The Weatherman Lied to the Preacher – 94 Fish

CLIENTS: On Friday, November 21, I fished a two-man trip under some pretty soggy conditions. I welcome back Dr. Jim Wood of McGregor, Texas, accompanied by the pastor of his church – Pastor Greg Traylor – who joined me for his first time aboard.

Both fellows had prior experience using spinning reels, and Jim had used the smoking tactic with me on numerous previous occasions, so, the learning curve was not steep at all.

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

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Pastor Greg Traylor and Dr. Jim Wood toughed out some “nautical” conditions to make a very nice catch of white bass, with a few largemouth and even a drum sprinkled in.

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Dr. Wood and Pastor Traylor show off seven pounds’ worth of Stillhouse bass which came out of nearly 50 feet of water. Just as the worst of the weather hit us with rain and a cooling north wind, the fishing really spiked and stayed solid for about 35 minutes.

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

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

The forecasts going back as far as Wednesday all indicated rain would be clearing our area by 6 or 7 AM. Indeed, when I woke up before 5AM, it was raining, but what appeared to be the last cell of storms was just to our west traveling rapidly eastward and was due to sweep beyond us by our planned 7 AM start time. This all went according to plan, until some unforecast redevelopment hit us in the 9:30 to 10:30 AM timeframe.

I joked with Jim and Greg as we caught fish hand over fist in the rain that whoever said fish don’t bite in the rain had evidently never actually fished in the rain. Indeed, our very best catch rate occurred during two separate turbulent spells in the weather as the northwest wind picked up and rain fell steadily.

We relied heavily on the MAL Dense with silver body to do most of the heavy lifting using it in a vertical presentation with the “smoking“ tactic, although at one stop in water about 44 feet, I spotted large schools of fish routinely patrolling out to the starboard side of the boat while glancing at side imaging while we were on Spot Lock. Seeing this, I had both men grab rods I had already pre-rigged with MAL heavy lures and they proceeded, over a 25 minute span, to catch fish routinely using the horizontal “sawtooth“ method.

Around 10:30 the skies began to clear and the temperature rose noticeably. The winds also began to slack off. We enjoyed about another 10 minutes of action, but when the winds went slack, so did the fishing.

We wrapped up around 11:20 AM with exactly 94 fish landed. That included 7 largemouth bass up to 4 pounds, 1 freshwater drum, with the balance consisting of 84 legal (at least 10 inch) white bass, several of which exceeded 15 inches.

This storm system appears to have broken the back on this nearly 2-week-long warming trend following our last significant cold front. With a week of weather cooler than average ahead, we should actually see fishing continue to improve from the already solid state it is in.

RESULTS: 94 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…

0 feet 68.6F
5 feet 68.6F
10 feet 68.6F
15 feet 68.6F
20 feet 68.6F
25 feet 68.6F
30 feet 68.6F
35 feet 68.4F
40 feet 68.2F
45 feet 67.4F
50 feet 66.6F
55 feet 66.4F
60 feet 66.0F
65 feet 66.0F

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: 11:20A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 73F

Elevation: Stillhouse is 0.88′ low with no change in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 1 CFS.

Water Surface Temp: 70.1F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: WSW2-4 for the first 2.5 hours, then shifting and increasing to NW6-8

Sky Condition: 100% grey cloud cover for the entire trip with rain showers from 9:30 to 10:30AM

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 2% illumination.

GT = 65

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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