Last Call for Monticello

My buddy Jim and I made the trip to Lake Monticello yesterday hoping to get one more trip on the lake with the power plant cranking out some warm water. Unfortunately my brother the “Scoundrel” could not join us like he has on so many past trips. Another buddy of mine and his son joined us as first-timers but I don’t think they got a real taste of how good it could be/was. When we arrived at first light the Plant was all lit up like Christmas but the big stacks had no smoke and final shutdown appears to be already underway by the electric company.

We made the best of trip despite some cold weather trying the usual spots. Water temps ranged from 55-62 but was dropping during the day and with weather coming in for next week it should really drop fast. Struggled to put 8 decent fish in the boat and late in the afternoon one of our old holes produced a bunch of little fish. We did not fish the outlet but could see water was still flowing but no fog so I assume it was just cool runoff from the plant. Throughout the day I kept looking back at the stacks hoping I would see smoke billowing out but only memories from so many past trips.

We made one last stop on the way out and almost on script I caught my biggest fish of the day.
It was a very old fish, way past it’s prime, just like the lake.





Winter fishing will never be the same there with the power plant shutdown but it’s been a heck of a long and productive run.

I expect fishing in the future will still be good there during the other seasons but only time will tell, and time marches on.

Nice work.

You are right it won’t be the same without Monticello fishin in the winter. Some of my fondest memories are from that lake catching bass on a topwater plug while it was snowing.

Good times for sure!!

I started fishing the lake Winter of 1974. I recall that year very well because my best friend bought a brand new GMC truck on his birthday in Nov of 1974 and we headed to Monty with a 14' Jonboat in the back. We called the 9.9 hp Sea King outboard Old Wheezer because thats how it sounded hen it was running. It wheezed & coughed & smoked a LOT!

The next year I bought my very first bass rig from a neighbor. It was a 15' Duckhawk, probably a '68 year model, with a 55 Chrysler. It had stick steering and a 28# thrust foot controlled MG troll motor. We thought we had died and gone to Heaven in that rig! We terrorized the bass for two years on Hubbard, Lavon, T-wok & Monty in that rig.

About two years later I moved up the the "big time" and bought a 4 year old 16' Ranger TR-10 with a Johnson 135. The boat was rated for 85 hp and my quest for a faster bass rig began. That rig would do a blistering 48 mph and lit a spark in me to go fast in a boat.

Lake Fork had opened by then and we started heading there on a regular basis. Many days we would start on Monty before daybreak then finish at Fork which put us 40 miles closer to home at the end of the day.

Unless my calculations are way off I have logged 972 trips to Monty over the years.

Great report! I remember the good old days on Monticello. Sleeting, guides freezing up and dipping them in the water to thaw them out. Catching a fish and warming your hands on it.

Wonder why the coal train would still be running if the plant is shut down. Hauling it to other coal plants?

WOW on the 972!

Good last trip and thanks for the pictures. Save them and show them to your grand children with all the stories that go with them.

Hauling it to Washington D.C. to build a fire under the Congressmen and Senators a$$ to get something done, lol.

The train is parked on the bridge, hasn't budged in at least a week.

You ain't that old Ken. If you went once a week for 52 weeks that means you fished Monti for a total of over 18 years. You added in your head didn't you, lol.

TX Dan great memories at Monticello in Dec. Made my last 2017 trip and last hot water Monticello trip yesterday also and yesterday didn’t let me down. After throwing a bearing buddy that I didn’t notice until about to launch at 9, I finally got it fixed and got on the water around 11 with low expectations. Headed straight to the railroad creek with the water temps 50-58 back there. After getting broke off by a giant in the pad stems things started looking up. Moved out to the middle and ended up catching fish from noon until 3:30 almost nonstop. Found large school of prespawn fish stacked in the grass and lost count around 30 fish but guess I had at least 50 or so in the 3-8 lb range Key was yo-yo ing /ripping a white chatterbait off the bottom out of the grass. Was one of those phenomenal days and great way to cap off the end of an era.

We were blessed to have a lot of fun lakes to fish "back in the day" before the population exploded. My first trip to Monticello was in January 1977, I was 8 years old and I will never forget it!

My last "good" trip when they were really generating was a couple years ago, man those were some fun days!!!


Just like those who never got to fish Fork, Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend or even most recently Falcon when they were "really good", it's really hard to explain just how good fishing used to be in Texas.

Sounds like you made the best of bad start and really whacked'em good,
there is definitely lots of good fish still out there but I'll be headed someplace warmer next time

Had my best day ever at Monti about 15 years ago. My first 3 casts that day were a 6, a 7 and an 8 1/2 on a spook at the intake. Between me and my buddy we had over 150 that day with 4 fish over 8lbs. Both of us could have weighed in over 30lbs that day!

