CAT HERDING — 70 FISH @ STILLHOUSE

WHO I FISHED WITH: This past Saturday morning, August 1st, I fished with a boatload of boys from Georgetown, TX.  Joining me were Luke and Liam Shinners (twin 9-year-olds), and Cooper Wankerl.  Luke and Liam were chaperoned by their dad, Brian, and Cooper was joined by his grandfather, Steve Murphy, who first fished with me last fall when treating an old high school buddy to some time in the outdoors. Steve and Brian are neighbors, and since the boys are all about the same age, they thought a fishing trip might be fun while Cooper was in town visiting for the summer. With the boys all being the same age, and all being buddies, plus the novelty of a boat ride and the anticipation of catching fish, the boys had a bit of sensory overload going on.  To say they were distracted from time to time would be an understatement.  A couple times I looked up at Steve who was smiling and shaking his head, silently wondering how I was maintaining sanity enough to actually help these three young guys consistently put fish in the boat.  The old cliche about herding cats was definitely appropriate here. Nonetheless, all turned out well!
PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: Cooper Wankerl, Liam Shinner, and Luke Shinner with a trio of the 45 white bass we took through 9AM via downrigging and vertical work with MAL Lures on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. PHOTO CAPTION #2: Cooper Wankerl with a nice 2.25-pound largemouth taken from 34′ of water in over 50 feet of water.  It was found near a large school of threadfin shad nearly 4″ in length. WHEN WE FISHED: 01 August, 2020, AM WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir HOW WE FISHED: This trip broke down neatly into three parts.  Part one was early morning downrigging for white bass holding between 30-35 feet down over a deeper bottom.  This yielded 21 fish in the form of singles and doubles over the first hour-plus on the water, including 19 white bass, 1 drum, and 1 largemouth.  As this action died down, some very light schooling action broke out on the surface, fueled by schoolie-sized largemouth forcing shad to the top.  I moved to the action and found white bass feeding on the same forage fish, only down deeper in the water column.  Steve, Brian and I worked hastily to get my MAL Lure-equipped spinning rods in the boys’ hands and get the lures headed beneath the boat to where the fish were showing to be holding on sonar.  We used a smoking tactic to work these fish, doing three “short hops” with the jog function of the Ulterra trolling motor to keep up with these fish as they slowly moved about. Over the next hour, the boys put another 26 white bass in the boat before the action began to wane around 9:10AM.  If I had adult anglers aboard, we would have certainly stuck with these fish longer and pulled more out, but, the boys were accustomed to the fast and furious fishing, so, when several minutes passed between bites as the feed was winding down, I sensed them losing interest quickly, so we left the white bass while they were still biting and made a shift to sunfishing at that time to finish out the trip. We hit 3 distinct areas, all up in shallow cover, for our sunfish using floats with live bait suspended beneath.  The boys wound up with 23 sunfish, including a mix of bluegill and longears.  Right around 10:30, as Cooper landed the 70th fish of the trip, we decided to wrap it up and head back in. TALLY: 70 fish caught and released OBSERVATIONS:   Albeit light, this morning’s topwater feeding by largemouth was the first I’ve seen on Stillhouse since the last full moon. TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES: Start Time:  6:30A End Time: 10:30A Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F Elevation:  1.44′ low, 0.05′ 24-hour change, 1 CFS flow Water Surface Temp:  84.3F Wind Speed & Direction: NNE breeze the entire trip, starting pre-dawn at ~6mph, and slowly tapering to NNE4 by trip’s end Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous moon w/ 2 days until full moon GT = 20 Wx SNAPSHOT:  
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS: **Area vic 040 early downrigging **Area vic 070 to 866 – whites under topwater largemouth using MAL Lures **Areas 203, BOW004S cove, and 1948 for shallow sunfish   Bob Maindelle Full-time, Professional Fishing Guide and Owner of Holding the Line Guide Service Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide 254.368.7411 (call or text) #WhiteBassFishing #LakeBelton #StillhouseHollow #BeltonFishingGuide #LakeBeltonFishingGuide #BeltonLakeFishingGuide #stripers #stripedbassfishing #rockfish #sandbass #freshwaterfishing #fishing #bass #bassfishing #whitebass #panfish #crappie #fishingonaboat #fishingtackle #fishinglife #fishingsport #fishingaddict #fishingpicoftheday #fishingtime #fishinggear #fishingday #Fitec Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle