CLIENTS: On Thursday morning, December 5, I fished with first time guests – – the father and son team of Clinton and Charlie Fatter.

Clinton is a family medicine doctor, who, along with his wife, is raising their three kids in Belton, Texas. Charlie is the eldest of the three kids, and this trip was in celebration of his 11th birthday.


DATE: Thursday, 05 December 2024 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATES: 11, 16-20 December (AM)






PHOTO CAPTION: Clinton Fatter took the eldest of his three children, Charlie, on a fishing trip for his 11th birthday. The pair landed 125 fish, including white bass up to 15", largemouth bass, and freshwater drum.




PHOTO CAPTION: This freshwater drum struck Clinton’s lure right as it dropped to bottom. It would be the heaviest of the 125 fish father and son landed on their 4-hour morning trip.




WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

Conditions were good today, in that we had a northerly wind blowing hard enough to create occasional whitecaps, and we had a nice deck of thin, gray clouds with no direct sun shining on the water.
The water temperature continues to fall very slowly, but is still in the 60s. Although the fish were not as aggressive as they have been over the last two weeks, they were still quite willing to follow a smoked MAL Lure up off the bottom.

Since the fish were willing to follow, only one technique and one lure was necessary this morning. We used MAL Dense Lures with silver bodies and chartreuse tails in conjunction with a smoking tactic. Smoking involves dropping these heavy lures to bottom and cranking them right back toward the surface at a moderate cadence, ensuring the blade gets spinning as close to the bottom as possible.

In this manner, Clinton and Charlie put together a catch of exactly 125 fish in four hours of effort.

Their catch included freshwater drum, largemouth bass, and white bass up to 15 inches in length.

This morning‘s fishing followed a normal curve with activity going from near zero and improving in the first hour, plateauing at a peak in the middle two hours, then falling off to very low activity by the time the fourth hour had run its course.

During the second hour, some light bird activity cropped up, mainly consisting of gulls working over top of loons. This activity did help get us in the vicinity of some bottom-hugging white bass, which were certainly easier to catch than those which were suspended.

Here is a tutorial on vertically smoking the MAL Lure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDSvfXgrAUE

Here is a tutorial on horizontally “sawtoothing” with the MAL Lure or White Tornado: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3FMEQHOMQ

RESULTS: 125 fish, all caught and released

LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: We used MAL Dense Lures (w/ chartreuse tails) for 100% of our catch today. Find all MAL Lures and White Tornados here: https://whitebasstools.com/

OBSERVATIONS:

1) With the water temperature now in the very low 60’s from top to bottom, fish were noticeably less aggressive, but, still aggressive enough to chase the MAL Lure moving at a moderate cadence. That will likely change inside a week’s time.

LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Here was the water temperature profile for Stillhouse Hollow, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 7:00 AM on Saturday, 29 Nov….

0 feet 62.0F
5 feet 63.7F
10 feet 63.9F
15 feet 63.9F
20 feet 64.1F
25 feet 63.9F
30 feet 63.9F
35 feet 63.9F
40 feet 63.9F
45 feet 63.8F
50 feet 63.5F
55 feet 63.5F
60 feet 63.5F
65 feet 63.3F

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:25A

End Time: 11:25A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 51F

Elevation: 1.70′ low and falling slowly with a 43 cfs flow

Water Surface Temp: 62.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: NNE10-13

Sky Condition: Grey skies all morning

Moon Phase: Waxing crescent moon at 20% illumination.

GT = 100

Wx SNAPSHOT:






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area 034 – 6 suspended fish smoking MAL Dense Lures

Area vic SH0109C – 27 suspended fish smoking MAL Dense Lures for bottom-oriented fish

Area 0210 – 16 fish smoking MAL Dense Lures for bottom-oriented fish

Area 772 – 47 fish smoking MAL Dense Lures for bottom-oriented fish

Area vic SDH001 – 5 suspended fish smoking MAL Dense Lures

Area SH0296G – 7 suspended fish smoking MAL Dense Lures

Area 716/0305 – 17 suspended fish smoking MAL Dense Lures





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

Good times and great memories. Nice post and fish. Good job.

Looks like Charlie had a great birthday...