WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, August 4th, I welcomed aboard first-time guest Kyle Simank, accompanied by his boys, 9-year-old Barrett, and 6-year-old Ryder. Kyle, a friend of another one of my clients, Dwight Stone of Georgetown, owns Guns Plus located on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown. Here’s a link: Guns Plus Being a long-gun buff myself, I enjoyed the conversation with Kyle, and his perspectives on how COVID-19 and the current civil unrest has impacted his business. His tale of his Alaskan caribou hunt was quite entertaining!
PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: The Simank crew: Barret (age 9), Kyle, and Ryder (age 6) on a hot, still, post-frontal day on Stillhouse Hollow.
WHEN WE FISHED: 04 August, 2020, AM
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow
HOW WE FISHED: I opted to fish Stillhouse over Belton this morning because I expected tough, post-frontal conditions with light winds. For whatever reason, Stillhouse usually fishes better when the conditions are tough. I had hoped to start the morning with some low-light downrigging, but, after surveying several areas with sonar and with downriggers down, we managed only 2 caught fish and 2 missed. The thing that concerned me was the posture of the bait. Due to an incredibly successful shad spawn this year, there was a 3-4 foot thick layer of bait along the bottom in the areas I searched. When the bait carpets the bottom, it is relaxed. When the bait is suspended and balled up, it is threatened. Relaxed bait amounts to tough fishing. So, I cut that effort short and we headed up shallow to put some sunfish in the boat a bit earlier than I intended, but with a plan to return to search for white bass so as to offer the boys some variety later in the trip (hopefully with some wind moving the water). The sunfishing went well with both boys quickly getting the hang of watching their float and responding appropriately. They landed a combination of redears (x3), bluegill, and longears, to the tune of 38 sunfish in all. Around 9AM, we broke from sunfishing to give the white bass another try. We found our quarry in two different locations, neither of which had yet produced thus far this summer. Both scenarios were the same — fish feeding on suspended bait from 25 to 30 feet down over a deeper bottom, with occasional fish chasing all the way to the surface. We downrigged to find these fish and, when sonar verified a solid density of them, hovered atop them with the Ulterra on Spot-Lock to work vertically with the MAL Lures. The boys wound up putting another 16 white bass (all 2 and 3 year class fish) in the boat this way. By just after the 3.5 hour mark, Ryder expressed what we were all feeling … “I’m hot.” The boat ride back evaporated the sweat on our skin to cool us down as we wrapped up for the morning.
TALLY: 56 fish caught and released
OBSERVATIONS: Post-frontal fishing today … tough.
TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 6:30A
End Time: 10:20A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F
Elevation: 1.57′ low, 0.04′ 24-hour change, 1 CFS flow
Water Surface Temp: 84.8F
Wind Speed & Direction: NNE breeze the entire trip, starting pre-dawn at ~5mph, and slowly tapering to ENE2 by trip’s end
Moon Phase: Full moon +1 today
GT = 50
Wx SNAPSHOT: Tough post-frontal conditions with light winds, clear bluebird skies, and heat.
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 200 and 239 for sunfish
**Area vic 1440 – downrigged to find whites, vertical work with MAL Lures to capitalize **Area Vic 910/197 – downrigged to find whites, vertical work with MAL Lures to capitalize
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) Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle
Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle
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