Water temp - 50 to 54 degrees.
Lake Level - 12.68ft low

Fishing for hybrids has been tough all year since the shad kill last winter. Last winter, we were hammering averaging 25-30 hybrids in 4-5 hours of fishing, not much so this year. However catfishing has been off the charts. Cooper is well known to be a hybrid lake but there is an abundance of catfish in the 10-15lb range. We had the privilege of chatting to the current lake record holder of the blue cat and he mention Cooper being the 3rd lake in Texas for trophy blues.

12-7

We tried dead sticking for blues Hybrids. They were there but could only get a few to take the flukes. Tried every colors from 3-5". Catfish seems to prefer the darker 4-5" flukes. We would get a tap every 15-25 minutes. Pics of some of the cats landed.



Here is Tim and his 27lb 12oz Blue with his 10lb test!


12-8

Had a late start and bite was much slower and only managed 3.

12-13

We text back and forth during the week wondered what will happen if we threw cut bait in equation. Huge thanks to Tim and Robert for getting the carp/buffalo! And so arming with cut bait we set off to the eye of the storm.










Action was fast and furious with take down almost every few minutes. Notice the time stamp on pictures(there were probably another 7-8 in the 21-25" range that I did not take pic of). During the longer pause is when I had to head back to make another drift. Only have 3 taps on the flukes all day! We average 15-20 blues each with majority of the fish caught in 2 hours. After 1pm the bite slowed way down. Seems like for the last 3 trips the blues bite better in the morning.

Here are the pics of the fish we kept :

Robert and his pile of blues!


Tim


Yours truly

Miscellaneous pictures

Picture of graph showing the shad rebounding back
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This is winter fishing!


Our battleships

Looks like a lot of fun, way to turn a slow Hybrid trip into a great Blue cat trip.
I bet it would interesting to try some shad up there.
Thanks for sharing.

A few years ago while crappie fishing we were snagging big gizzards at White Rock Lake. This is about the only place I can think of, other than that I got no idea how to find them.

I forgot to mention. We were just using one rod baited with cut bait while a second rod was using flukes.

Catfish were caught in depth ranging from 2 cranks off the bottom to 25ft of water.

Nice! good news on the shad rebound.

Hurry up and get all those blues out so I can come catch some big ole hybrids!!!

Great report Lee. The Catfishing was lots of fun. Its nice to have a plan B when the Hybrids are not biting.

Nice fish. Curious...what is the mallet for?

Nice fishing. Know where I can get a few fish tacos?

thump, thump, thump...

He uses that mallet to Thump those Blue cats on the head to calm them down some

I kinda had a hunch but just wanted to make sure

There is a lateral line on the body of the stripe species that will detect vibrations that will draw them towards the "thump". Kinda like dinner bell ringing! That is what a guide told me.

In Texoma lots of guides will use the trolling motor fitted with a special prop to draw in stripers. If you never tried thumping before it is quite entertaining. Especially after a few minutes of thumping your graph will lit up like a Xmas tree.

This time of the year you can hear lots of construction on the lake.

MJ, I don't eat fish. Kept some for my buddy! We can both stop by his place for dinner. You can have catfish taco while I ask him to grill me a steak!

But seriously, if anyone wants to hit cooper for cats, shoot me a PM. Will send you GPS coordinates of the eye of the storm.

2nd trip to cooper and both trip was a BLAST! Especially when all three of us will hook up at the same time. Haven't caught any football size hybrid yet but I don't mind the blues coming out and play . That 27lb cat sure wore me out, I felt like I was pulling up a floor mat or something. Note to self don't go to cooper the day after the rain. Took us at least 1 hour to get the yaks back to the ramp which should only take say 15min max dried condition that is, other than that it was of da chain! Enjoy fishing with Lee and Robert as always. You guys are more than welcome to come just book ya trip with Lee and he will guide you guarantee catch or he will refund your money back that's a fact!