Had a friend fish behin the dam last week and had a great outing including an 8 pound hybrid- ought to be good this weekend as fresh, new water should be heading in from a pretty good rain around here last night and early this morning

Can't wait go to fishing there.

did it flood over there? thikin bout goin to the dam on sat.

Let's go to the DAM and fish then!!!

we got a good rain but no floods here should be some water going over the dam still saturday

Awesome!!! I hate it when there is no water going over the spillway, causing the creek to dried up. In addition, it is surprising to catch BIG fish when there is little water in the creek. Fishing is non-existing there during the hot summer...just small stream of water. I am not sure where the creek run into going down south.

does any1 know how much water is flowing thru the dam since the flood?

I went today. Caught nothing also saw nobody catching anything. too many live bait fisherman. and there was buffalo everywhere. I mean everywhere! up and down the stream I kept snagging them so I got mad and went home lol

and lots of water? I think not it's barely going over.

What time did you go and leave the spillway? Is everybody using live shad? Are the shad hard to find? Thanks.

Shad are in there by the MILLIONS. Go go about 50 yards past the bridge and there is a pile of rocks with a smaller dam. Cast your net directly behine this this area and your Guarntee at least 500! There are rocks in here but it's only about 2feet deep out about 6 to 7 feet from the bank. You can walk out and un snag your cast net. These are of the 1 to 2 in variety.

If your looking for the monster gizzards, walk down 10 to 20 feet below the small dam and cast out. You will be in to the 4 to 10in shads. There are plenty of these as well.

As for fishing, fish has been hitting in the evening around 5 til dark. I've had the best luck with small perch and switching to 1/2oz White jigs under a 2foot float when they aren't biting perch.

so u dont think morning is good? about sun rise?

Morning has been OK for me there...just right before sunrise at 6:10am. After the sun perch over the horizon, the fish clocked out for the day. It is just weird...bam-bam-bam-bam...then nothing after the sun finally came out.

Oh, do not go fishing at nighttime there. No one...absolutely no one...had any bite last Friday night- Saturday morning...well, actually two blinded small drums hit our live shad bait.

Hmm.. thats strange. I hit them on the high side of the small dam with perch before sunset. Also I hit them a few feet below the small dam with perch as well.

thanks guys. im going to be heading out there with a few friends tomorrow morning. so perch is the best way to go huh? is there any sandies hitting?

Yup, i was fishing with a friend last week and hit 3 hybrids within the hour. After about 2hr's of fishing with perch he FINALLY hung one......A 11in sandy that is! That was pretty crazy to see.

At days end, he bought dinner!

ok thanks hamster1. u know if flukes work in the mornin?

live bait fishing is boring lol and most of the time you end up getting snagged on something at the bottom.

flukes is all I use foo. and watch out for the buffalo them hoes are everywhere

Anyone make it out over the weekend? Kingoffish, how did you do?

Re: Where the creek goes.

According to my Streets and Maps that creek is the boundary between lots of counties. It generall runs paralel to and west of 69 down to Mineola and then kind of follows south of 80 to Gladewater. After Gladewater I could not tell where it went but it will flow into the Sabine eventually.

I have fished by the west end of the 2 mile bridge before (when the lake was was down) but had very little luck. Glad to find out thre may be some fishing below the damn.

Is it possible to fish the lake side of the damn?

My kids live near the North end of the Lake so I get to fish there occassionly. Like to find a few more places accessible from the bank.

Went on Saturday morning...got there around 5am. About 10 people were already there from the overnight fishing or they may have come a little bit earlier than us. I made my first cast 10 minutes later...throw in the first perch about 3” long...BAMMM! a 20” Striper yank my line. After that one Striper, my dad and I didn’t catch anything until 1pm.

Around 1:15 pm, my dad start to use the live shad again and caught one 19” Striper. And, nothing after. I caught one more Striper at about 5pm...It is about 18 ½ inches long. We fish all day long and caught only three Stripers...all keepers. I saw only three people on the river caught one Striper each and they fish all day long too. Most other people caught ton of Drums and Sandies. One fisherman caught...looks like a 30+ lbs Buffalo...freaking HUGE fish!

