CLIENTS: On the afternoon of Thursday, January 23, I welcomed Dustin Marsh back aboard for a white bass fishing trip on Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir following wintry weather earlier in the week.

I know you’re probably wondering about the title on this report. Well, Dustin is a large animal vet, specializing in dairy herd care. As we witnessed what was a decent-sized school of white bass move off the Garmin LiveScope screen headed to the left, Dustin proclaimed, “Well, they made like a fetus and headed out.”.

I guess that’s probably funnier the more calves, fawns, colts, kids, puppies, and kittens you’ve seen birthed. Anyway … it stuck with me!



DATE: Thursday, 23 January 2025 (AM)

NEXT OPEN DATES: 27-31 January (AMs or PMs)






PHOTO CAPTION: Owner of Bryan-based Bovine Health Services, Dustin Marsh, a large-animal veterinarian and all-around good guy, joined me for an afternoon of solid fishing on Stillhouse.

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir

SUMMARY OF HOW WE FISHED:

I opened up Wednesday through Friday this week, but only for the afternoons from roughly 1:30PM to 5:30PM. The main reason I offered these afternoon trips was because the forecast called for winds to be blowing (from the north on Thursday and from the south on Wednesday and Friday) versus fairly calm conditions on all three mornings.

The fact that the air temperature was warmer in the afternoons was icing on the cake.

Dustin and I began our trip fishing with a deadstick method by first finding abundant shad holding over, or immediately adjacent to, the river channel which winds through Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir.

Once we found the shad, we used a thumping device to draw fish in and keep them near us, then presented soft plastic, fluke-style, 3-inch baits on 3/8-ounce jigheads just above, and in front of, suspended fish we saw beneath the boat as we viewed Garmin LiveScope.

Although I felt we could have slowly, but surely, plucked individual fish throughout the afternoon in this manner, I felt we still had a shot at finding more heavily schooled fish on deep topographic features, so, we went and looked for white bass in such places.

Fortunately, this paid off well. The two of us landed 107 fish. The vast majority of these fish struck slowly rising white, 5/8-ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs worked with a slow-smoking technique executed by dropping the lure to the bottom and ever-so-slowly reeling it upwards for at least five handle turns at a steady pace.

As a guide, I only “resort” to deadsticking if I have to. Deadsticking requires the angler to be able to detect a bite and set the hook immediately, which is something a majority of my clients tend not to do well.

Toward sunset, we found some fish moving shallow into less than twenty-five feet of water. These fish were scattered across the bottom. Hence, we cast white, curl-tail grubs on ½-ounce jigheads and worked them back to the boat using a sawtooth method.

The fish stopped feeding right around 5:30PM, just prior to the sun setting below the western horizon.

RESULTS: 107 fish, all caught and released


TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO DO “SLOW SMOKING”:



TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO SNAP-JIG:



TUTORIAL VIDEON ON HOW TO DO “EASING”:




LURES USED SUCCESSFULLY ON THIS TRIP: We used curl-tail grubs and jigheads and the white, 5/8 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab to catch our fish this morning. Find all Hazy Eye Slabs here: https://whitebasstools.com/



OBSERVATIONS:

1) Water temperature dropped from 52F down to 48.6F over this most recent cold snap. The chill was offset by bright, sunny daytime sky conditions.

2) Birds did not help us locate fish this trip.

3) The further upstream I look, the more small fish I find, indicating the very first signs of the spring upstream spawning migration.



LATEST WATER TEMPERATURE PROFILE:

Here was the water temperature profile for Stillhouse Hollow, measured with a FishHawk TD device around 1:00 PM on Thursday, 23 Jan. …

0 feet 49.4
5 feet 49.4
10 feet49.2
15 feet 49.0
20 feet 48.8
25 feet 48.7
30 feet 48.7
35 feet 48.6
40 feet 48.6
45 feet 48.6
50 feet48.6
55 feet 48.6
60 feet 48.6


WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 1:30P

End Time: 15:45P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 51F

Elevation: 2.81′ low (with a 0.03′ fall in the last 24 hours) with a 1 cfs flow

Water Surface Temp: 49.4F on the surface.

Wind Speed & Direction: N11-12

Sky Condition: bright, clear, cloudless skies

Moon Phase: Waning crescent moon at 32% illumination.

GT = 25

Wx SNAPSHOT: N/A






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Area vic 568 – 3 fish via deadsticking

Area 785 – 40 fish on slow-smoked & eased white 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area SH0396G/881- 28 fish on slow-smoked & eased white 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area vic 070 – 16 fish on slow-smoked & eased white 3/4 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area vic 0317 – 8 fish on slow-smoked & eased white 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area vic 108 – 12 fish on slow-rolled jigheads/curltails and slow-smoked 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs



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

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Nice post and fish. Good job as always.