Desperate to get on the water today before the winds and cold return. Loaded up around 3:00 and drove to Lake Striker. Fished it the first part of November and launched at marina and made the 4 mile paddle to far north end where the grass and pads were. Saw some folks launching that day and decided to find out if it was private or public ramp.





It is a public ramp with paved parking lot.

Wanted to get the skunk off fast as I only had a couple of hours of daylight and storm clouds and lightning in the distance so paddled to same area I’d caught a few in the pads last time.


Caught two small ones on spinner bait and started throwing 7 inch swimbait on underspin.



Fished some new water, had two bites on swimbait, missed both and went back to spinner. Pads had all died out and couldn’t remember exactly where the drop off was to creek channel. Didn’t bring graph.

Paddled a mile back towards ramp as winds picked up, missed another one then thought I hooked a good one.



Bowfin Didn’t bring pliers or fish gripper, I hate those fish.



Paddled back to ramp, spoke to a guy that stopped by that had recently built home next to marina and found out the plant has been running every day for quite some time... said marina spent several million doing upgrades after tornado a couple of years ago and that restaurant is staying busy.

Anyway, I’ll be fishing it more often as it’s only 30 minutes from home.

map to ramp ... turn on to 4416 and it ends at ramp, looks like a great place for kayakers, don't think the discharge has much affect on water temps that far away.

https://goo.gl/maps/Q8YF1daB98zqoFGP9

Very nice, and I agree on the bowfin.

Interesting

Nice report and close by.
I actually like catching bowfin, grindells, dogfish but they sure tear things up.

https://texasfishingforum.com/forum...monticello-bowfin-bite-is-on#Post5671481

I went back there yesterday (Saturday) for a couple of hours, wanted to see how warm the water was near discharge. Launched at the marina.. 51 degrees all over that end of the lake. Guy that told me plant was running probably thought that just because the lights are on, noises coming from it, and people working there, that its discharging.. It wasn't. Never got bit, didn't see hardly any sign of bait and I paddled all around the dam out to 20 feet of water. Skunked. Went to Martin Creek today.. just barely any puffs of smoke. Did much better there.