miss those drifts. that's where I learned a bubblegum fluke.

Back in the day when the south/southwest side of wolf island was full of hydrilla, it was a massacre. Went out there one day and caught my best (10.25) and a boat load of 4's - 6's but those days are long gone.

Btw yall know there is grass coming back basically on the entire north end of the lake anywhere in 3 feet or less? I pulled up hydrilla yesterday. Some places its already thick too.

Btw yall know there is grass coming back basically on the entire north end of the lake anywhere in 3 feet or less? I pulled up hydrilla yesterday. Some places its already thick too.

I just wait for March and April then get Barrett to take me fishing out there.....

Two things that Hurt ray Roberts... when they drew it down for the dam repairs back in 1999 or so and the grass going away... I think when the dam repairs were going on, they drained like 25� out of it... that killed it

First off you must learn how to do your mapping work. In doing so you will find where the fish live. From there you will pick the spots close by that they feed on and spawn on. It takes many hours at home on the computer to find these spots. Then you have to spend endless hours on the water eliminating these spots down to the best 3 shallow water spots, best 3 mid range spots and the 3 best deep water spots.
- You will have to fish at least 60 shallow water spots to find the 3 best spots for top water and spawning areas.
- You will have to fish 60 mid-range spots to find the 3 best spots. These are slopes, drainages, funnel points, inside bends in the creeks, no nothing shore lines with deep water very close by and out and around every point looking for irregular features of each.
- You will have to fish 60 deep water spots to find the 3 best spots. These are vertical ledges, deep creek channel ledges, bends in the river channel, inside bends of all creeks and underwater humps/islands. The ones that have the best irregular feature will hold the fish and will be the first area that the fish will move to and or call their comfort zone.

180 spots doesn't seem like very much to fish. We probably have fished that many spots on many lakes. The problem is all these spots need to be fish more than once. It may be the best spot on the lake; but if you are not there at the right time of the day, you will miss the window of opportunity. It takes one full year to fish these spots at different times of the day to become knowledgeable of what the fish are relating to and their routes from deep water to mid-range and then to the shallows. Big Bass follow the same pattern and route daily moving from one ambush spot to the next. It will be a very short distance form their deep water comfort zone to the shallows. How far that fish will advance each day depends on the food supply she runs into at each of her ambush spots along that route. She will start at the steepest drop or ledge, move to her second ambush spot that may be a river tree, then to a large stump, next to a pile of rocks, then move up on a funnel point and so forth toward the shallows. She may never make the full journey each day; because when she feeds up she will quickly return to her deep water comfort zone and suspend there until the next feeding period.

The odds are greatly against us on catching big fish. Smaller fish are much more active, feed more often and travel much farther to do so. Staying on the water and finding irregular features on deep contour lines is the key. I begin my search on the 30 ft. contours on the maps.

The draw down to repair the dam is what got the grass started on those flats. The water came up slow enough to let it grow out there. It was a drought that left the grass on dry land. Hydrilla has made a come back a couple times since then, last time was about 2005. But again a drought left it on the bank. We get good stands of milfoil when we get consistent water levels, the last couple times it started coming back really good the lake flooded and the milfoil ended up in too deep of water for too long and it couldn't survive.

Hysmith, always said Hydrilla could lay high and dry for years; as soon as water covered it, it would start growing again. Of course, he said a lot of things.