Hey y'all!

I'm headed to Fayette County for the first time right after Christmas. I've always heard great things about the lake, but never fished it. I've also heard that there was some sort of chemical spill(?) there in October that affected the water quality & the bite. I'll be there for 3 days, so I'll have time to fish it pretty thoroughly.

So my questions are:
- Has the water quality cleared up?
- Since it's a power plant lake, should I be thinking pre-spawn/spawn this time of year?
- What areas/presentations should I focus on to begin learning this lake?

Any help would be appreciated. And feel free to DM me if you don't want to post publicly. Thanks in advance!

The lake is very unwell right now. I don't know of anyone who's had a great day out there recently. My last "normal" day out there was mid October. Since then I've been grinding to pick up 8-10 fish in a half day. (Which is terrible for Fayette, check out the Fayette thread in the freshwater fishing section). I don't want to scare you away, but it could be a long three days for you. The intake and the discharge will hold fish. You'll probably have A LOT of company there. Graph the main lake points if you see anything chuck a c-rig or a Texas rig. Otherwise you may have to hunker down and throw shaky heads at the rocks. The power plant has been intermittent.

Buddy of mine was just there and had a great day fishing. The fish are there...find bait find fish

Fishing overall it not “Fayette” normal but it can still have its highlights for sure.

Plenty of fish in the lake but the biggest I’ve caught in the last few outings is about 3 1/2 with a lot in the 2lb range. It seems during the day you can grind away for some on points and in the timber. You can also make laps up and down the damn and catch a few.

I had a resent outing last week where I absolutely crushed them throwing an A-Rig up and down the damn and when I found abundant bait and bass feeding around points in the evening.

I agree with J. Plenty of fish in the lake. Went on Dec 14th. Caught 8 which is slow for Fayette but the fish were in fantastic shape. Biggest was pushing 6lbs and was just beautiful. Water looks good although its a couple feet low. There was a boat near us throwing live bait and they were absolutely hammering them. We caught on jigs mostly. Just need to keep trying different baits and watch your finder.

Texas Parks and Wildlife investigated a larger than normal fish kill in October after receiving reports that the power plant had a chemical release. The biologist for that lake told me that they attributed the fish kill to lake turnover after their investigation.