thediscochef

First ever tube bass! 12ft+ water visibility; bluegill and tiny minnows all over the place. BPS tender tube, 3.5" green pumpkin/chart tail, 1/16oz BPS head. Hit on the fall of a long cast as I was about to start retrieving. Thanks for the advice in the tackle forum, much appreciated!

Their super braid is good stuff. My weird struggles at Ray Roberts continue, but I think it has more to do with timing and conditions. Lake Whitney, on the other hand, continues to be good to me. Each time I've been I caught a bass. Nice to remember that feeling of a strike. For the 20 minutes I was able to fish uninterrupted in 15-20mph winds, not bad. Whitney is a seriously underrated fishing lake, and on any given weekday it's basically empty. One calm day in mid January was the most active big topwater I've seen in years. A bowling ball a minute, ripples as far as you can see. Woe is me for not having a whopper plopper. i digress. Cool private lake fishing in the morning; Canyon Lake, Inks Lake, Buchanan, Travis, and Choke Canyon are all potential stops on this trip. Travis for sure tomorrow weather permitting.

I haven't had a day this frustrating in a while. One bite in four hours - a heavy fish that snapped my leader cause I had my drag too tight. Better luck tonight I guess. Many swears, now realizing I have lost more fish in February than I have caught 4-2.

Check out Possum Kingdom for sure. It's got very clear water by texas standards so be prepared for that. You may also want to check out Hubbard Creek Reservoir, it's a little more typical of texas reservoirs - visibility 2-6ft. Lake Bridgeport, Eagle Mountain and Lake Granbury are also nearby. The above are the primary large reservoirs within an hour/hour and a half of Mineral Wells. You will have about a three hour drive between Mineral Wells and Lake Fork, but that's doable. Tawakoni is closer but more of a white bass lake. Lake Whitney is a little closer and further south - a great fishing lake - last time I was there in Mid-January it sounded like someone throwing bowling balls into the lake about every two minutes. I was at the state park boat ramp that empties out into a little cove. Ray Roberts is about a 2 hour drive but obviously a strong choice. Lake Lewisville is about the same distance and has some older structures like the old Lake Dallas Dam that can be good to fish around in the northwest part of the lake i believe. The other DFW lakes can produce great fish but are not places I frequent considering I live ten minutes from Ray Roberts. hope you can find a football somewhere, best of luck

That's not a plant I've seen around here but I see it in enough guides to recognize it. Glad I could be of service. DINKS! Welp. Finally back at the water tomorrow, after 13 straight days of filming. It'll be post-front which is lame, but at least I can stay for more than an hour at a time. I've only caught two bass this month, lost the two biggest ones I hooked. 3 of 5 trips skunk, no more than 7 hours of total fishing time. It's making me feel bad, but it's OK lil buddy. Spawn season is just around the corner. It'll be 100 degree days on the Trinity before we know it. Did manage my first ever cabelas pond bass on my way to location one evening, though, which was a nice consolation. Wish me luck. Imma need that. Also a new set of beard clippers; mine met an unfortunate and unlikely demise. I feel like a dang sasquatch ?

So this time of year will be a mystery to me still after 2022. My shoots keep getting extended. Which means I'm making better money, and I'm not complaining about that. But after I wrap on Friday, I'll have Saturday and Sunday mornings at Isle du Bois before I leave for a private fishing lake, see my Clear water tactics thread in the tackle forum for more on that. There's much excitement around that. I'll effectively have fished Ray Roberts maybe 6-8 times in January and February combined in 2022. I didn't even start really fishing on my own until March last year. So January and February are kind of an unknown, save for a couple of bits that are actually quite helpful. -dinks (fish under 8" or so) stop biting almost immediately when we have a real cold snap, not just a cold night or two. Typically between Christmas and January 21. This year the last bite from small fish was NYE. -49 degrees seems to be February football temps. grab your jerkbaits, find some rocks to stand on, and throw it into a dropoff. receive football. I haven't done that myself (not for lack of trying in my aforementioned limited time) but i have seen more than one happen that way, judgingly from a distance. I want the jerkbait football. anyway bedtime

Nothing makes me swear more than that experience

That does not look like hydrilla or milfoil to me, more like bladderwort

Thanks! I'm finding that a lot of my instincts about this were correct. Those same instincts came from this website, it's one big circle. Yall are so helpful, I appreciate it very much

So this may be a topic for a different thread, but I was wondering how yall rig your shakeyheads and how yall retrieve them

Bringing some owner shakey ultra heads, 1/16 and 1/8oz and 4" finesse worms for sure. I'll have to see if I have a paddletail somewhere. The owner of the lake says the primary diet is bluegill

The only time I like hearing drag is when my line is tight enough to make me worry about it breaking. Otherwise it sounds like a bad hookset and lost fish.