The water coming out of the discharge isn't 80 degrees, but it isn't 50, either. They were cooling cmequipment today, and discharge fishing was pretty good at times. Quite a few small fish and about 4-5 nice ones including a 22.5" fatty!

That's good to know!

So who will catch the last 5 lb+ bass before end of year and the first 5+ cold bass of 2018?

Just because I look 39 doesn’t mean I am! Lols
I made 492 trips over a four year period from 1988 to 1991.

39

Lots of coal sets (the cars that make up coal trains) are either owned or leased by the utilities. If they haven't moved in a while they are most likely stored indefinitely like lots and lots of coal sets all over the country.

I think you're adding in your head again Ken. If you went once a week for 4 years that's only 208 trips and I know you were guiding on Fork during those years. If you went twice a week that's still only 416 trips. Oh, just figured it out. You were going twice a day. Now it adds up.

I also had my very best ever 2 days of fishing on Monticello. I don't remember the exact year, it was when the stack fell? We spent a week on Fork late February, and stopped at Monty for a day every year. The water was cold, they weren't generating because of the stack accident and we weren't expecting much but holy chit we accidentally found them on the outer edge of the deepest grass. I don't think we moved the boat 40 yards all day. Almost every cast for 6 hours, on a black neon Gene Larew salt craw. Giants piled up like I've never seen and probably won't ever see again. I was with my brother that day, I've never wanted to stay on the water so bad in my life but we had to head home. I loaded up my father the next weekend and hauled it back to Monty. Pulled up on the same exact 40 yard stretch of grass and immediately started it all over again, maybe even better because we had brought every black neon bait and jig we could come up with lol. I have fished with my father and brother from one end of the country to the other for 50 years, and those were the best 2 days of bass fishing I've had.

Wow what great stories... back in year ??? Dad and I fished Monticello We only knew it as Blundell creek lake. We caught fish in the woods where the creek would bend. I even got to watch the "American Angler" tournament there and that is when I learned about the railroad bridge. I worked at the old Kelly Springfield plant in Tyler Second shift.(3-till 11pm) I would tow my boat to the plant; when I got off work I would drive to Monticello and fish. Trick was to not fish past 8 am; This was my deadline as I could drive from lake to Flint and be in bed by 10 -10:30 sleep till 2 and then make it in to work by 3 pm. I did this couple of time a week during the winter. (Much younger and stronger then) Have so many great memoirs of fishing there, One Mothers day I talked my wife into going fishing with me, She sat in the back of the boat and read I began to flip the grass near the plant, My first fish was over 7, She nearly jumped out of the boat when I Flipped that biggun in the bottom of the boat. I caught 7 fish that day flipping near the plant all over 5 pounds.
I have had so many great days there with my Dad (butcher Bill the barber) He had a shop in Winnsboro so he heard all the great places and when the fish were biting, so we went often. I even got to see / meet that fireman from Dallas that camped on a hump.
Never broke into the huge side of bass on Monticello , but man did I ever catch a lot of fish that brought me smiles even today 40 years later
Wild bill

I love these stories. Keep em coming. I am newer to fishing. Only been fishing a few years, but it was my first PP lake I ever fished. I was amazed. Holds a special place in my heart. Sad to see the change.

Just notified on Facebook that 6 years ago today I posted this picture. It was one of my first trips to Monti without GPS.
I had fished the lake a few times and at night and thought I could find the railroad bridge using my watch, no problem. I thought I knew to the minute within a hundred yards how long it would take paddling straight down the middle of the lake before I needed to hang a right. Whether I was early or late I could find it once I hit that bank.
I launch an hour before daylight wanting to be the first at railroad bridge and avoiding all the early morning boat traffic. I get lost on foggiest day I've ever seen there and have a hard time finding the big bridge. Its a solid wall of fog but I press on. Once I find the opening in the big bridge I'm back to looking at my watch to see at what time I will make my turn. After 20 minutes of paddling from big bridge I hang what I think is my right turn.
No breeze to help with wind direction as I can normally feel it on my face {north} or not {south} if coming from behind me... just fog. After 10 more minutes of paddling I should be at railroad bridge... I finally hear the excavator and push ahead and directly at the sound. Its taking me a lot longer than usual for some reason. Finally figure out I've paddled in a circle and the sound I hear are cars going over the big bridge.

