BOB MAINDELLE: Boat ramps open at Stillhouse; hydrilla wiped out
After being closed for more than six weeks due to flooding, the four-lane Union Grove boat ramp at Stillhouse Hollow Lake reopened on Sunday, July 7. Shortly thereafter, on Friday, the four-lane boat ramp at Stillhouse Park reopened as well.
Union Grove was the last of the five public boat ramps to close on Stillhouse, due to its slightly greater elevation. That took place on May 22 as the Lampasas River brought runoff into the
reservoir much more quickly than could be released through the dam.
On the date of that closure, the elevation of the reservoir was 10.13 feet above normal. The lake would go on to rise to a peak of 15.95 feet above normal on May 25 before starting to slowly recede as the rainy spring weather pattern gave way to hotter, dryer summertime conditions.
All told, the reservoir rose an amazing 32 feet over a short period, going from 16.25 feet low on April 7 to nearly 16 feet high by May 25.
I ventured back out on the lake to conduct my first guided trip there since May 22 on Wednesday.
I welcomed 18 Colton Carlile aboard for a four-hour morning trip targeting white bass.
Try as he might, Carlile, after at least 20 solo attempts at catching a fish, primarily from the shoreline at Sammons Park in Temple, had yet to catch the first fish of his life.
Carlile’s grandmother, Candy Carlile, treated Colton to a guided trip with me in celebration of his 18th birthday.
I arrived about 30 minutes early to prepare the boat for his arrival.
Having fished this body of water for 32 years now, I have a pretty good sense for what the lake’s normal condition is. So, abnormalities tend to really jump out at me.
Those abnormalities I immediately recognized were: 1) the color of the water was abnormal, appearing like that of dark green tea, 2) there was a foul odor of rotting vegetation present, 3) there was an abundance of flies present, and 4) I found the hydrilla had been nearly completely wiped out.
This last observation is the most significant, as it is that hydrilla which, after 20 years of slow but steady spread over the entire reservoir, helped boost the number and size of the lake’s largemouth bass population to the best it has ever been in 2023 and into the spring of 2024.
Now, isolated wood and rock cover, and the sparse terrestrial vegetation which was growing on land until the recent flooding covered it, are all the largemouth bass will have to gravitate to, much the way it was from the mid-1990s and earlier, before hydrilla took hold in the lake.
Although the hydrilla will certainly return, it will be a lengthy process measured in years.
As Colton and I got going, we got to know each other a bit as we headed out to the first fishing area of the morning. Having just graduated from Lake Belton High School, Colton is soon to head off to basic training with the United States Air Force in San Antonio.
Having already earned his pilot’s license, Colton desires to eventually fly tactical aircraft.
This first trip back on Stillhouse was much like my first trip back on Belton Lake the previous week. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was still flushing a lot of water through the dam, and I saw a horizontal band of life from 30 to 35 feet down with most of the gamefish and shad I saw all morning positioned there.
Colton and I worked downriggers to find fish, then stopped when we encountered a concentration of fish, in order to take advantage of what we had found.
I used three- and four-armed umbrella rigs equipped with small Pet Spoons on the downriggers and we used MAL Dense Lures with silver bodies to fish vertically once we located concentrations of fish.
Fishing was tough, just as it was over at Belton, and our catch was below average, even for the summer, but even that was exponentially more productive than that which Colton had experienced previously, so he was quite happy with the results.
Over the course of the morning, we landed a total of 16 fish, including three legal largemouth bass up to 3.75 pounds, and 13 white bass, of which 12 were of legal size.
As both Stillhouse and Belton continue to fall back to normal levels, the amount of water USACE is releasing will slowly decrease. Once the flow is reduced, a new normal will exist which the fish will
quickly adapt to, and fishing will become more consistent.
