Planning a fishing trip for this weekend, we have all day! Anyone know of a nice place to spend the day bank fishing; maybe an hour drive of DFW Area, preferably East Texas?
Would like to hit a promising spot where we can catch some fish since were taking my 10 Year old brother, maybe keep him entertained. I've checked the maps and the lakes in this general area, but I don't want to risk going to an inaccessible place. Does anyone maybe have any reports in this general area? help is much appreciated!


Going to try Purtis Creek State Park! Decided to just Edit my post instead of posting another topic.

[For your Enjoyment! ]

Anyone been to Purtis Creek recently with any reports? What Species I should be fishing for from the piers at this time of year!

Also wondering what color crappie jigs &/or plastic worms have worked for you in this type of water?

Reports for Purtis Creek State Park have been poor since TPWD put grass carp in the lake. I would be very interested in hearing how you do fishing from the piers with nightcrawlers for bluegill. The lake was stocked with coppernose bluegill, redear and Georgia giants but that was last done in 1997.

Please post your results when you get back.

Thank you!



I will make sure to pass by the bait shop to pick up some nightcrawlers! Any type of rigs you would really recommend for fishing sunfish?? So i can research them.

Most folks are fishing for cats or crappie off the piers. Not sure how the bream fishing will be. But there are some big ones in there.

Epic fail on the part of TPWD.....killed a great fishing lake.

Hey tpwd.Grass carp do not only eat grass.
They eat all the other species eggs.
No eggs.No fish.

I have a blog with posts by several authors discussing the best ways to catch sunfish. Click here to read.

Best of luck on your trip.

Glad to hear that! We will be fishing for some crappie as well as bass in the early morning when we get there. What color plastic baits would yall recommend? It's light colors for somewhat clear water right?



Thank you a ton! Really grateful for all the feedback, ill be giving the blog a reading.

Back with limited report on Purtis Creek State Park!

Starting out the day a little late because of some basic supplies we forgot to pack and needed to stop by stores, but oh well we learn from our mistakes.

We arrived at the gate around 11am and decided to hit the North piers. We made sure to grab some night crawlers and head on out, the water wasn't as clear as i thought it would be I could only see about 2 feet down but nothing that bothered me. Just one other fisherman was there so it meant we had about half of the pier to work with. He was also kind enough to let us have some live minnows after we had no luck finding a bait shop that sold any.

Father went right towards crappie fishing, casting as close as he could by the submerged trees. Rigged himself a jighead with live minnows on a bobbe. I decided to try casting out on to the lake from the piers with a Texas rig, 4" Dinger on a Size #3 offset work hook. No bites. Tried parallel to the banks with no luck as well, Tried it for some 1-2 Hours but didnt expect much because of the time of day it was.

The other fisherman was there was getting plenty of bites from sunfish though, he was fishing for catfish but only thing we saw him catch was a longnose gar along with sunfish. He might have caught others but nothing i can verify. He left around 3 and tipped us before leaving, stating that plenty sunfish were biting 2-3 feet from the bottom.

Started rigging a size 6 Aberdeen hook on a bobber held down by a #3 Split shot. Took off the bobber after we got tipped and just started fishing the bottom for some, didn't get any bites and didnt catch any. I tried around the banks and they were biting the nightcrawlers but none got hooked, wasnt sure if maybe it was something else but we didnt see any turtles around that time. (Figured thats maybe why the other guy left) We ended the fishing aroun 4:30pm to visit other activities the park had to offer.

Grilled Burgers with father and brother and went swimming during our break.

Resumed fishing around 7:00pm on the South piers by the ramp with much success! there were 2 other "groups" fishing there, they were full on rigging for sunfish because according to them they were biting like crazy and they were!

i was able to catch one after i first let my hook drop to the bottom, then pulled it up about 2-3 reels. The other people were catching 10-15 Sunfish, from what we saw; keep in mind we got there while they had been fishing for a long time. We saw 4"-8" Redear get caught, all on nightcrawlers. I took almost the whole time making a better rig, just one long line with a sinker at the bottom with 3 way swivels at different depths. with size 6 aberdeen hooks running from each different depth. Was able to catch 5 by the time i left around 8:30pm.

They were swallowing the hook whole which freaked me out a little since it got stuck in their throat and all. So in summary People were pretty unlucky with Catfish, Bass, and crappie from the piers. But Sunfish were in abundance! All caught on nightcrawlers. Decent size, brought them home to fry! I will be coming back on different seasons to get the full experience of this park!

I was only able to take a picture of a small one because we decided to leave any electronics in the truck to fully enjoy the lake! but i'm about to cook the fish and ill take some pictures to get an idea of the size. Ill post later on today!