Back to paddling and reset my bearing and look at the time and by now its daylight. I can hear boats flying by but never see one. I finally get my bearings as fog clears, I'm headed straight for railroad bridge then another huge bank of fog engulfs me. I stop to take the picture as it is just like this all around me and I'm in the small fog free zone. The wind has picked up and when I stop paddling to take picture, my kayak must have turned into the breeze and so help me I'm lost again. Fog finally clears and I make it to my destination about two hours later than my calculation. Got a fishfinder with GPS soon after.

Love it! Back in the late 70’s through 80’s spent about 75% of my winter Monti time fishing at night in an old reliable Super Skeeter. Generally would hit the lake about 9 pm usually before any fog and spend most of the time from the RR bridge back to the Horseshoe. Tried a few times in fog like that to stay under the power lines to get back to the outlet and Hwy bridge, spooky you could hear the power lines sizzlin’ in the fog and they appeared to be only about 4 feet off the water, which was pretty unsettling in itself. Many times thought I was on a straight path to the Hwy bridge only to find after 20 minutes at idle speed I had just gone in a circle nowhere. Later just started bringing sleeping bag and sleep a few hours in the boat tied to a stump and ready to go at first light.

I’m going to miss the sizzling sound of the power lines.

That was Bob Garcia. He was a fireman in Grand Prairie. And CAMP is the correct word here.

Garcia's Hump is named after him because he would tie up both ends of his gold Ranger to stumps and soak a big worm. It is 8' on top of the hump and Blundell Creek makes a hard bend in a "C" shape around it. It is a very small spot, maybe 30X50 feet. He would stay in one spot on that hump for 24-48 hours at a time and never move his boat. He kept his boat cover in the rod box so when he got sleepy he would just lie down across the bench seats of his boat and pull the tarp over him so he would get soaking wet with all the fog & dew.

Back in the heyday of Monty they would take a Polaroid pic of every fish over 7# and hang it on the board at Kountry Korner. Bob's pic would be on that board every week, sometimes with multiple big fish from his trip. Back then the most popular worm was a 12" Mister Twister Phenom in Black Neon color.

The best big crankbaits we had then were the Rebel Maxi-R, Arbogast Mudbug, and the Bagley DB3.

There were a few guys from that area around Mt. Pleasant that could really catch 'em and I mean catch 'em good. Just to name a few, Joe Huff, Sammy Donaldson, Gerald Roebuck, Tommy Milam. I fished with Tommy & Gerald many times there. They taught me the lake.

Jimmy Kimball broke the long standing State Record with his 14.09 State Record in Feb. 1980. I got to talk with Jimmy shortly after he caught his fish while fishing down the pipeline on morning. Such a nice man, very humble. He was by himself when he caught the record. He had no idea what his fish was about to do to the crowd at Monty. Redskeeter on here is related to him. That started the mad rush to Monty in search of Big Bass Gold. Talk about long lines at the ramp!

I remember Tommy Milam, seems like he was the guy made deep cranking the fad with a Rebel deep diver. That got me to start crankin with mudbugs. Can't find'em anymore but they sure catch bass.

Tommy introduced me to deep diving cranks. He threw the Maxi-R a lot but his favorite was the 3/4 oz Mudbug. Arbogast screwed up the bait trying to "improve" it by making the body of the bait bigger but leaving the metal lip the same. It made it too buoyant and harder to cast long distances. Similar to what Storm did to the original Wiggle Warts.

My son and I only had the pleasure of fishing it once. We started out the trip hitting a big stump dead center my lower unit at 25 mph. Wow what a wake up. It was right in front of the RR bridge. Unbelievably no damage at all. There was a supper nice guy in a white Bass Cat that gave me advice on where to run. He also gave us a few good spots and as he left gave my son his last package of purple fleck PW. We had been struggling at that point but with his help we caught 35 bass in an hour and had 3 doubles. I will never forget how he was selfless and helped us out. It was a great time and sure wish is wasn’t ending.

Monti was my favorite lake and I fished it from 1974-2012
regularly.
I fished year round and had some of my best fishing in the heat of the summer behind the railroad bridge at night.
I was on the lake many times when no one else was there.
In all that time I only had 2 DD but I sure had a life time of memories.

You guys were lucky for sure.

I have towed two guys in that knocked their lower units OFF running down the lake where they had no business running. Those stumps in that lake are petrified!

Ken, Bob worked at Fort Worth Fire Dept. !

Old Joe Huff, that's my bud! Grew up in west Texas with him, fishing, hunting, and playing on opposing teams in Little League. He had a curve ball that would buckle your knees. Could shoot quail with the best of them.

Taught me some good stuff about Monti, especially about getting there early. He would take me there every Christmas when I came in from Florida to visit family in east Texas. I thought bass fishing was going to be that easy all the time at all the lakes.

He has been doing the same thing at Murval since moving over that way.





