Help me out here. Lake "looks" like it should be a good place to fish.

It has kicked my butt many times. Who has the insight on this lake?

sb

Good luck with that. I have found information on Canyon to be top secret.

Any guides that work the lake with success?

sb

I found down sizing everything helps on that lake, pink is a great color as well. Points seem very productive with small deep diving cranks. I work the river a lot as well with good success, cotton candy baby brush hogs are my go to.

Cool. I had heard pink was a good color for Canyon.

What few fish we have caught at Canyon have been on deep diving crank baits on points and around trees.

How do you rig your brush hogs? Carolina or something else?

Thanks, sb

TFF Canyon Lake

We are not the only ones

I hear contradictory information on how to catch them there, some say deep brushpiles and some say super shallow. Well, I�ve tried the shallow and they aren�t there. Hardest lake I�ve ever had to fish, I truly hate it.

I am starting to feel that way. May pay someone to show me.

sb

I peg my weight about 2ft in front of my bait, I use 1/8 ounce. I have Carolina rigged as well, in deeper spots. But I mainly stick with crankbaits deep. In the river I use plastics. I have had good luck around the rip rap around the dam. I have fished it a long time and these things have rarely failed me when catching bass on Canyon.

Very difficult lake to fish. The anglers who have done well on that lake have put their time in on that lake learning the patterns and marking spots to fish on their GPS. They also know the best times of the year to fish certain areas of that lake.



Side Note: Plus #1 also on what ChuChu1 stated. Good information on Canyon is usually kept very secret!

I

This is very true. I have been fishing it since 96 and this is my first info I ever gave on it, lol.

The only problem with CL is Boat/and watercraft/skie/ wakeboard Traffic is Horrendous...And Boat so called Music you can hear it across lake..During warmer months During colder months its Great fishing

Grew up on Canyon. During the Summer months we wouldn't bother going fishing until midnight and would return around 8am.

I target the striped fish. I'm in the process of learning the lake as well.
Here's what I have so far.

- You don't look for a school of fish or school of bait. You look for "a fish" on the graph. When you find one ("a fish"), stop and fish the area. Others are usually near. I've tried fishing when I see loons (or some kind of diving duck/bird critter). But It's never produced any fish for me.

- Maybe because of the clear water they just spook more easily? I think you have to fish a "fishy" area most of time rather than fishing an area that you marked fish at. When checking out a "fishy" area, it's better to use the trolling motor.

- I don't think that shad are the main source of bait. Minnows, perch & probably crappie are my guess as the food source. So if fishing lures, I'm throwing those perch colored baits.

- At the current water temp, the most fish I'm seeing/catching are coming from the area of where the river dumps into the lake. But once water temps heat up, it becomes where can you fish more than where to fish due to all of the recreation traffic.


I'm still learning.

Give it up!
Once you think you have the lake figured out, you get humbled and find out you really don't!

I guess I'm a little hard headed. What you mentioned is what makes me want to work harder at it.

Not that it can't be done, but you have to stay on top of it as in fishing it weekly or more.
Study the patterns and keep a log.
Guides have an advantage, but they fish it hard, and keep up with it.
Even with conditions perfect, and you are slamming them one day, you go out the next day and can't buy a bite. Getting humbled on that lake is common.
Deep, mostly clear water at the lower end, and frequent weather changes throw a monkey wrench into most attempts to figure it out, plus the added recreational use makes it tough on the poor fisherman.

I agree with JIMBO!! 2 years ago was killing them on windy shorelines with spinnerbait....last year I couldn't find a bite. The year before baby brush hogs near grass and drop shot worms the year before that. I am so confused on what to rig. Even the stripers weren't hitting top waters when they were schooling. Canyon kicked my [censored] last year.

Waste of time, that lake.

Does fishing suck because everyone eats fish from the lake, or tournament pressure?

I think it is tournament fishermen eating too many bass and dumping the cleanings on the ramps.

Very little baitfish present, lack of vegetation, lack of nutrients in the water and I�m sure plenty get eaten; but I don�t think that�s the big problem. It just down right sucks.

Not a very nutrient rich body of water as is Medina which is also a fairly deep rocky lake.
Medina is usually slightly better with numbers since the restocking.
I remember back when Canyon first was impounded and the fishing was fantastic from the stories that were told.
I never got to fish it for several years after it opened, as I was in a foreign land getting shot at, but like most new lakes there is that honey moon period where the rainbow ends in a pot of gold.
Back in the 70's I fished a tournament there at Canyon because a lot of the local bass clubs wanted to hold a tournament with biologist present to try and figure out what the strange fungus was on the Canyon bass.
I don't remember what their diagnosis was, but there wasn't a lot of bass brought in to weigh as I recall.
I do remember fishing Canyon several times with my old club, but it never took much of a stringer to win it, and yes, I said stringer, as this was before catch and release was the norm, so if you caught a 14" keeper you had a shot at big bass most of the time.
Bass fishermen were not the blame for low numbers keeping fish, but it probably didn't help, but even now with catch and release practiced religiously it hasn't really helped.

I have caught four there this year.

I will give you a tip that I learned about back in the early 90's when I fished that lake successfully for bass. Go out at night, preferably a rocky point, take a head lamp or flashlight, flip over a few rocks. What comes out from under those rocks will tell you what to use and color. Tie that on with a Carolina rig on a rocky point, and you will catch bass. Size and color matters. Carolina rig worked best because the weight bouncing and rubbing the rocks, with the bait trailing worked the best. Night fishing in the summer works too. The night shallow bite was awesome. Size does NOT matter on this lake. The bait you find under the rocks is small, match the hatch.

Disclaimer: Does this work 100% of the time? Of course not. Will this work a lot? Yes, but you have to match your hatch. Could be red, could be brown and it could even be green. Check and see.

I live at the lake and don't have any problem catching fish. But of course, I'm not after bass which it seems you are talking about, though not specified. I keep a freezer full of Crappie at all times.