There’s all the races around the lake.

Cooper is kind of in one of those transition areas. The lake actually sits on gray/red clay mix but the upper flood plane is black land.

blackland lakes seem to always be kind of trashy

Red dirt

It's amazing to me that the locals keep it quiet. It's a hammer hole. For years the locals say nothing or talk about it being a mud hole and nobody goes. It's loaded.

Big majority of the creeks that feed the lake from the north catch runoff from black land. Most of it is farmed. The lake has caught a lot of silt, which is another nail in the coffin.

According to the last Lake Survey TPWD concluded that fishing there basically sucks and they dont plan to do much about it.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/lake_survey/pwd_rp_t3200_1279/

They will stock some hybrids and kind of call it good. I get it though. You have to know your limits. No need throwing good money at a problem that you cant spend your way out of.

The lake is silting in, has large water fluctuations, shallow af, poor water quality coming in from run off, limited structure/cover etc. are limiting factors. Catfishing is good though and they are stocking those hybrids... those are fun fish to be sure.

fish it once in a blue moon and went last week for the whole day. many textbook spots across the whole lake and only caught 3 around 1 1/2LB. would rather drive an hour or two to any other lake and catch nothing than fish cooper lol.

Locals keeping lid on its greatness. They have seen what happens to ivie

So why did TP&WD build probably the nicest state park and ramps in Texas there? As usual, politics played into that expenditure and has played a part in the decision to let the lake go downhill as contrasted to pouring resources into other, more favored lakes. The Florida bass' natural habitat is shallow, weedy water. Cooper is a shallow lake that used to be full of hydrilla. The first time I ever went there I fished for three hours and caught a 7 and a 6, among other bass. I had no idea where I was going, I just pulled into a couple of coves ands started fishing the grass. That was probably 1999. Around that time huge sacks were being weighed in tournaments and Fork guides started taking their clients to Cooper instead. In May of 2000 my partner and I were prefishing for a Challenge Bass tournament and were in the upper end among the timber and grass. We saw a guy catch two 10 pounders on back to back casts. We went 75 yards past them and on my first cast to a forked tree I caught a 10.75. Three 10 pounders caught in less than 10 minutes...

The next weekend in the tournament we only weighed two fish, but they weighed 10 pounds between them. It took something like 32 to win. As I recall bass had to be 18 inches to keep or weigh them back then. Cooper was a fabulous lake that suddenly went to heck. It's one of those things that makes you go hmmmmm.

I know people who catch a lot of fish at Cooper

As I started above when we had those droughts in the mid 2000's it just never was the same after that. I think the worst part of those droughts for the LMB's was the lake fell so fast and so much during the spawn a few of those years it probably left beds with eggs high and dry and TP&W almost never stocks this lake with LMB's. As I said earlier, I've side scanned this lake a bunch and the amount of shad forage here is unreal. It could easily support heavy LMB stocking and become a Fork or an OH Ivie.

Had my best days on this lake back when Grumpy, Kathy had the Ranger dealership (Diamond Sports) there. Still a descent lake especially during the spawn. They spawn different on this lake for sure.

I fished it a lot the first maybe 5 years it was open. Caught a lot of fish mostly between 1-2 with a few 3's in the mix. You could throw any color worm you had and they would bite it. I got rid of a bunch of odd colored worms those years. 100-150 fish days was not uncommon. Then the drought hit at the same time as north Dallas area towns started pulling water out of it which was like a double whammy and the lake turned into a mud whole. Fishing really started to suck on that lake. Started fishing other lakes.

Fished it for the first time in maybe 10 years two years ago. What a difference. The once very cool boat lane straight as an arrow through the trees from the ramp on the north side (can't remember the name) to the main lake with several equally straight boat lanes intersecting it cut through the trees were gone. Most of the trees have fallen. Not the lake it used to be.

During the spawn you could run up boat lane 3 into the river and the fish would be spawning in the tree tops on the branches on them old bois arc trees. Crazy .
Jeff, the trees have fallen but the ditches and humps are still there