I had not been to fairfield in a while before yesterday and I have been noticing all kinds of questions regarding rain, boat ramps and water level. Fairfield is in decent condition and could use quite a bit of rain. The water level is way low and the south ramp is not usable for any decent size boat. I did see a small boat launch there and when I say small, I mean not much bigger than a canoe. The north ramp is still usable but you need to know what you are doing to make the launch and pickup easy. Thanks to Parker (from Tff) and one of his crew mates, I was easily able to get the boat out. You need to stay in the center of the ramp to pull the boat out.

Yesterday, Fairfield was loaded with folks from TFF and it was nice to meet those of you that I did not know. I headed to the lake with a former TFF'er &*^^%^& Parker, it was good to talk to ya and you seem to be a cool dude. You are deff. funny...lol I thought the fishing was excellent but found that others were not quite so lucky. I heard jackie blue was out but did not meet him and also heard varner was out. Hope you did well Varner as that is one heck of a long drive. The drive home was miserable for me. I was just beat down.
I arrived at the lake at 4:30 a.m. and fished until 11:00. We found fish in two different spots and caught between 25 and 30 reds with the largest being 40 inches. All fish came on artificials and the fish were loaded along the hydrilla lines in both areas that we found them. Lures were key as these fish are staying in fast moving schools. We would catch a few and then the fish would move and we would follow. I have heard that the lake was low on large fish but I found that this is not quite true. The thing is, people are using the wrong lures and the wrong size lures. keep in mind that a large fish can consume a very large bait. Those of you that are out, take a look at the size of the gizzard shad you see floating on the surface, those are perfect size for a decent sized red. As stated, most of the fish came from the hyrdrilla ledges but many fish were also caught along points that were loaded with bait and channels where the water would drop a few feet. The fishing is excellent if everything is done just right. I did make a few mistakes at the beginning by using too small a lure but I made up for that fast. The smaller lure caught lots of small reds but once I upsized, the big boys started coming to the boat. Using the right equipment, the small 18-22 inch reds can be landed in seconds. Keep that in mind for quick action, if you waste too much time on the little dudes, the schools will move quick and this will cut down on your numbers. The fishing was excellent and the only person that caught something that I would have had a hard time matching was don miller. That dude caught a rod and reel and no matter how hard I had tried, I dont think I could have pulled that one off. lol
One more note, We trolled a minute and had two hits within a few minutes and called it quits because it was getting late. Trolling should work very well right now, especially as the day heats up. Good luck to those of you that head out and I truly think that trolling will be very effective during the hot hours of the day.
Here are some photos to go with the story and report.I kept one fish to make fish tacos and fish sandwiches. (*&&*( kept a limit for fish fry and neighbors. Someone asked if the fish died when we caught them and no, they did not. They died once they hit the bitter cold at the bottom of the ice chest..lol

One more thing. I saw some animal that I have never seen before. It was swimming in the water near the dam on the west side of the lake. It looked similar to a tapir but was light brown in color. Was way too big to be a beaver or nutria and the thing swam very well. It swam quite a ways out, grabbed a big shad and swam back to shore and was gone as quick as it made it back to the cat tails. Anyone ever seen any crazy looking creatures out there? I have seen all kinds of animals and am a nature nut but have never seen anything like this. *&&^&* and I tried to follow the thing with the trolling motor but it was fast. Could have been a funny looking light skinned hog with his ears up while swimming but I have never seen one swim like that in order to pick up a shad. Thanks..

Great report! Thanks....

Love that lake!

I have seen some big otters there. Awesome report!

That's a great report. Much thanks for posting it.

Mind telling us the lures that worked best for you and sizes?

My guess would be an otter...those critters can really eat a bunch of fish.

Great report.
My guess is that you saw a river otter. We saw a baby 3wks. ago barking and running around a point looking for its parents.
I may take my dad out there again this coming wkend, for his B-day.

What kind of lures were you using Pie?

