The day before a front moved it (BTW the best time to catch fish), it was windy and chilly. Based on a previous pattern I found days before with my partner, I knew most fish would be caught away from any bank. Water temperature was 57 degrees.

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION NUMBER 1:
This lake is unique in that every spring dense weeds grow from the bottom everywhere to within 3'-4' of the surface and you can see them looking down. In May they start dying off all the way to the bottom but until they do, you must fish the gap from weed tops to the surface where prespawn and active fish swim. It's like fishing in shallow water so you use lures such as these:

1. lures you chose must stay above the weed
2. medium to slow rate of retrieve necessary
3. lures used are on the small side with subtle actions
4. long distance casts using braid helped cover water to find small schools and general fish locations after which I moved the boat closer in that direction.
5. on good days many lure designs work though not all
6. hours to catch fish extend from morning to late afternoon (around 4:30pm one fish after another!)

As many of you who have read my posts know, lure design innovation is half of why I fish. Variety is the spice of fish and in my book guaranteed every time I go out regardless the water fished.
Lure designs that caught fish:

I wondered whether flatter grubs might entice strikes so I double dipped a grub body into hot plastic to fatten it up. this was the result:

Man did it catch fish:


The above was a Chubby Grub with a straight thin tail; the one below I added a thin curl tail and did as well:


The Kut Tail worm (Kinami) has always been one of my favorite mid-depth worms when used on a light jig:


Crappies from 10.5"-12" slammed it with the twitch and pause of the rod tip along with bass:

That rod tip action caused the worm to slither and dart mid-depth - JUST WHAT THE FISH ORDERED -especially this foot long fish!


Another innovation was THE CLAW:


I had bags of these craw baits sitting around for years never catching a fish on any of them. So one day I figured, why not use parts to make new claw designs?
The original:


innovation / inspiration:


In the last two days of fishing my partner and I caught over 30 fish of all species with the Claw:

My partner out-fished me 10 to one the hour before we left (I was too lazy to change lures).

There were more lure designs that caught fish but I don't want to bore you. In any case an incredible day - 76 fish by myself and 115 fish the day after with a partner! Can't get any better than that!!!!

wtg nice catch'n

Awesome post and some awesome fish. Good job.

Thanks. I still wonder why the Claw catches so many fish... I guess that's the mystery of lure designs that incite the strike.


(Boy do I miss living in Wichita Falls. Never had the time to fish the Red R. and only fished L.Texoma a few times.)

Were you fishing Texoma in the post above?