August 2, 2009
Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir – Belton, TX

It was a very difficult tournament for us last month on Lake Austin, and I think many of our angler’s thought, “well, it can’t get any worse,” as we moved on to fish Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir for this month’s tournament. Unfortunately, Stillhouse did just that. Many anglers were optimistic thinking that the overcast days and few rain showers during the week prior to the tournament would make for some decent fishing, but the resident bass of Stillhouse didn’t seem to take notice. Fishing in one of the most difficult tournaments in ATX Bassmasters history, Mark Peevey proved that when things get difficult, he knows how to grind it out for his second tough tournament win in a row.

Mark very well may have made ATX tournament history with one of the lowest winning bags that we have record of by weighing in two fish for 6.18 pounds! Despite the low weight, a win is a win, and Mark made the right decisions to get the job done. And once again, for the second month in a row, he also walked away with the big bass prize money as well! Mark spent almost the entire day throwing an Oldham’s glimmer blue colored spinnerbait on his Team Diawa rods and reels covering a lot of water all the way from Dana’s Peak to the dam. His big bass weighed in at 4.38 pounds, and he caught it around 7:00 AM on the spinnerbait. Mark basically just threw his spinnerbait at the shorelines and reeled it over weeds that were about 4-5ft deep. Sticking at it, he put a few other short fish in the boat before finally catching his other keeper at around 1:30 PM. “Arm is a little sore from all the casts I made,” Mark commented about his day.

Coming in second place was one of our club’s backseat masters, Aaron Campbell. Aaron also weighed in two fish for a total of 4.30 pounds. One of the more remarkable stories of the tournament comes from how Aaron managed to catch one of his fish. He was fishing in the back of David Bueche’s boat for the day, and at one point David hooked and lost a good fish after it broke his line in some wood. Casting in the same general area, Aaron soon hooked into a solid 3 pounder and put it into the boat. As it was on the boat, the fish tossed a large brush hog from its mouth. As if that weren’t enough, as Aaron was unhooking his fish he noticed that there was yet another lure in the fish’s mouth besides his own! David looked in the fish’s mouth and exclaimed, “That’s my shaky head!” Aaron managed to hook and land the same bass that David had just broken off minutes earlier. He caught that bass by throwing a light shaky head with a green pumpkin colored finesse worm and caught his second bass by c-rigging a fluke in deeper water. Way to get it done once again, Aaron!

Finishing off our top three was an angler by the name of Mike Smith. Mike was fishing as a guest and was actually the non-boater to our winner, Mark Peevey. Fishing behind Mark, Mike found success with the same pattern. Mike was the only other angler to weigh-in two fish and had a total of 2.69 pounds. He threw a four-bladed white / chartreuse spinnerbait in the same areas that Mark was fishing over shallow weeds. Congrats on the good finish!

The next stop in the ATX Bassmasters tournament trail will be Lake Belton on September 20th and we will be launching at Temple Lake Park. Those interested in club events are encouraged to come to our club meetings the first Tuesday of every month at Threadgill’s on Riverside at 7 PM.