What's going on at Monticello?

I'm planning to fish Monticello tomorrow and Friday for the first time since they shut the plant down and lowered the level. Can anyone share some pointers? Are the lily pads deep enough to hold fish now? Still hydrilla in Smith/Blundell to hold fish?

I'm guessing it fishes differently now without the shoreline growth having time to grow at the new water level. Any pointers are appreciated.

Lots of grass still everywhere but the decision to leave the gates open has caused some big changes.

First - Smith and Blundell essentially never clear up because every time it rains the water is pulled out from the bottom of the lake into Sandlin. This has caused a lot of the hydrilla in Smith to die off due to the constant turbidity of the water. Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of grass and pads back in both areas but expect most of it to be in less than 3' of water with the deepest stuff maybe being 5-6'. There have been some fish back there but the average fish has been very small by Monti standards.

2nd and could be as big of a deal - the open gates have now introduced both sand bass and spotted bass into Monti. I've caught some sand bass and have 3 buddies who have all caught sand bass with one catching some spots a couple of weeks ago. That sucks!!!

I'm sure the lake will generally be ok long term but this decision made by Luminant and TPWD will forever change what was one of the best lakes in all of Texas. I even contacted both groups and offered to set up an LLC to maintain and operate the gates and was met with the heisman by some PR guy from Luminant. The reality is if a drought sets in over this Summer you won't be able to launch from the ramp any way.

Sorry for the rant......to the OP...fish points on the south end with whatever you like to throw and you should catch some fish. I'm still very p1ssed about the entire situation.

Thanks for the reply Chris. Much appreciated. I'm in Texarkana and Monticello has been one of my favorite lakes to fish for 15 years now. I still can't believe they shut the plant down and raised the gates. I'm right there with you being upset about the situation.

I guess we'll hit Monticello for awhile tomorrow and see how it goes. If we can't figure them out, we may move over to Sandlin. Not sure......

Wife and I hit Monticello about a week ago. It wzs way different from past trips. Not the Monti I remember. Caught fish but it was slow and overall size of fish seemed down.
We ended up hitting Sandlin to end the day and had a really fun time there. Way better quantity and quality.

Ditto for me and from what I recall reading, both of us did this the weekend before Memorial Day. Bob Sandlin saved the day for me.

OK. Sounds like we'll be fishing Sandlin if our Monti results match the replies. Dang.

Had a friend who went froggin in Smith a couple weeks ago, results were fair, I think maybe 7 fish in about 5 hours. It has changed a lot according to him.

The frog bite at Sandlin was really good.

I'm sure the lake and the fish are just adjusting to the new norm and hopefully it will be fine but it's definitely not been as good lately in most areas. Hopefully our TPWD Biologist is right and the grass will be able to move more and thrive better under "normal" water conditions this summer.

I went two Sundays ago for the first time unfortunately. Managed to catch 9 fish in a 4 hour period. None were bigger than 3 pounds but they were the meanest fish I have ever caught. 2 pounds pulled like they were 6 pounders. I mainly fished in the shallow hydrilla. Lots of fish chasing small schools of 1 inch Shad.

Hopefully some of the hydrilla from Monticello will find its way into Sandlin.

Right now is when the lake would really start fishing good.

Yep...they would start making that migration up North following the shad into the pads seeking out cooler water. I hope that happens this year but that water is now 2-3 foot more shallow than in year's past so I am not that hopeful.

They pulled this excremental move and dare to warn us about a hot summer and rolling blackouts because demand is too high! ERCOT is staffed with incompetence at every level!

Y'all do know that Luminant(Vistra Energy) and Dynegy are merging and part of the deal
for the new company is that it has to tear down Monti and Big Brown or sell its 3 gas plants. They elected to keep the 3 gas plants(Graham, Stryker & Trinidad) and remove the lignite plants. They are saving lots of tax money that way.

Sheer stupidity. We've been warned about conserving electricity during heat waves in previous years...and now we have fewer power plants.

Thanks, Obama!

Haven’t fished it since Feb. but after they shut the plant down the catching was phenomenal for 3-9 lb fish, water was in the forties and the lake was empty. Not happy about low water and changes either but I am willing to bet with less pressure and cooler water some real giants come out of there next fall and spring. All those fish aren’t going to rush into Sandlin.

With the lake level down 2 1/2 ft can you still launch a 20' boat?

This has nothing to do with the decision to shut the plant down. That seemed to be a foregone conclusion years ago. This is about the decision to leave one of the gates at the dam open full time to make the lake levels of Monti and Sandlin equal simply because no one would be there to open and close them as needed during a potential flood which is insane.

I've had a house on Cypress Springs since 2008 and have been fishing Monti 50+ days a year since. In all of that time, they've needed to open the gates twice....yep twice in 10 years but that was just too much to handle with them shutting the plant down. Plus, once the plant is gone, there is nothing at risk of flooding on that lake anyway.

x2

More important, they will not be pumping water out of Sandlin and into Monticello to keep Monticello full during the summer months. I have a place on Sandlin so I like that but do not like what this action (opening the gates and shutting down the plant) will do to Monticello especially in the winter months.

This move basically turned Monti in to an extension of Sandlin, but as a resident of Sandlin, I'm happy about the effect it will have on our lake. I believe Sandlin will become a much more stable body of water and we won't see near the fluctuations we used to when they were using Sandlin to keep Monti at full pool.