This past Tuesday morning, May 23rd, I fished with Mr. David Baird, a Temple, Texas, native now living in San Antonio, and his eight-year-old grandson, Huck Trottmann. The pair came based on a referral from long-time client Mr. Steve Niemeier, also of Temple.

 

David Baird and his grandson, Huck Trottmann, landed 62 fish this past Tuesday, May 23rd, on Lake Belton.
We started our trip under cool and cloudy skies with an ambient temperature of 65°. Although it looked like it could rain at any time through around 10:45 AM, we never did see a drop.

We started our morning in pursuit of hybrid striped bass using live shad in around 42 feet of water with our baits suspended slightly above bottom. We managed to catch 15 hybrid in our first hour. At that time, the easterly winds we had began to settle to near calm.  As we prepared to move on to our second area, Huck gave a summary of our success, clearly communicating that he had landed more fish than his grandpa – my first clue that this young man was a tad competitive.

We moved on to a second area in pursuit of hybrid on live shad, again in 40 to 42 feet of water and put another 17 fish in the boat of which roughly 1/3 were hybrid. This bite ended when the winds begin to abruptly blow at about 8 to 9 mph from the northwest as a storm cell passed to the north of us.

The bite weakened a good bit and we finished our pursuit of hybrid at that time, choosing to pursue white bass using slabs instead of putting young Huck through a live bait waiting game that appeared to be materializing with the weather change. This turned out to be a good choice. We were able to find fairly active white bass in 50 to 52 feet of water and used a smoking retrieve to take our fish count from 32 fish up to 51 in about 45 minutes’ time.

Around 10:45 we experienced yet another weather change. The wind went calm once again and our cloud cover burned nearly completely off. This did not bode well for the slabbing bite we were into, so, based on a comment made by Huck earlier in the day expressing interest in trolling, we wrapped up our trip using downriggers to put a final 11 fish in the boat.

That brought our tally to 62. Huck was shooting for 62 fish today because he had read my report about Steve Niemeier and his granddaughter, Macy, catching 62 fish and he wanted to do likewise.

It took a bit more than 4 hours, and there was some doubt that it might happen at all, but, by trip’s end we had “mission accomplished”!

 

TOTAL = 62 FISH, all caught and released

Wx SNAPSHOT:

 

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:00a

End Time: 11:35a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 65F

Water Surface Temp: 73.9F

Wind Speed & Direction: Variable, see report text above

Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover until ~10am, then clearing rapidly to <20% cloud cover

Water Level: 0.9 feet above full pool and falling; 45 cfs release at Belton Dam

GT = 70

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1297/150 – 15 hybrid on live shad by 8a

**Area vic 1269 – 17 fish with a 3:1 mix of hybrid to white bass by 9a

**Area 1945/1290/1325 – spot hopping for “patches” of schooled white bass on bottom with slabs

**Area 1945– downrigging at 30′ over a breakline cresting at 33′ for 11 whites coming as singles and doubles on a pair of tandem-rigged Pet Spoons

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

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