Summer starts the usual way.. HOT & Humid! and making it less than pleasant to hit the water with a fishing pole in hand and catching a few bass on the brain.. This heat gives new meaning to the term "sweat equity" which is what we do in the sunny south anytime the temperature along with the humidity climb near the century mark.. time to wet wade and swim fish!



This spillway fishing is going on all over the state as lake managers attempt to get their lakes back to normal levels.. This is lake Somerville where J-Moe and I will be fishing all summer for whitebass and hybrids "one the fly"

Great report Ben!

I like your last comment "I need to keep some fish at some point". Yep I've had the same regrets on some of my sand bass outings.

Les

Great video. This looks like a blast. Are there any spillway's around DFW that you can fish from the bank like this? I am sure they are flowing right now.

Every lake in Texas has a spillway but which ones are accessible is something I do not know..

Joe Poole is one which has bank fishermen
You can fish at Lela for a fee (lewisville )
Ray Roberts is accessible
Drive around some or use google earth

Les

Dam spillway fishing in the summer is tough but well worth the extended effort when the fish are biting like they are now. Whitebass and hybrid stripers have razor sharp gill plates which makes handling them a risky venture.. One of those little slimy boogers got my pinky finger on Wednesday as I released it back into the water so that's the blood part of the title.. Being a glutton for punishment of the fishy kind, J-Moe and I have beaten a trail to the Lake Somerville spillway many times over the last two weeks as the fishing ramps up for the long summer season.. We never know how long this frantic feeding frenzy will last so we are just taking advantage of this moment in time..

Ray ROBERTS dam is open ( not a classic tail race not actually the spillway). And the heat seems to have made a dent in the elbow-to-elbow crowds. The lake is dropping so fast it's having a huge impact on shallow fish. Could change any second though!

The Sunny side..

I hit up Stilhouse Res spillway instead of heading down your way. I little bass and saw a few gar but couldn't get them to take anything.

nice Ben
That Cricket fly was a good call- classic matching the hatch.

Les

J-Moe tells me the spillway has really turned off.. Saturday evening was dead, dead, dead... neither of us could buy a bite much less a fish!

The regular early and late activity cycle was bound to change but the only way to know is to keep fishing.. We narrowly avoided the skunk on this evening trip and will take a break until Thursday morning to let things cycle back into a morning and evening rhythm. But I'll bet the sunny side is great fishing almost every morning as long as the crickets are there in big numbers..

Great fly fishing is short lived in the spillway whether "time of day" or the "moon cycle" or a host of other factors (read excuses) that affect the fish and the catching of them.
Saturday evening the weather put a damper on the lake that pretty much shut the fish down altogether. If it wasn't for one nice sunfish caught on the lake side of the dam J-Moe and I were both smelling the skunk coming. The little stinker doesn't get to us very often as we will put in the extra effort to avoid him but Saturday evening was something different.
I've got a long list of excuses for my fly fish failings but haven't decided which of those might apply for last Saturday.

Lake Whitney is coming down a foot per day and at that rate the Brazos river below the dam will be fishable by mid July if not sooner. The massive amount of floodwater released from the lake above undoubtedly has carried with it lots of fish namely the highly prized striped bass. This situation is similar to last year and the river will be fishing well overall but especially good and predictable with the power generation cycle as the stripers come up to feed when the river rises.

Improvements to the hydroelectric power station has changed the access rules to the area directly below the dam. These rules deal mostly with the rapid rise of the river when the generators automatically kick in responding to increased demand for power. The warning siren still sounds but the river will rise very quickly making for a dangerous and risky situation for the unprepared.

I captured on the video below the wall of water (last year) that comes from the power station when they start generating power. Now with the improvements to the power plant turbines the wall of water could be one third again that volume and moving quicker making the river deeper and a bit more dangerous.

From last year late July, J-Moe and I fishing with Robert Hunter..

Yep it's summer time in Texas.. Hot and humid with the temperature and humidity nearing the century mark daily. Those two things really do a number on us fishermen who won't stay in the house when the fish are biting in the heat of the day..

Awesome post!