Soldiers’ Kids Land 844 Fish in 2025
CLIENTS: This past Tuesday morning, December 23, I welcomed the Applegate family aboard – Steve, Emerald, Rose (age 14), and Serenity (age 13) for the final SKIFF trip of the year. With the girls’ contribution, the total number of fish landed by soldiers’ kids on SKIFF trip conducted this calendar year came to 844.
ABOUT SKIFF: SKIFF trips have been provided to military families at no charge since May of 2009. SKIFF is funded by donations from Austin Fly Fishers, The McBride Foundation, Austin Subaru, and VFW Post 4008 in Belton, TX. S.K.I.F.F. provides kids of military members separated from their families by duty commitments with the opportunity to fish. SKIFF trips are also provided to Gold Star families who have lost their service member, and kids of bona fide disabled veterans. I conduct these 3.5 hour adventures on Belton Lake and Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir year ’round. Call or text 254.368.7411 to make your reservation.
NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: Tuesday morning, 30 December.
PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Rose and Serenity Applegate with a few of the Stillhouse Hollow white bass which cooperated for them despite heavily clouded skies all morning.
PHOTO CAPTION: Rose Applegate landed this 15.25″ white bass — considered by TPWD to be a trophy-sized white bass in any Texas water body. This fish struck a white, 3/4 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab.
FIND LURES HERE: https://whitebasstools.com/
WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow
SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:
Fishing was pretty tough today with that “blah” weather between fronts. It felt like fog might fall on us at any time in the first 45 minutes or so (although it never formed heavily), and the first two hours saw light winds.
I knew right away it was going to be a slow day when I found heavily schooled fish and found them very reluctant to chase, even in the first few minutes we spent over top of them when white bass normally perk up at the novelty of lures moving around them.
That reluctance continued all morning — for every thirty or forty fish we observed pass beneath on sonar, the girls would get a handful of half-hearted follows and perhaps one hookup. I experimented with horizontal presentations while they stayed hard after it working vertically and I noted that, despite the number of fish I saw around us at the two locations with bottoms clean enough for a horizontal presentation to be practical, there was still much reluctance.
There was some bird action today, but, it, too, reflected this same sluggish feed in that the birds did a lot of flying, scouting, and hoping, but very little dipping down to the water’s surface to feed.
Of the 14 fish the girls landed, 5 came on curl-tail grubs on jigheads worked horizontally with a sawtooth method, and the balance came on slowly smoked Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs (white, 3/4 oz.).
RESULTS: 14 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 were in a bit of a funk this morning under heavy overcast skies and light winds (in our first 2 hours)
– We are in the midst of a warmup, having broken temperature records on 19 and 22 December.
LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:
Temperature profile measured on Stillhouse around 7:25A on Tuesday, 23 December…
0 feet 59.8F
5 feet 59.4F
10 feet 59.2F
15 feet 59.2F
20 feet 58.9F
25 feet 58.7F
30 feet 58.7F
35 feet 58.7F
40 feet 58.7F
45 feet 58.7F
50 feet 58.6F
55 feet 58.4F
60 feet 58.3F
65 feet 58.0F
Temperature profile measured on Stillhouse around 7:00A on Thursday, 11 December …
0 feet 59.6F
5 feet 59.6F
10 feet 59.8F
15 feet 59.8F
20 feet 59.8F
25 feet 59.8F
30 feet 59.8F
35 feet 59.6F
40 feet 59.4F
45 feet 59.2F
50 feet 58.7F
55 feet 58.4F
60 feet 58.2F
65 feet 58.0F
WEATHER DATA:
Start Time: 7:45A
End Time: 11:30A
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 67F
Elevation: Stillhouse is 1.18′ low with a -0.02′ change in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 1 CFS.
Water Surface Temp: 59.3F on the surface.
Wind Speed & Direction: Calm at trip’s start and for a full 2 hours, then picking up due S12 by trip’s end
Sky Condition: Heavy grey cloud cover to the point of fog at trip’s start, then staying heavy and grey all AM
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 12% illumination.
GT = NA
Wx SNAPSHOT:
AREAS FISHED WITH MOST SUCCESS:
Area 702 – 3 fish
Area 041 – 4 fish
Area 2331 – 7 fish
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