It also rain on Saturday morning and sunburning in the afternoon (high 90 degree for sure). Water was coming over the Spillway pretty good after the rain. In the late afternoon, there were a group of family about 8 people in the party didn’t catch anything...so we gave them some of our live shad to use. They were happy, they finally getting some action...they mainly caught small drum. However, they didn’t care, because they are finally doing some real fishing. Fishing on Saturday were all right right for us...we caught some Stripers and got some quality outdoor time. The small drum kept us busy all day.

Found this info on Lake Tawakoni Spillway:

Iron Bridge Project
http://www.sra.dst.tx.us/projects/ibp.asp

This water supply project of the Sabine River Authority of Texas is located on the Sabine River immediately above the old Iron Bridge Crossing on FM 47, about 10 miles northeast of Wills Point, Texas. The reservoir inundates land in Hunt, Rains, and Van Zandt Counties. A permit for project construction was issued by the State Board of Water Engineers on December 20, 1955. Land acquisition was initiated in 1956 and completed in October 1960. Construction on the dam began in January 1958 and was completed in October 1960.

Dam and Spillway
The Iron Bridge Dam, which lies partially in Van Zandt County and partially in Rains County, consists of a rolled-earth embankment with an ungated concrete spillway. Total length of the dam, including the spillway, is approximately 5.5 miles. The embankment has a maximum height of 75 feet at stream bed and a crest width of 22 feet. The upstream slope of the embankment is protected from erosion by stone riprap. The ungated concrete spillway is 480 feet in length with a crest elevation of 437.5 feet above mean sea level. Contained in the spillway structure are two 4 feet by 6 feet low-flow outlets and two 20-inch discharge pipes equipped with regulating valves. The design discharge of the spillway is 50,000 cubic feet per second.

The Purpose
Construction of the Iron Bridge Dam and Reservoir Project was funded through a water supply agreement with the City of Dallas to provide water for municipal and industrial purposes. The reservoir storage capacity at 437.5 feet mean sea level conservation pool level is 926,000 acre-feet (302 billion gallons). The dependable annual yield of the reservoir is approximately 238,100 acre-feet per year (213 million gallons per day).

The Stream
The Sabine River rises in northern Hunt County and eastern Collin and Rockwall Counties and flows easterly to the Texas Louisiana boundary near Logansport, Louisiana, thence southerly to the Gulf of Mexico at Orange, Texas, a distance of about 515 river miles below the dam site. The Sabine River drains an area of about 9,756 square miles, of which 752 square miles are above the Iron Bridge Dam. Principle tributaries above the dam are South Fork, Caddo Creek, and Cowleech Fork. It is these tributary watershed that go together to form the oak-leaf shaped basin in which Lake Tawakoni is formed. The surface are of the reservoir at spillway crest is about 36,7000 acres. Of this area, 23,400 acres are in Hunt County, 10,600 acres are in Rains County and 2,700 acres are in Van Zandt County.

Annual rainfall over the Lake Tawakoni basin averages 39.5 inches, although it has varied from a recorded maximum of 63.7 inches in 1946 to a recorded minimum of 17.6 inches in 1910.

Recreation
In addition to its use for water supply, Lake Tawakoni has become an important recreation center. Its shoreline at spillway crest, totaling approximately 200 miles in length, offers extensive opportunities for recreational activities. Both private and public facilities have been installed around the lakeshore for swimming, boating, picnicking, fishing, duck hunting, and other uses. Certain areas around the reservoir are particularly adapted for summer homes, resorts, and clubs. For more information, please see the Sabine Basin Recreation Guide entry for Lake Tawakoni.

Current Conditions of Lake Tawakoni
Contact Information
Iron Bridge Division - Lake Tawakoni Reservoir
P.O. Box 310
Point, TX 75472
903-598-2216
903-598-2992 Fax

Randy Traylor, rtraylor@sra.dst.tx.us
Division Manager
Jason Stovall, jstovall@sratx.org
Assistant Division Manager
Sandy Lovvorn, slovvorn@sra.dst.tx.us
Office Secretary
See Also
Iron Bridge Division

now it's usually a hit or miss thing there at the spillway

water is so low now i can cast and hit the person in front of me on the other side of the creek lol

Which day did you go? Sunday or Monday?

Lolz, yea it was broke for us over the weekend as well.

Hmmm... So the river just goes on and on til LA????? I was thinking it banked into CC or something.