It's less than one foot high right now. And will probably be back to full pool by the weekend.

Hello everyone. Been reading here for a while but just joined. I drove up around Somerville last weekend and want to go back this weekend. I have a kayak and may bank fish with my wife. Thinking nails creek park but open to any suggestions on where to go and also tips on bait etc. Getting back to freshwater fishing, not that I was ever overly successful, and feel lost. Thanks

Yes, the muddy water shows them the way up into the creek. There is very little flow at the mouth due to shallow water, so they follow a strong flow. But if there was a way for the creek to get on a good rise with crystal clean water, they would follow that as well. The muddy part has very little to do with it, it's the amount of water flow that they are attracted to.

Since we've turned this into a flow discussion. Off topic kinda..

The spill way.

Does the hybrids and whites caught behind spillway come up the yegua out of the Brazos River, do they stay in the creek yearly back there or do they get sucked out from main lake?

Welcome to the forum. Nails Creek is a nice place to camp, but only half of the sites are open right now due to flood damage. I'd recommend checking with the park on availability. If you're looking to bank fish Yegua Creek, Irwin Bridge has access. For Nails Creek, you can easily hike in from CR125. Either small jigs or minnows should catch you something. From Nails Creek State Park, both Yegua and Nails Creek are easy paddling distance in a kayak. Good luck.

jsinn01 pretty much covered it. Chartreuse curly tail jigs will usually catch crappie, white bass and lmb in the Somerville creeks. Good luck.

The Hybrids and whites go through the spillway gates from the lake. Last time they shut the dam the total water behind the dam down to the railway bridge dropped by over 80%. There was a massive fish kill. All the white bass, hybrids and bluegill died. No gar or crappie died. Only a portion of the catfish, buffalo and gaspergou died.

Those fish below the lake/dam in the Yegua are from the lake. The Yegua has very little water in it when the COE isn't releasing water from the lake. There is the potential that some fish go down or come up from the Brazos but there is so little public access to the creek that no one but the landowners know for sure. Downstream from highway 36 there is no public access or crossing until Highway 50 just south of Clay.



that's ten miles as the crow flies you can roughly double that if floating the creek..

Thanks J-moe and fishytx. It was fun watching her reel in our fish. She was very tired on the long trip back home. It was nice meeting you as well J-moe. Hope to see all you guys out there soon. Maybe this Sunday however my son has High School baseball tryouts so we will see. Good luck to everyone.

Lake Somerville State Park update,
I called the park director to get the latest information on the park & trailway. Of most importance to most of you here on this TFF topic is access to Newmans Bottom. Since all of the trailway is closed currently the road leading to Newmans Bottom is closed too. The damage from the summer and fall flooding washed out the culvert on the road right before the parking area @ Newmans & the trailway bridge. Repairs are just about complete on the road so they are waiting on another safety inspection of the road and the little bridge just inside the gate at the end of CR140. The park director was pretty confident that Newmans will be opening soon and maybe sometime in the next few days.

Now to the bad news.. since the trailway is closed hiking down to Newmans is not permitted and the park police/rangers are probably going to start issuing citations to those of you who enter the closed area of the park on foot. The same goes for Nails creek on CR125 (downstream is the closed part of the trailway). Cedar creek @ Flag pond/CR125 is open downstream for a good distance before it gets to the state park which is closed.

The good news.. Kayakers/boaters can access the state park part of these three creeks from the lake by launching @ Nails Creek park boat ramp.

The hold up for much of the rest of the park is the many dead trees and their removal. 80% of birch creek park is closed due to the many dead or dying trees. The forest service has done their evaluation and the work has begun but the flooding in the fall set them back again until very recently.

Most all of the assessments of the flood damage throughout the state park have been completed and funds for repairs are pending. The decisions about the order & priority of repairs are still being discussed. Decision makers are a little gun shy about moving too quickly in rebuilding into certain areas that continue to be flood prone. We do learn from these types of events and try rebuilding to better fit the current realities.

The first step in making repairs to the park deals with the safety of all concerned and that means that the 200-plus dead trees have to be brought down. Crews are working now to make that part happen ASAP.

Thanks for the update, Ben.

Guess I will stick to kayak fishing for the time being.

I went to nails creek today, no luck on white bass, I caught one smallmouth bass 10in released it too. Walked two miles on the creek, then I tried nails creek state park for half hour, no luck too.
Most areas in lake Somerville is closed.
Park officer said nails creek is closed, and whoever accessing the area might can get a ticket.

Fishytx,

what rod do you use for whitebass in the creeks?

I agree with fishytx. We dont need an extreme flood but a signicant rise would flood these creeks and it would be crazy the amount of fish that would be in those creeks. I have fished this creek for over 9 years now. After fishing it for that long and more you can almost tell when there is a rise needed to help the fishing. I think it needs to be within the next few weeks though. We would like to have enough time for the creek to rise , get the fish in the creeks and settle. That way we have an extended run fishing time.

Picked up 14 today. Some bigger fish at that. One was 17 1/2 inches long, it was a monster. And I double checked that fish, one tooth patch on its toung.