Can't wait to tell him you mentioned his name and watch his head swell.

Wondered what happened to him. Good to hear he’s still fishing.

Tell him I said hello. He and I have sat at the railroad bridge many times early in the morning and killed them as they came down the creek.

Cool buddy. Do you know if he is still alive and well?

yes he his still alive & kicking, I haven't talked to him since I retired ! Last I heard he remarried & sold his place at Fork !

So is the plant shut down for good as of now? Gonna be cold but I might make a trip up there tomorrow if it's still running.

If it is you'll be just a hop skip and jump from Welsh and the grass is deep and green.

Yep, Garcia was a Ft Worth Fireman. He was hooked big time back then. We work 24 on-48 off shifts and back then when he was a winter time legend he would work 24hrs then drive to Monti and fish almost nonstop for 48hrs....regularly, The Grand Prairie fishing legend you may be thinking of is the Ray Hubbard legend Johnny Procell who retired as a Grand Prairie fireman after many years. Small world, I grew up in Grand Prairie and lived next door to Procell’s brother. I was same age as Johnny’s niece and went to school with her. I’m old now and Procell is still actively guiding on RH. That guy is timeless. I too spent many, many long winter nights on Monticello in the 80’s.

Plant is totally cold go to Welsh or Squaw

Me and my buddy had our 1st trip today got on water 830 went back behind railroad bridge ripping red traps out the hydrilla patches then wind picked up and so did the fog

Pretty impressive, way to end the year. Happy New Year.

is Houston County lake still good???

Shoot yea doug! Cmon i got plenty of brush piles and some grass is coming back!

Only 40# bag I ever caught was on Monti. Punching grass. My 5 yr old daughter was with me that day which makes it magical.
1st time I ever fished it was in the 70’s and we put in on a clay bank. I was in the 8th grade.

Yes Johnny Procell... I fished with him a couple times at Fairfield for Redfish back in the early 90's. Nice guy too. I think he did some promo work for Humminbird back then too.

Nice!

What is your scale telling us? Did you have one that went 4.98 or 5 that went 20.10?

Looks like the 4 across the top plus the 5.20 adds up to the ~20.10 sack.

Thanks Ken for adding all the comments and Monticello stories from years gone by.
I can still see your Bullet headed to the bridge in my mind.

And I can still see you zippin’ through the fog in the Super Skeeter.

wow, what a trip reading all these stories about monicello cant spell it either. I first fished it in 1974, was so mad when they build that lake. For I hunted that land for quail and deer, thought it really messed up my hobbies. Little did I know that lake would change my life.Saw were someone said they fished it nearly 500 times and someone else ? it, well you will really ? this, I have fished the lake some were around 3500 times. 250 times a year for 12 years. many many more times before and after those 12 years. wore out my right arm, so all I do now is crappie fish, besides Im 71 yrs old just cant fish like I used too. I think there will be bigger fish in the cold water than in the hot. they will live longer. my bigest fish was a 12lb15oz. it was only 6yrs old. had ever caught a fish over 8yrs.old.Its just a thought they may do better.I quit bass fishing when I caught my 50 over 10lbs most were out of monc.rest out of 5 diff. lakes. T.M.

Which one? I owned five of them!

Caught 7 today, including a good one on my last cast. Didn't have scales to weigh but most were 18 to 22. I don't have pictures of all of them as both my camera and phone shut down from the cold early. Finally figured out I could take battery out of camera and warm it with heat pack between catches to make it work. All on crankbait. Frustrating fishing with cold causing line to freeze up in tip and guides between almost every cast. At one time my waders were one big icicle. My line guide on reel was a snow cone making machine. Warmest water I found was 56.9 at discharge, water still flowing. Behind railroad bridge it was 50. I didn't spend much time there as every cast that brought up grass froze right away and it was hard to get it off without taking off glove. All's well than ends well.















Same fish below.

RIP Monti (not really, but you know what I mean)

Nice fish sir.

How much does it cost to enter the park there?

Now $3.00 per person. They have a new sign up with prices for everything, remote camping I believe is $7 a night, with electrical hook up $15.

361V It's cheaper to move and burry the coal than to break the contract of having it delivered. So it kept coming. What I don't know is if or when they will do the demo..

when is the final day or date the PP shuts down? Just trying to see if it's too late or not or if i need to sneak out of work.....Thanks.

I believe it was today.

It was today. Just a trickle flowing at the discharge. No current moving. I normally use spot lock to hold and didn't need it today. Water was 57 at the discharge. 55/56 in the couple of spots we fished in the lake.

Yep, sad but true.

https://www.luminant.com/luminant-announces-decision-retire-monticello-power-plant/

Turn out the lights....