WHO I FISHED WITH: On Friday, March 8, I fished with three generations of Coburn men – – Quinn from Ohio flew in Wednesday to join his adult son, Josh, and his 10-year-old grandson, Phoenix, for some springtime white bass fishing here in Central Texas.

Quinn is Retired from business, Josh is a software developer in the Austin area, and Phoenix is a self-proclaimed weather nerd (hence, we had an immediate connection!), working his way through elementary school.

We ran a full day trip today with the morning segment on Stillhouse, and the afternoon segment on Lake Belton.
Here is how the fishing went…

Next available dates are 28 March, 2, 4 April. (AMs)





PHOTO CAPTION: From left: Phoenix, Josh, and Quinn Coburn with a portion of their morning catch made on Stillhouse Hollow.






PHOTO CAPTION: Quinn took biggest gamefish honors for the morning segment of our day with this 4.50-pound largemouth take out of ~14 feet of water on an MAL Original worked with a sawtooth method. He also landed a 5.00 pound drum.






PHOTO CAPTION: Thanks to an incoming cold front which hit around 4:30P, we saw a real uptick in the fishing in the last two hours of the afternoon, allowing for an 82 fish catch on Lake Belton.






PHOTO CAPTION: Josh was the big fish winner for the afternoon with a nice 20″ hybrid taken on the MAL Original worked with a sawtooth method.



Find the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab here: https://whitebasstools.com/

WHERE WE FISHED: Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir (AM), Lake Belton (PM)

WHEN WE FISHED: Friday, 08 March. 2024 (AM)

HOW WE FISHED:

As I awoke Friday morning, I checked weather radar and saw a band of thunderstorms moving in from the west. These hit us by 6:20 but cleared the area by 7:30. We got 0.15 inches of rainfall with a northwesterly wind in wake of the storms for about two hours, after which time the winds went calm through the end of our morning trip.



We left the boat ramp in a cold, light rain, which had stopped by the time we made our first few casts. The fishing was good through about 10 o’clock during which time my three anglers consistently took quality white bass using , the MAL Original Lure with chartreuse tail fished with a sawtooth tactic in under 15 feet of water. When the shallow water bite ended after the winds went slack about 40 minutes prior, the fishing got and remained tough from that point forward.



We hit two deep water areas, drew in some suspended white bass thanks to the thumper, and picked them off using white, 5/8 ounce Bladed Hazy Eye Slabs, using the slow smoking tactic in conjunction with Garmin LiveScope.



Thus ended our morning effort with 42 fish landed, including a 5.00 pound freshwater drum and a 4.75 pound largemouth . The single largest white bass was right at 14.75 inches.



We reconvened on Lake Belton at 2:30 PM knowing that a dry cold front would enter into Central Texas airspace at some point in the late afternoon.



The weather was just blasé prior to the arrival of the lead edge of a dry cold front around 4:30 PM. Up until that time, the fishing was very tough. Just finding fish was difficult, then, we got nearly 0 response from the schools of fish we found.



As the north wind began to increase in velocity, it was as if someone flipped on a switch. I found fish in two areas. I positioned the boat in about 15 feet of water and had my crew of three cast out of whichever side of the boat side imaging revealed fish were on. We quickly made up for lost time with nonstop catching in the last two hours of the day.



In a stark contrast concerning frontal activity, we landed eight fish in the 2 hours prior to the north wind’s start, then landed 74 fish in the last two hours under the influence of this cold fronts entry.



Our total for the evening was 82 fish, thus yielding a total for the day of 124 fish.

TALLY: 124 fish caught and released

Here is a tutorial on the slow-smoking tactic we used… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIPopSLUYoQ



OBSERVATIONS: Here was the water temperature measured in 5′ increments from the surface to the bottom in 50′ on the morning of 05 March on Stillhouse…

0 feet, 64.4F
5 feet, 64.3F
10 feet, 63.5F
15 feet, 62.3F
20 feet, 61.2F
25 feet, 59.0F
30 feet, 57.2F
35 feet, 55.2F
40 feet, 53.9F
45 feet, 53.1F
50 feet, 52.8F


WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 7:15A, then 2:30P

End Time: 11:40A, then 6:30P

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 57F AM, 77F PM

Elevation: 16.92 feet low, 1 CFS flow (Stillhouse), 12.20 feet low, 33 CFS flow (Belton)

Water Surface Temp: 63.1F on the surface@ Stillhouse, 64.4 on the surface @ Belton

Wind Speed & Direction: AM – 13 mph NW winds at sunrise quickly died to light and variable after the storm’s passage. PM – light NW winds at 6 mph quickly ramped up as a cold front moved in around 4:30P, quickly dropping air temps.

Sky Condition: Light grey cloud cover for the first hour, then clearing through mid-day, then increasing to 40% thru the afternoon.

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous moon at 8% illumination.

GT = 125



Wx SNAPSHOT:






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 for sure. Awesome post.

Great Job !!!!!!

Good day Bob. When do you anticipate the shad spawn to kick in?

The next night where the overnight air temperatures are warmer than the surface temperature of the water should kick off the first shad spawning activity.

One natural sign to listen for is the arrival of whippoorwills. They'll call loudly in cedar breaks in the hours before first light.