Well, here we are. Halloween is this weekend and after that, the first day of November. While December, I think really starts the trophy season, November has been very good to me in the past too. While we do have more rain coming this week, Thursday night and Friday look to be similar to Sunday and Monday last. All that considered, Farmer's Almanac says below normal temps and normal precipitation for the coming winter. If Lavon stays low by 5 feet +/- I think it might make it even a little easier to anticipate where they will be wintering. Finding them is half the battle. I think they are in the transition now because they are scattered all over the place. Looking ahead to November and cooler temps, I am hoping to see the water get below 60 degrees. That should get them started into a winter pattern. If we stay too warm, they are gonna stay spread out. That just means we gotta look a little harder. I am looking forward to the winter being cool. To a point, that makes the fishing better in my opinion. Now, I don't want to see the lake frozen over like it was in places last year, but like I said, to a point, it has a positive effect. The old boat record on Sandy Too is held by Blue Cat Bob at 60 pounds. Caught in early January this year. The current boat record is 40 pounds so we have a lot of room to improve. As some of you might remember, I started keeping a catch log January 1st this year. I was pretty Judicious for the first 6 months but after that I kinda fell off. As of July 9th, I had caught 2,972 pounds of Blue Cat. I would guess that had I kept count, I would be around 4,000 pounds by now. That should tell us what a healthy fishery Lavon is. I'm one guy with 6 rods. Do the math... That's why I CPR 99% of the time. In my log I show 18 fish over 30 pounds, 7 over 40 and one over 60. I think those numbers can go up a lot in the next two months.

Yeah, I can’t wait for them to move into the deeper water and start building mass.

I remember last winter, cold as a witches titty, looking at the fish finder and seeing the bottom 15 feet being jammed full of good size fish in 35 feet of water. There were so many fish stacked up it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Even though it was hovering just above freezing, the work out was non stop with fish attacking the bait like it was there last meal. Working up a sweat and my old fat body getting beat down peeling off layers.

I can’t wait for the winter bite to be full on again.

Sure sounds good to me guys. My fingers, feet and ears not so much lol...

Wow Tim! Those numbers are impressive! Knowing you personally, I know without a doubt they're not exaggerated in the least. I think it's gonna be a good year depending on the weather. I just hope we don't have to battle the wind so much this year! Can't wait to get back out on Dock Holliday!!

Looking forward to having you back on board Geno! I snuck out for a couple hours yesterday and I'm starting to see fish entering a winter pattern. I caught fish in 35 feet of water which right now is about as deep as Lavon gets. By the way, the forecast has been updated to include general rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches! That might make Saturday a good day with the rain still tapering off and solid cloud cover. Wind is supposed to be N NW at 10 gusting to 20 so looking pretty promising...

Dang. That sounds awesome. Great info, thanks from a kitty newb

A winter cat question...my lake has water depths of 45 to 50...we are only a couple feet low right now so the water level is still close to that.

Is 35 feet still going to be the depth to be looking?

So with this real cold front we just had and temps below freezing for the first time, I would start looking in the mid depths and then depending on how cold the surface temp is, either go shallow or deep. And here's why...
Cold water is more dense than warm water, therefore it's heavier and it will sink. So the cold water will go to the bottom. Mid depths will moderate quickly where the deep water will be slower. I have already been catching fish that are all muddy from hunkering down on the bottom. Tomorrow is forecast to be a sunny day. That will heat up the shallows quickly. If the mid depths don't produce, I'd scan deep. If the deep water isn't holding any fish I'll go shallow and especially where there may still be some fresh water entering the lake from the recent rains. I think the mid depths will be holding fish in the morning. If you have 45 to 50 FOW at the deepest parts of your lake, I would start looking in 30ish FOW plus or minus 5 feet.

Happy hunting...

GB & TL