CLIENTS: On the afternoon of Friday, January 24, I welcomed aboard Dennis Cochran, owner of Interstate Marine and Outboard Service LLC located along the northbound Interstate 35 frontage road between Salado and Belton.

Although Dennis was interested in fishing, he was equally interested in learning to better understand his Humminbird sonar units, including Humminbird MegaLive technology.

We met a half-hour earlier than our 1:30PM fishing trip start time to go over some sonar fundamentals, including the shape, coverage, pros, and cons of the four technologies his units are capable of: traditional sonar, down-imaging, side-imaging, and forward-facing sonar.



DATE: Friday, 24 January 2025 (AM)

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






PHOTO CAPTION: Dennis Cochran brought this 9.50-pound largemouth bass (weighed on a certified scale) to net from out of 38 feet of water. The fish struck a white, 3/4 oz. Bladed Hazy Eye Slab and hit about 8 or 9 minutes after we’d sat over a school of white bass catching them steadily.






PHOTO CAPTION: Female white bass are beginning to show bulging sides as the eggs in their ovaries begin to develop in advance of the forthcoming spring spawn.



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.

As I mentioned in my last post, although I feel we could have sat atop schools of shad which are converging on the river channel, I only “resort” to deadsticking if I have to because 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.

So, because I wanted to demonstrate for Dennis what white bass look like on 2D, DI, and SI, and then fish for them using forward-facing sonar (in downward mode), we opted not to do any deadsticking and instead searched for bottom-oriented fish holding on deep topographic features.

Over the course of the afternoon, we found cooperative fish on four distinct areas between 35 and 45 feet deep. At each of these, the bite was best as soon as we dropped our Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs down, then the action tapered pretty quickly. We presented as aggressively as the fish would allow by using a slow-smoking tactic at first, then dropping back to easing, then going even slower by snap-jigging before finally leaving and then searching for a new group of fish.

Although we found fish throughout the afternoon, they were definitely less aggressive than they were the prior afternoon, thus, we put in more effort and caught seventy-seven fish (that is 71% of the prior day’s catch).

The highlight of this trip occurred when Cochran brought a 9.50-pound largemouth bass into the net after it struck a ¾-ounce, white Bladed Hazy Eye Slab in thirty-eight feet of water.

Just as we did on Thursday, we closed out this trip casting jigheads and soft plastics horizontally in relatively shallow water, adding thirty fish to our tally in the last forty-five minutes of the outing, wrapping up at 5:30PM.

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

RESULTS: 77 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. & 3/4 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 aided in finding fish only at the last, and shallowest, place we found fish this afternoon — 5 terns were acting suspiciously.

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: 5:30P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 53F

Elevation: 2.84′ 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: SSW11-12

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 721 – 17 fish on slow-smoked & eased white 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area 1412 – 8 fish on slow-smoked & eased white 5/8 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area SHFL24007- 11 fish on slow-smoked, eased, and snap-jigged white 3/4 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area vic SH0115C – 11 fish on slow-smoked & eased, and snap-jigged white 3/4 oz. Hazy Eye Slabs

Area vic 798 – 30 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

That's a fish !! A Texas black bass and a reel fattie !