I usually drop the boat in by 377 bridge on Texoma and I’ve been successful casting a net on shad in the nearby creeks; however, I recently started dropping in at the ramp by Denison dam and I’ve been having a really difficult time netting any shad in the area (shallow and deep). I drop in before sunrise also.

Looking for some pointers on locations to net some shad by the dam.

Thanks in advance!

Look for shad around marina lights.

Great, thanks! There’s a marina by Eisenhower park that I haven’t hit up yet, I’ll give that a shot before the sun comes up. Creeks by the dam haven’t been very productive for me.

I have never had much luck near the dam. I would head to Little Mineral. I talked to a guy at a launch ramp on Buchanan yesterday and he fished Texoma a while back he said there are not many threadfins but found plenty of gizzards. Funny thing at Buchanan was the shad started moving in around the boat docks as it got light. We had all the large threadfins we needed and then some. I started throwing before 6 but it was 6:30 before they moved in. You might also try in the cove by Burns Run east. Apparently the threadfins handled the cold weather fine on Buchanan.

Good info. We ended up finding threadfin by the Denison ramp in about 15-20 fow before 6am. Took more casts than I wanted to throw but I was able to get enough shad and I didn’t have to go hunting in other areas of the lake.

We ended up w a pretty good haul on the stripers afterwards; hit our limit of overs. Found them hanging out in 60-70 fow over by Platter Flats. Got back in before the heat started belting down on us.

Glad to hear you found threadfins. I was concerned about the winter kill.

For the times I've launched at the dam, I caught my bait at Eisenhower.
If not there, run across to the other side and look in the Burns Run cove area. I believe I remember some humps over there that can get shallow on top.

I have a buddy who's in the process of buying a camping RV. Between his trailer and my boat, hopefully I'll be able to make a trip back to the big pond this year.