Working on that one ?

She did actually, wants to learn how to fish. I'm trying to make sure we both get something ? This forum is the best, y'all always come through with great advice

Ya know The biggest fish I've ever seen in person was caught on a jerkbait. I've never been able to figure them out. I think I tend to get 30 minutes into fishing new things, lose confidence because of my impatience, and switch to what I use 95% of the time. I need to go fishing and only take jerkbaits or something, until I figure out how to fish them...

Slow, deep, and tight to cover. Midday is when I catch my bigger fish, though my PB came at 10:05PM on Christmas

I was in Dalhart for a work night this week and Meredith was calling my name...wanted to stop at some of the lakes on 287 but they're all dried up. I have tons of family in the central panhandle. Somehow I've never been to Meredith. We're having a memorial for my grandpa in May...I intend to bug my uncle to drive the male cousins around in the pontoon boat so I can get me one of them toothy bass ?

And here I am dreaming of just 10lbs LOL

So the cabin is provided with kayaks which will be used for sure. I will be there Feb 21 through 25, and things should be in a general warming trend. I suspect I'll be getting in towards the middle of prespawn or the beginning of spawn. I'm not sure if the lake has a contour map or not, but it's also in an area that may have Guadalupe bass so I may pull one of those. I need to text the guy who owns the place and pick his brain. We will be making day trips to canyon lake and Buchanan as well, Canyon has super clear water. Never been to Buchanan but definitely want to check it out. Might also take a detour to lake travis, I have a buddy in Lago Vista. From the air, the private lake looks more like a large pond with lake-like structure and shape.

Can't catch em if they aren't there I'm thinking visibility will also increase how many fish will see the lure. I may throw a mini fluke on a 1/16oz weighted ewg and see what happens, too So many choices with clear water, the usually murky water I fish requires noise and flash to maximize the number of fish that see you. Given the visual nature of bass, clear water seems to give you way more presentation options visually

This aligns with how I usually rig my baits, I mostly use 1/8oz chatterbaits, skirtless, with 2.75"-4" plastics. Trying to bring finesse lures from that range up to a 7" culprit worm. I'll need to make sure I bring some small crawz too I think...

This makes sense, I do know that I've had less success in red shirts. I'm usually in khaki pants with a blue or teal shirt. I think from a fish perspective my upper half will usually need to blend with sky on the shore, if the fish is close enough to see me. May have to go get some tan shirts too. Black has also been good to me.

Long casts won't be a problem...that was one of the first things I worked out on my spinning gear...and why i dislike mono over 8lb. I use a daiwa fuego 2500xh, 7' MXF rod. 20lb 8 carrier braid with a 12lb cxx leader. May go for straight 10lb fluorocarbon for better hide. So the direction is to stand back from the water a bit? Should I bring a bush or fake tree to stand behind? Maybe a ghillie suit? Lol in all seriousness I should probably dress in natural tones too. Given that I'm going to fishing with reach too, maybe some thinner wire hooks? I appreciate yalls input, I feel like I have decent instincts but there's always something I haven't thought about. I'm only one brain.

Hey y'all My lady got us a week in a cabin on a private lake that apparently holds good bass. I was looking at photos of the place and the water looks pretty clear - maybe up to 10 feet or so. I usually gear my approach to the waters around me that have maybe half that visibility. So far I'm thinking I need less noise, so maybe less on the chatterbaits, and more pumpkin/watermelon colors in finesse type baits like tubes, finesse worms, culprit worms, and ned rigs. If there's anything I'm overlooking, I'm here for a schooling. Thanks ?

Meredith? I've had a rough few nights at my rockpile on Ray Roberts, then again I've only had an hour or so to fish for a couple nights. I don't think I'm actually having trouble finding fish by my standards, it's more about having as much time unconstrained as I had been. I don't fish as well when I'm feeling rushed. I'm going to try not to work for the month of March and try and get my confidence back a little bit.