Old Dogs, New Tricks, & Sharp Knives — 59 Fish

CLIENTS: This morning, Thursday, November 20, I fished with a great crew from out of the Texas Hill country. Joining me was Jack Oliver who has fished with me for many years; he was joined by two friends aboard the boat for the first time, Randy Fortenberry and Michael Krenek.

All three are retired, have fished their entire lives, and now attend the same small church out east of Cedar Park, Texas.

NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: Monday, 01 December 2025 (AM or PM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Michael Krenek, Jack Oliver, and Randy Fortenberry worked MAL Dense lures from start to finish this morning under leaden grey skies for a catch of 59 fish right before torrential rains moved into our area.

CAPTION: This AccuSharp knife sharpener was invented and patented by Randy Fortenberry’s family. The family ran a butcher shop in Louisiana where they always needed sharp knives, and so necessity became the mother of invention. Just about all Ace Hardware Stores carry this under Item #61739. It’s made in America!!

FIND LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

Although all three men had fished before, only Jack had any prior experience using Garmin LiveScope and using my MAL Lures with a smoking tactic to catch deep, bottom-hugging white bass. So, there was a bit of “teaching old dogs new tricks“ this morning, but no one was at all stubborn or prideful about receiving the coaching I offered. Everyone earnestly tried to get the hang of the technique early on and make fine-tuning adjustments thereafter.

Once I had everyone aboard around 7 AM, my first job was to get everyone through the learning curve on how to properly retrieve the bait so as to both get the blade spinning consistently and to control the lure’s speed. Reel too slow and the blade will stall; reel too fast and you will outrun the fish.

The weather looked like it was going to cooperate as the sun was rising, but we only got about 75 minutes’ worth of ideal weather. After that, it really clouded up heavily, thus dimming down our conditions. I have found dark, heavily clouded skies really dampen the bite. I have some theories on that, most of which center around it simply being too dark for fish to sight feed as effectively as they otherwise would under brighter conditions.

With the dark skies making fishing a bit tough, and a nearly 10-day-long warm-up which has now pushed the water temperature back up over 70°, we had to hit quite a few areas in order to put together our catch. Finding fish was not really all that challenging, but finding fish that were willing to bite more than for just a few minutes was a different story. We used the MAL Dense with silver body 100% of the time today and used it with the vertical “smoking“ tactic.

After 4.75 hours in pursuit of these fish, our count stood at exactly 59 fish landed. 100% of these were white bass, and all of them were of legal size.

RESULTS: 59 fish, all caught and released

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO FISH THE MAL LURE WITH A SAWTOOTH METHOD:

TUTORIAL VIDEO ON FISHING AN MAL LURE VERTICALLY USING THE “SMOKING” TACTIC:

OBSERVATIONS:

-White bass are falling into typical autumn patterns, but multi-day warmups between cold fronts tends to mute the impact of falling water temperatures.

-Gulls have shown and are just beginning to figure out where to be and when to be there as far as picking up dead/crippled bait killed or maimed by gamefish.

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE: Temperature profile measured on Stillhouse around 6:30A on Saturday, 15 November…

Compare to temps taken on Stillhouse Hollow around 7:10AM, Saturday, 25 October…

0 feet 76.8F
5 feet 77.0F
10 feet 77.0F
15 feet 77.0F
20 feet 77.0F
25 feet 77.0F
30 feet 77.0F
35 feet 77.6F
40 feet 77.0F
45 feet 76.8F
50 feet 76.8F
55 feet 76.8F
60 feet 76.8F
65 feet 76.7F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7A

End Time: 11:45A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Elevation: Stillhouse is 0.88′ low with a 0.02′ fall in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 1 CFS.

Water Surface Temp: 70.2F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: SE8-10 for the first two hours, increasing to SW11-13 in the last 2.75 hours

Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover for the entire trip just shy of the point of rainfall.

Moon Phase: New moon at 0% illumination.

GT = 30

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH MOST SUCCESS:

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

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