WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Tuesday, July 19th, I conducted the seventh Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun (SKIFF) trip of the 2022 season.

I welcomed aboard 8-year-old Kristyn Torres-Smith, and her mom, Erica.

Kristyn’s dad, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Jason Torres-Smith, has served in the military for 10 years. He has been deployed from Fort Hood since February of this year, serving as a truck driver.

ABOUT SKIFF: This fishing trip was provided to this military family at no charge. S.K.I.F.F. stands for Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun. This program began in May of 2009. It is funded by the donations and fundraising efforts of the Austin Fly Fishers and other organizations they have partnered with. S.K.I.F.F. provides the children of military personnel separated from their families due to duty commitments with the opportunity to go fishing. SKIFF trips are also provided, free of charge, to Gold Star families who have lost their service member while he or she was on active duty. In mid-2019, SKIFF also began providing trips to dependents whose parents are bona fide disabled veterans. I coordinate and conduct these 3.5 to 4 hour adventures on Belton Lake and Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir, just outside the gates of Fort Hood in Bell County, TX, year ’round. Call or text 254.368.7411.

My next open date for a free SKIFF trip for qualifying families will be on August 23rd.

Here is how the fishing went …

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PHOTO CAPTION: Meet 8-year-old Kristyn Torres-Smith! She singlehandedly landed 40 fish in the “cool” of the morning on Stillhouse Hollow.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow

WHEN WE FISHED: Tuesday, 19 July 2022

HOW WE FISHED:

Since Kristyn was just 8 years of age, had never been on a boat before, and had very limited prior fishing experience, I opted to head to Stillhouse Hollow, despite very good results on Lake Belton yesterday. I did this for several reasons. First, I felt I could best help Kristyn catch white bass without requiring her to cast by fishing on Stillhouse, and, second, I felt Stillhouse would offer better variety in the form of fishing for sunfish if/when the novelty of catching white bass wore thin.

We began our day searching out heavily congregated white bass in deep water, and found them primarily with down-imaging in three distinct locations in 42 feet of water, 48 feet of water, and 36 feet of water. At each of these locations, I stood side-by-side with Kristyn as we both looked at the Garmin LiveScope monitor before us, and gave her a real-time example of what she needed to do to catch fish by “smoking” an MAL Dense Lure (w/ chartreuse tail) up off the bottom using spinning tackle.

Fortunately, she found this engaging (not all kids do!), and she was able to keep a fast, smooth rhythm which was effective at drawing strikes from the fish we’d found. Kristyn landed exactly 25 white bass in this way in about a 2-hour span.

Next, I introduced Kristyn to downrigging and let her know right from the start that our goal would be to land more than one fish at a time on the 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons. Over the next 45 minutes, we landed 9 more fish by way of downrigging, including two “doubles” — where we caught two fish at a time on the umbrellas.

The last chapter of our morning was written up shallow. We spent about a half-hour in the vast tangle of hydrilla which now lies matted around the lake’s perimeter. We presented live bait under a slipfloat to sunfish, landing 6 before calling it a great morning and heading back in.

The smoking tactic we used is demonstrated here (skip to 2:26): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

The entire family of MAL Lures is found here: https://whitebasstools.com/

TALLY: 40 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: A high pressure “dome” is solidly set up over Texas which, according to meteorologists, will stay with us for the next ~9 days. If history is any teacher, this bodes well for fishing. Topwater schooling by largemouth bass continues.



WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:45A

End Time: 10:05A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 80F

Elevation: 6.78 feet low, 0.06’ fall in last 24 hours, 1 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 85.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW9-13

Sky Condition: Cloudless skies with just a bit of haze and Saharan dust

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 61% illumination.

GT = N/A

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Areas SH0030G, SH0032G, 867 – smoking MAL Dense Lures for 25 fish

Area 867 to 878 downrigging for 9 fish

Area SH0121C – sunfishing for 6 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

Awesome Post!

Awesome post Bob. Some people are naturals. Congrats to the young angler.