we started out with. From left front, Sarah, Sam, and James; Cathryn standing behind.

As our big adventure began, mom (Cathryn) and the 3 kids actually made the trip, with Cathryn chaperoning and Sarah (age 10), James (a twin, age 10), and Sam (age 11) intending to do all of the fishing.

The kids had never landed a fish before in their lives, so, that was challenge #1. We started with the basics, using bream poles and bait to land everyone their first fish — a sunfish — and then we progressed on from there.

Since this was an afternoon trip, many of the quiet places where sunfish like to roam were also pretty windless and hot, so, once we got the First Fish Award requirements nailed down, we headed out to open water and spent the remainder of our time in pursuit of the scattered, suspended white bass that have made up the majority of the catch on recent trips since the flooding.

When all was said and done we were able to land not only a number of white bass, but a freshwater drum and a largemouth bass, as well. The kids enjoyed seeing and learning about the variety of species in the lake and their habits.

TALLY = 18 FISH, all caught and released

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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:30p

End Time: 8:45p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 91F

Water Surface Temp: 85F

Wind Speed & Direction: SE6-8

Sky Conditions: 20% cloud cover.

Note: Lake is still dropping .2 to .3 feet per day. Gates expected to shut early/mid next week

Other: GT=15

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 189

**Area 1436-458

**Area 208-454

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Salado, TX

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com