Rob and I decided to give it a try Tuesday and hoped the wind would not be as bad as predicted. Wasn't too bad when we launched at Lofers Bend. The gravel at the ramp can make loading and unloading the boat fun. The day started with a bang, struggled most of the day and ended with a big bang.
We headed to the spot that we caught a ton of fish the last time we were there, about 1/8 mile due South of the end of State Park. Didn't mark many fish but there were a lot of shad in the area and once we started thumping the fish came in. This was in 36 fow and the fish were on the bottom. The wind was already starting to kick up and after about 30 min. the fish stopped coming through. So now we pretty much know that the wind is going to determine where we fish.
We headed straight across the lake to about 1/8 mile North of Harbor Master. This area has some good structure and as we were moving to our fist spot in 50ft and graphed a large school suspended at 30. For some reason we decided to try and catch these suspended fish, normally for us they are very hard to catch but these were hungry. Caught some nice sandies and 6 lmb on slabs, SUSPENDED. Go figure, has never happened to us before. That played out so we moved over to a hump at 30fow and caught a bunch more nice sb and Rob got a 24" striper.
Now we get to the bad part of the day. Based on what we had seen so far our target depth was 30-36 fow. We tried many places in Towash, North of the Island and then North to the bluffs but very few fish. Then we started noticing that all the shad in this end of the lake were hanging around 20ft so moved to a 20ft hump and caught a few.
Went to the mouth of Cedron, marked shad, set up in 18ft and started catching sb all around 15". Worked the bank on the South side and would catch 10 or so and move. Until this point we had not seen more than 3 birds and assumed the majority had left the lake. Late in the day we were lucky to be in the right place (Cedron) at the right time and the birds showed us were a large school of fish were busting shad. What a way to end a great trip, just the sight of those birds diving and swirling gets your blood going knowing you are going to catch something. Ended the day with 131 on the clicker. 1 cat, 4 keeper striper, 8 lmb, 16 drum (ugh), and the rest sb with a few under striper. All released. The interesting thing was that we caught fish in 20, 30, 36, and 50 fow.

Rob with one of 4 keeper stripers caught


LMB that spit out the shad below.


Match the hatch


Birds in Cedron

Thanks for the report!

That is by far my favorite lake to fish in Texas so far...

It seems you can catch fish all over! Just when you think your finished and heading in, birds start working and you gotta fish birds, lol

Great report Steve ... I'm starting to like that lake a lot .........

What a great report and pictures. Very nice!

^^^^^^^

Nice post. Nice fish. Good job.

Great post, Steve. Thanks

Good report, Steve. It's very interesting that the spitted shad on other lakes are about the SSS slab size also for seveal month now. Been downsizing lures here as well.

Great day for you guys. Thanks for posting.

Great report Steve

Steve its been good for us also. Been catching some nice ones near that spot I told you about. Biggest yesterday was 29 1/4. Fished for about two hours and caught 10 or so. Last few weeks been playin the wind on blown shorelines and rocks. Seems they are liking the sun on the rocks during late eve. Also got a bonus with a 7lb large mouth last week. Found a few sandies but didnt mess with them concentrated on the stripers. All in between 20-30 ft. The bait is really showing up in the evening on those sunny shorelines with the sun on it all day.