Cant give my new special lure away but any large lure that imitates a big bait should work. The smaller lures we used were 6 inches long by 3 inches deep. For some odd reason, the blue lures seemed to fair the best while anything too flashy did not draw too many strikes. The other lure we used was very big and is something that bass fisherman in california use for the behemoth bass. The lure runs about 50$ or so, some around 60$.
The animal I saw was not an otter. The animal was about the size of a lab retriever and could have been a hog but if so, it was very deformed. I was informed that there was once an animal that was similar to what I saw but it is said to be extinct. The animal looked like Giant Nutria that had grown 20 times larger than he was suppose to be.

Hey that is not your boat ...could you have launched your boat down there???

Great report -- any idea what the water temp was?? You guys wear me out with those big lures!!!

i can launch my boat but the boat we were in is the fairfield special. we have only been using my boat for short range trips and when its rough out. water temp was 92.5 and 95. his boat, bluethunder,aka the flounder2 is great in the summer

There is a blood line of farrow hogs down there that are mostly dirty blond with a few black spots on them. I have not seen one swimming yet, but I would think with their body fat they should float pretty good. However, I have not even seen a hog eating a dead fish on a shore line.

The otters are black to dark brown. ears are often up when they swim

I have seen plenty of raccoons swim out to get a dead fish. The ones that swim often have a tan more blondish or sandy colored coat because the salt is either hanging in their fur or bleaching their fur out. However, when dry and they are approaching the water or drained out they still show the ring pattern.

Walking across the ramp from the cleaning station I did see one of the largest raccoons I have even seen last weekend, about the size of a chubby 30-50# dog. I would not think the raccoons down by the dam could eat as well as those fishing cleaning station scavengers.

The berm at the ramp is at 3.4ft under the surface. Figure out what your boat needs to work safely. The power company was not pumping in Trinity water Thursday late, Friday or Saturday. I did not check Sunday. Without pumping the lake is probably going to drop 1.2" per week, use 3.4ft and start subtracting until you hear they are pumping again. They got rain some Friday and Sunday. The nearest weather stations recorded no Sunday rain and 0.05" to 0.25" Friday. But my 20ft fiberglass rain guage bilge pumped 40 and 70 seconds worth out those two respective days. The Big Brown creek showed no signficant flow a few hours after the two heavier Sunday squalls passed.

Guys the lake is no longer going to hold a consistent temperature like years past. I confirmed recently the power station is no longer in the power grid "Base Loaded" pricing pattern, it is now being modulated up and down as the power system needs to buy their higher cost power production. As a consequence these stations will no longer be running full out like they used to be.

As a result the lake temperature can rise or fall at least 4-6 deg F over a days time as they modulate their loading. Weekday patterns should be warmer because the business power loads is in that demand pattern, but mostly off (with lower water flow and temperatures) on the weekends. If the equivalnet of 800 MWatt of cheaper power supplier has mechanical problems and drops off the line Big Brown's load could go to the maximum even on weekend. They can probably idle load these stations at about 10-30% of maximum capacity.

Get a mental or camera picture of the power plant stack flows it will tell you all you need to know about how heavily they are loaded while you are there. The water flow and temperature will generally follow that stack flow pattern. watch the size of the flow and how high it rises vertically off the top of the stack. That cannot tell you how heavily they were loaded the hours before you got there and the resulting lake temperatures. I was told recently they turn (pump) the equivalent of a full lake's volume once a day. (My opinion now) But there can be a time lag in where the peak temperature point is in the flow pattern. Confirming this, this year I and others have seen a point in the main lake where the temperature at the hot outfall area was actually cooler by a few degrees than some point down the lake at the mid or dam face lake. It depended upon the day and time of that day (we have lights on overnight).

Bottom line hereafter the lake temperature pattern is going to be quite different (lower mostly) from years back.

does that mean the water might not evaporate as fast?

Bring me my brown pants....

How much rain did the lake get today. Anyone know? Thanks for the report. I am thinking of going Thursday. I hope I will have time and see if I can find some BIG baits. Steve