Warm Winds, Hot Fishing – 86 Fish

CLIENTS: This morning, Monday, November 17, I welcomed returning clients Joshua Goodnight and Frank Ruiz for a morning in pursuit of white bass on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. Joshua and his wife, Paige, operate The Woodlands Property Tax Group, helping taxpayers reduce their property taxes by appealing assessments before local tax appraisal districts on their clients’ behalf  ( https://twptg.com/ ). My wife and I personally avail ourselves of their services, and they have saved us untold thousands of dollars through the years, all at a fair price — truly a win-win!!

NEXT OPEN DATE FOR FISHING: Tuesday, 02 December 2025 (AM or PM)

PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Longtime friends and business partners Joshua Goodnight and Frank Ruiz each with a pair of healthy white bass taken from the deep, clear waters of Stillhouse Hollow using a “smoking” tactic with MAL Dense lures.

CAPTION: As the water slowly cools, white bass group up and use the bottom more and more with each passing day. This was one of many schools of over 100 fish we observed this morning, as shown on Garmin LiveScope.

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

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

Fishing is excellent right now, and there is still room for improvement if we can get a cooling trend underway. As it stands right now, over the past three weeks we’ve lost heat thanks to three different cold front events, but then turned around and gained almost all of that heat back thanks to multi-day warming trends thereafter.

Save for a few minutes of “bonus” topwater action we spotted making our way to our first intended fishing area, all of this morning’s fishing was deep and vertical. Once again, one lure (the MAL Dense with silver body) fished one way (“smoking” it) accounted for all of our fish.

The bite was strongest in our first 90 minutes, then began to simmer down as the sun brightened the sky.

We found fish six distinct location, putting 72 fish in the boat by 10:30A. At this time, the wind let up a bit and it looked like the bite was over. I scanned several solid areas without result. Then, after a full, fishless thirty-five minutes of looking, we found one still-active school and worked them over for a final 14 additional fish, taking our morning total to 86 fish landed.

This catch included 83 white bass (all legal with some touching the 14″ mark), 2 freshwater drum, and 1 largemouth bass.

RESULTS: 86 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: 6:55A

End Time: 11:30A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Elevation: Stillhouse is 0.84′ low with a 0.02′ fall in the last 24 hours with USACE releasing 1 CFS.

Water Surface Temp: 68.8F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: Light SW3-4 for 1.5 hours, then slowly building to SW12-13 by trip’s end

Sky Condition: 40% grey cloud cover for our first hour, then clearing to 20% white clouds on light blue sky

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 6% illumination.

GT = 5

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

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle