Surrounded by Choke Canyon, Falcon, and Coleto Creek; I believe that Lake CC (mathis) is extememly underated as a bass fishing lake.

I love making little trips to Mathis, not only because it is 15 minutes away, but because it is loaded with bass!! Once you figure the lake out a little, bass fishing at Mathis can be just as fast paced as Choke or Falcon!! It is common place for me to catch 20 bass on a Saturday morning fishing session.

Also, Mathis has some real "hawgs" in there. The lake record is only about 1 pound shy of the Choke record and 2 lbs under Falcon'. This fish was almost 14 lbs. Personally, I have caught two 8 lbers on this lake and have seen a 12 lber caught by my neighbor. It is not rare for me to catch fish in the 5-6 lb class, as I usually catch one on each trip.

However, the average fish on Mathis is much smaller than the other South TX lakes. You will go through about 5 dinkers, in the 12 inch and under range, before you get a solid keeper fish. Last weekend, I fished a tourny there and me and my partner must have caught 50 fish on Sunday, yet I only had 5 keepers and he only had 3. What this tells me is that there needs to be a better stocking and management system on the lake.

Obviously, the lake has what it takes to grow large fish, and it does! However, the average fish can be very small. I believe that if someone would take an interest in bass fishing on the lake, than better management could be done and the lake could be on the same level as the other lakes! Why not? It has year around warmer conditions than all but Falcon, plenty of forrage, and excellent habitat.

There needs to be a push to start developing that lakes fishery. It needs some Floridas, and tighter regulations. If this is done I believe it could be a dynamite lake. However, it is already pretty good in my book!!!

MeSkeeter, Im probley going to get shot for posting this, But o well, from one fisherman to another. Do you think it would be wise to take out some of the Samller fish, and give the larger ones more room to grow, like managing a Deer Herd, if your catching 50 dinks a day, in my opinion some of them should go in the grease. Just a thought guys, dont kill me for it. I know its Taboo to talk about eating bass. hell i cant say much, i dont keep them either.

No that is something that can help fisheries at times. However, when I say dinks, Im talking about smaller than the leval limmit. The fish that I was talking about are like 12" or less. The limmit for a keeper is 14"

Now, in certain situations, sometimes fish do need to be taken from a population. This is usually the case in smaller bodies of water where over crowding occurs resulting in stunted fish. This was evident in a private lake membership that my uncle had. It was catch and release only, and things were good at first but after a few years the fish began to get stunted. Youd catch alot but they were all about 1 1/2 with big heads and small bodies. However, the owner could not get the concept that there were too many fish for the small lake to handle and my unle left because he did not want to pay big bucks for 2 lbers.

However, keeping fish is not the answer in Mathis. Mathis is a fairly good sized lake that is capable of sustaining lots of fish. We're talking over 20,000 acres. Its a little smaller than choke canyon.

I think that the answer for Mathis is to apply a slot limmit. Possibly from 16" to 22" or something of the sort. Also, stalking some Floridas wouldnt hurt either.

Still, I dont understand why there are so many dinkers in there when it obviously can grow big fish? Anybody?

I didnt realize Mathis was that Big, I thought is small like Houston County. I think your right about the the slot, i think it would help to.

i grew up there catching tons of crappie and catfish. went camping there this spring for the first time with a boat and did some bass fishing. we got a 6 and a 4 and had many small ones. it is a pretty good lake.

MeSkeeter is correct about Lake Mathis. I also live within 15 minutes of the lake and have had a lot of success. I have caught several bass in the 6 lb class.
The BASS Federation used to hold tournaments on this lake until recent years when the lake levels dropped to dangerous lows. To the point of mud literally being sucked of the bottom as this lake is a ater source for C.C.
Now that the lake has filled back up and the officials hopefully realize that releasing all the water to pump fresh water in to our bays for the shrimp is not at our best interest, I believe that the growth rate will be fantastic with all the new feeding opportunities for. the bass such as new flooded areas
Besides all that, it is an extremally fun lake to fish. And a few Floridas wouldn't hurt anything!
:-)

Also, everytime I fish mathis I see tons of white bass. However, they are all about 9-11 inches long. There has to be some fooballs in there somewhere, but maybee not. Anyone ever caught any good white bass there?

However, it does have some fat daddy crappie. Ive caught a few on crank baits by accident.

I can remember when we would drive past choke to go to Mathis. It use to be my money lake. I think its main problem is that it does not have a lot of spawning areas and that is made worse when it is low. When it was at its best in the 80,s it had gotten a lot of fish that had washed down from choke when the had to do a rapid releas from a flood from a hurricane. At least that is what we thought back then. I do know for a fact that we fished there usually in June or July with about 100 teams and 95 of those teams would have a limit. It would take about9 to 10 pounds to make a check and 14 to 18 to win usually. Big Bass was normally in the 6 to 7 pound range. It was a fun lake to fish, tho it is probably one of the most hazzardous to run if you plan on heading up lake.

ML

I am not for shure but I think about 4 or 5 years ago they put a bunch of Florida bass in there, but I would have to look it up.

Mathis still has good fish in it MLTX!! Last weekend I fished a two day, 3 fish each day, for a total of 6 fish tourny; and the winning total was about 18 lbs. The big bass was only 4 lbs. However, I had a total weight of 12 lbs, even with my dad goofing the landing of the 8 lber that I caught all the way up to the side of the boat. That would have put me at least at 20 lbs. No BULL!!!

However, you should have seen the mess of fish under 14 inches that everybody caught. Just about everyone would catch 30 bass in a day, but lots of guys couldnt find three keepers to weigh in. On day two, I did manage to catch 5 fish over 14 inches, my best 3 were all over 3 lbs, but...... I probably caught 40 total fish to do this. To me, that is way too small of an average, especially when it is not uncommon to catch a fish close to 10 lbs in that lake if you actually fish it.

Its weird? Mathis has the ability to produce big ones, the record is almost 14 lbs, and there is lots of fish in there, but the average fish is just so tiny. Somethings up????

I really dislike that mudhole. I fished it a couple of times this month. Once prefishing for a tourney and then the tourney. 10lbs won it. Big bass was 3.8 lbs. Dang near everyone ran north. We stayed south. Only 4 or 5 teams brought in a limit. We had 4 fish and took 5th with 7lbs with a 3.4lb big bass.

Tamale, what tournement was that.

ML

You need to come fish mathis with me. Like I said, it does have a small avg. fish, but it is loaded with them making it kinda fun for being so close to CC. Also, there are some real hawgs in there if you know what to do.

I just got back from a quick little Mathis trip. Took the girlfriend and the dog, so I did not get to stay very long. Again, the fish were biting, but lots of small ones with a few keeps mixed in. From 7:30 to 10:30 I probably had 10 fish, but only 3 keepers! Lost a good one though!! Also, I must have mised a hundred, all small ones pecking at the end of the plastic. Still, for only being a few minutes away from my house, it is a good time.

It just needs a good stocking job and tighter restrictions.

It was an oil man tourney. Don't really recall the name of the tourney, I fished as a guest.

BTW I did catch some white bass. I was working down the bank and they started schooling all around me. I had a crankbait on a rod that was hanging over the side of the boat and caught one about 6 inches long.

Oil man tourny? I need to fish some of those! Most oil tournys around here are saltwater though. Im in the oilfield trucking business and that would be a good way to meet new customers!! Let me know if you know of any more of these by PM.

Yea, even the average white bass on Mathis is very small. It is loaded with them and I can catch them at any time or day but they will usually be very small.

However, you can catch a big bass there if you are patient!

I think some of the reason for so many small fish is the lack of deep water, but this is just a guess.

Its not deep like choke, but It does have plenty of areas around 30 ft. But, that may have something to do with it.

I wonder if the big fish are geting dumped out when they let water out of the lake leaving mostly young fish out there, with the occasional big uns that you will catch from time to time.

If this is so, then maybee we otta fish the river a little more. Come to think of it, nobody fishes the river at all for bass and the last time that I did, I caught a couple of solid 3 lbers.

How do you guys usually fish CC? From what I have seen just from being around the lake and messing around on it skiing and such, everyone fishes the south end. Is it best deep, or shallow around the flooded structure?

I like to fish the docks that have deep water by it and I also like to fish the isolated patches of trees.

small fish with the occasional swap donkey being caught, throw some 4-6lbs in the mix and it sounds like every other lake in tx other then Amistad,Falcon,choke,alan henry and rayburn...

I think the hybrids/striper that where stocked might have something to do with it, they will compete for the same food and if the lake doesnt have alot of cover they will share habitat as well so bass wont be the main predator ,im a firm believer in that... I say that cause we have 2 local lakes here in san antonio (braunig and calaveras) that where the best in the state of texas at one time(70's-80's) and now they stink for bass fishing, but u can catch hybrids and reds like crazy in them now though.. Looking at the cc(mathis)lake stocking history bass wasn't on the top of the list unitl couple of yrs ago, hybrids/stripers won that race... Amistad is a lil different, it gets it fair share of bass and striper stocking but there is tons of cover and food to eat, oh yea its also 60,000+ acres as well...

I would like to fish this lake in a couple of yrs though with what i see happening as they stock rainbow trout and all the florida bass.... ID There grass present?? IF so has the making of being a good lil lake on paper that is

The lake has alot of cover for the bass. Just to name a few willow trees, docks, reeds, water hyachens, big chunk rocks.

Jbguide is right! Mathis has ALOT of cover. Everything he named plus lots of Mesquite brush. Since the lake was so low for a long time, alot scrub brush began to grow up in the dry areas. When the lake came back up and reclaimed its boundries, it left alot of mesquite trees flooded and under water. There are mesquite flats everywhere!

STC, like jbguide said, fishing the docks can be good but it depends on which docks you fish. There are lots of dead water areas on Mathis in my opinion. Also, Mathis fishing seems to be different than other lakes. Fish seem to relate more to certain kinds of cover rather than points and things like that.

I like to fish islands of flooded sticks, flood sticks around certain shorelines, rocky shorelines, and certain docks on the southwest end of the lake.

Will, they may have stocked hybrids, stripers, and bass at one time; but nothing has been done in quite a while to continue and improve these fisheries. Im telling you right now, I dont think that there is a striper or hybrid that still exist in Lake CC. However, there are plenty of Bass, Cats, white bass, and Gaspergoo. It would be cool to have some stiper though. I guess a combination of the big drought and them dumping water out into the bay killed the striper and hybrid fisheries because I never hear of them being caught.

However, there are plenty of LMB and sandies though the average fish is very very small. The thing that I find strange, is why?? Mathis should have a great average fish for the same reasons that Choke and Falcon do. Warm weather, low pressure, lots of forrage, plenty of cover, ect. I think that it is just a perfect example of the effect that stocking has on a lake.

Mathis is just a lake that is left alone to produce for itself without help from man. Consequently, you have a lake with tons of small fish with the capabilities of growing big ones, which it does. However, if it had some help I believe it could rival some of the better lakes.

Here is the stocking for Mathis lakes Florida bass (2008-463,176)(2002-483,220) (1998-422,269) and Rainbow trout have been stock from 1993 to 2008 on average about 1,500 adults. To me you would think that the trout would help, but maybe it is to hot and none of them are making it.

Mathis just can't keep the water in it long enough to become great again. When there was grass in the lake, fishing was real good. I think now that we have kept the lake up for a 1 1/2 years it might pick back up if we get more water soon and get rid of the floating veg. that chokes everything off in the backs of coves.

p.s. There is a tourny. on the 27th of July if anyone is interested. Pays top 3 JUBC

Can you give some more info on tourn.