Posted By: Capt. Michael Littlejohn
Lake Tawakoni Guide Service End of Summer Report + **Salty Stories and Pics** - 09/16/14 01:11 AM
What an awesome summer down here at Tawakoni. It's been a while since i've sat down and wrote up a report. Hmmm, where to start? I have to say, the fishing in some aspects has been downright weird....great, but weird. To start, what about the shad this year? Isn't Twok known for it's 4-6" gizzard shad in unlimited supply.
NOT this summer. Nada. Actually, we went thru June n' July and you were hard pressed to even catch one in a net. And, that brings me to my next rant...LOL...shad in 40ft of water ALL summer? What? Yup, no thermocline, no fish stacked up shallow like they normally are in summer. Bait has been in 100% of the lake...not concentrated like it normally is in summer.
The catfish have flat been awesome. They are in transition right now and bigger blues are showing up on side imaging in their normal places that they should be in Sept. Smaller box blues and channels have been super shallow the last week and been really fun to catch. I prefer getting them on corks on super light tackle, but you can get them fishing on bottom too. Cut shad and punch bait have both worked for us. It's not un-reasonable to catch 100 fish in a couple hours these days, it's just that good.
We didn't have a trophy fish this summer on punch bait like we did last summer...we looked for him on each trip, but just didn't connect. Look for the larger blues to start biting better after this next cool front coming in on Sunday. Water temps dropped 3 degrees on this last front and I actually saw steam on the surface an the lake was giving up energy yesterday mornin'.
Drifting in 18-40ft should be a good fish in the boat. Target channels, rivers and other kinds of structure when you drift to increase your chances of getting bit by the larger fish.
The Hybrids and Stripers have marched to their own beat this summer. It's just been in the last 3 weeks that things have started to return to normal. I'm just not marking a lot of larger bait in the lake and haven't hardly seen any larger bait in the bellies of the fish we have been cleaning. So, smaller slabs and 3" sassy's have been tha' ticket. The slab seem to have worked better for us. As small as 3/4oz to throw up in the 2ft water has really worked.
Don't forget to put the trusty top-water in the boat too as sometimes the fish have knocked them as high as 3ft out of the water before they ate them. Lots of larger hybrids showing up right now. Some days are really good and others aren't. The Whites have been pretty good. They will surprise ya tho. They aren't in all the usual spots and ARE in some new spots...or spots I just don't see them in this time of the year.
The infamous hell-pet will put fish in the boat if you strike out w/ slabs. Keep tha' bait on the bottom these days and barely bounce it...keeping it less than a foot from the bottom. You should get bit.
NOTE: When taking off top-water baits in a schooling frenzy, don't get in a hurry like I did:
NOT this summer. Nada. Actually, we went thru June n' July and you were hard pressed to even catch one in a net. And, that brings me to my next rant...LOL...shad in 40ft of water ALL summer? What? Yup, no thermocline, no fish stacked up shallow like they normally are in summer. Bait has been in 100% of the lake...not concentrated like it normally is in summer.
The catfish have flat been awesome. They are in transition right now and bigger blues are showing up on side imaging in their normal places that they should be in Sept. Smaller box blues and channels have been super shallow the last week and been really fun to catch. I prefer getting them on corks on super light tackle, but you can get them fishing on bottom too. Cut shad and punch bait have both worked for us. It's not un-reasonable to catch 100 fish in a couple hours these days, it's just that good.
We didn't have a trophy fish this summer on punch bait like we did last summer...we looked for him on each trip, but just didn't connect. Look for the larger blues to start biting better after this next cool front coming in on Sunday. Water temps dropped 3 degrees on this last front and I actually saw steam on the surface an the lake was giving up energy yesterday mornin'.
Drifting in 18-40ft should be a good fish in the boat. Target channels, rivers and other kinds of structure when you drift to increase your chances of getting bit by the larger fish.
The Hybrids and Stripers have marched to their own beat this summer. It's just been in the last 3 weeks that things have started to return to normal. I'm just not marking a lot of larger bait in the lake and haven't hardly seen any larger bait in the bellies of the fish we have been cleaning. So, smaller slabs and 3" sassy's have been tha' ticket. The slab seem to have worked better for us. As small as 3/4oz to throw up in the 2ft water has really worked.
Don't forget to put the trusty top-water in the boat too as sometimes the fish have knocked them as high as 3ft out of the water before they ate them. Lots of larger hybrids showing up right now. Some days are really good and others aren't. The Whites have been pretty good. They will surprise ya tho. They aren't in all the usual spots and ARE in some new spots...or spots I just don't see them in this time of the year.
The infamous hell-pet will put fish in the boat if you strike out w/ slabs. Keep tha' bait on the bottom these days and barely bounce it...keeping it less than a foot from the bottom. You should get bit.
NOTE: When taking off top-water baits in a schooling frenzy, don't get in a hurry like I did:
Awesome Post! 