Went out to Raven this past Sunday. It was really a shake down cruise for my boat (taking it to Fork and Palestine in a few weeks) as I haven't had it on the water in awhile, more than really concentrating on fishing. So, was only there about 5 hours and probably half that was messing with the boat.

Anyway, tried to fish Raven a little bit. The water temp is still on the coolish side with temps running anywhere from the mid to upper 50's. The weather was cloudy with periodic light showers and the wind was blowing pretty hard. Spent a little time just graphing the lake and hit the upper arm (if your at the boat ramp facing the water, it would be the one to your right) and the damn area. From what I could see, the fish were were holding close to the bottom and mostly in 5 feet, often around balls of bait. Noticed the hydrilla was starting to green up in the shallow areas near the bank.

Worked my way up to the dam area and that is where I caught a couple. One was a little over 3 lbs and the other was about a pound and a half. Had a nice one get off at the boat because I was jacking with the trolling motor. However, that turned out to be a good thing because it revealed what little pattern (if you could call it a pattern) I found.

While I was on retrieve, I bent down to adjust the trolling motor and stopped reeling. Apparently, that pause caused the reaction. So, if I went back again, I'd concentrate first on the damn and the banks adjacent to it.

The bait I caught them on was a mid-depth running crankbait in a (dark) crawfish pattern. Position the boat close to shore to and cast back out towards deeper water, and reel back to the boat. As I say, I think the pause (because of the trolling motor issue), was the ticket. So cast out, reel the lure down fast to get it at depth and then pause the bait for a couple of seconds. Then SLOWLY retrieve, and then pause. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Tight lines.

Nice post.

I stopped wasting my time on Raven. Yes, there are big fish in there. The problem is, how do you catch them? I have never caught numbers or size on that lake. And that was when it had some vegetation. Nowadays, if a tenderfoot complains about getting a smidgen of grass on their toe, they spray the entire lake.

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Yea, no doubt it's a tough lake to fish. When I was out the other day, there was some new hydrilla budding out. Now, how long they let it stay that way, who knows. If you've never seen it, there is a video of TPWD doing a shocking survey on Raven. Actually, it has probably more pounds of bass per acre than many lakes, BUT (and it's a big but) they definitely get lock jaw. Of the lakes around the Houston area that are public, you still have a better chance of catching a linker there than you do just about any other place. Mostly because there are so many and the lake is only 200 acres, but yea, it's tough to fish.