WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Friday, July 22nd, I fished with two of Tom Bohmfalk’s grandchildren, Abigail and Josiah Bohmfalk, as Tom capably served as “first mate” helping me help the kids be successful on this “Kids Fish, Too!” package trip.

Such trips are both shorter in duration and more economically priced than my standard 4+ hour adult trips.

Here is how the fishing went …

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PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Abigail, “Poppy” Tom, and Josiah Bohmfalk with a pair of white bass the kids landed simultaneously early on in our trip using MAL Dense Lures to get to bottom quickly in deep water.




PHOTO CAPTION: A sonar sight to behold when you are trying to put 7 and 8 year old kids on fish and hold their attention!! Thank you, Lord!




PHOTO CAPTION: Abigail landed this 4.50-pound largemouth from out of 57 feet of water. It chased after an MAL Dense Lure and was mixed in with the large school of white bass shown above.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

WHEN WE FISHED: Friday, 22 July 2022

HOW WE FISHED:

Both Lake Belton and Stillhouse Hollow are fishing well right now with stable weather setting the stage for much consistency in the fishery. I chose Stillhouse for this morning’s trip because I knew I could help the kids do well without requiring them to do a lot of casting, given their young age and lack of prior experience with spinning tackle.

We fished only three locations this morning and boated a total of 80 fish.

Our first stop came in 57 feet of water and produced 45 of our 80 fish. This area also produced longer than any of the other areas. We stayed in a single Spot-Lock position and worked MAL Dense Lures vertically while the kids watched their presentations and fish response to those presentations on Garmin LiveScope.

After this played out, we found a subtle, underwater depression which held a lot of smaller schools of white bass, each with perhaps 25-40 fish, as seen on side imaging. Since the kids’ wrists were just about shot at this point from fighting fish, we downrigged for these fish with twin ‘riggers, each equipped with Pet Spoons running behind 3-armed umbrella rigs. We took another 30 fish from this location before the bite went soft around 9:45.

We hit one last location and fished it in the same manner as our first stop of the day. The fish were really gearing down at this point in time. We took a final 5 fish in our final 35 minutes on the water, and then called it a day.

Our tally was 80 fish, including 76 white bass and 4 largemouth bass; no sub-legal fish of either species was landed.

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

TALLY: 80 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Thanks to a cooling layer of cloud cover and winds which picked up to 13 mph by mid-morning, the topwater action which has been taking place reliably through around 10A was diminished this morning.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:50A

End Time: 10:20A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 79F

Elevation: 6.98 feet low, 0.06’ fall in last 24 hours, 186.4 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 86.8F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSW10-13 all morning

Sky Condition: A solid, thin grey cloud mass stayed with us until ~9A, then began to break up. By trip’s end, we had 40% broken white cloud cover on a bright sky.

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 5% illumination.

GT = 5

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area SH0207G – 45 fish on smoked MAL Dense Lures (chart. tail)

Area vic 866-889-1134 – downrigging for 30 fish

Area SH0063G – final 5 fish on smoked MAL Dense Lures (chart. tail)



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

Lifetime memories made. Neat post.

One of the biggest schools I have seen ! Didn't see a lot of bait ??

Gborg, that is a good observation. There was indeed bait nearby, but the shad were clearly staying out of the way of those very active white bass. The side-imaging screen shot was taken while we were on Spot-Lock. After this bite died down and I began to motor around looking for more white bass, the shad showed up about 40 yards out in all directions.

Way to go! That's big bass is a fish she'll not soon forget. 57 feet is alot of water to bring it up in. Well done, to the junior angler. I'm slowly building upon my experience and skill and getting more consistent at finding and catching the white bass. I am taking a buddy from church my growth group tomorrow. I'll be at Lavon. I'll report back on how the MAL Heavy does for us. Seems like fish are scattered. I haven't found them bunched up like I did on July 5th. Cheers!

Rick, I would very much agree that the fish are very scattered. Covering a patch of bottom slowly and thoroughly with side-imaging has put most of my fish in the boat this week. Even if you only see a small group of fish (8, 10, 15) stop on them and fish. Once you start creating commotion by dropping and reeling you MAL Lures, catching fish, etc. more fish will congregate beneath you. I look forward to your report from Lavon!

I really should have read your post before today! Had a rough outing Saturday. Fished 6:45-10:00 on Lavon. I didn’t get into a big schools again this weekend. It was similar to last weekend. I was disappointed as I was hoping to show my buddy a good outing. Tried the island (where on July 5 was on fire), the dam, east of the damn on a hump, hybrid point, and finally Elm Creek. Up until Elm we had only caught 2 short sand bass and 1 yellow bass. At hybrid point my 20 year old trolling motor pin broke in pieces (the propeller pin that links with the shaft).

Over at Elm Creek, we switched to trolling with Ratt-L Traps in 8-10 FOW which produced only two short fish on flats. I found some fish on my sonar suspended at a secondary point. We anchored up to fish them, but these where this years hatch sand bass (5”-7”). At least we started catching them. In the final 30-40 minutes we caught about 10-15 whites (only 2 keepers), and an 7-8 lb Smallmouth Buffalo.

Bob, I believe you’ve commented in the past about post frontal fishing is far from ideal. I think a front hit NTX on Friday evening. Thanks for the tips.

Yes, sir. That was indeed a mild cold front that made it as far south as Cleburne and then faded out around 7P on Friday evening. That will surely sour summertime fishing whenever the "cookie cutter" string of days influenced by high pressure get disrupted like that.

--Bob