I have been having no luck lately and was hoping someone could help me figure out what I'm doing wrong!! I fished under the spillway at Ray Roberts last weekend using everything from worms, to Danny Kings, to live Goldfish without even a bite! Then this morning I fished at Lake Lewisville in Little Elm near some rip rap at the end of Garza Lane. I bought some frozen cut shad but when I got there I noticed there was Shad washed up and trapped in the rocks! Eureka! I thought, I threw some shad on and ended up only getting a couple big hits the entire morning but I lost the fish. How do you hook a shad onto your hook? I was using a 4/0 Kahle (the weedless kind) and on another pole I was using a small circle hook which I couldn't seem to set. Anyways I am beyond frustrated because I have been hearing that the catfish are spawning right now and that the time is now yet I can't seem to get into any fish! Are they spawning yet? Is my setup all wrong? I am using a slip type weight above my swivel, then about a foot long leader with the above mentioned hooks and I am just fishing it on the bottom. Or do I just plain have bad luck?! Sorry for the long post, I am just frustrated and hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

you DONT really "set" a circle hook. if you are used to fishing with kahles, your tendancy becomes to jerk the rod to "set" the hook. i fish with circles all the time in your situation, be patient as the rod gets taken over, then all you have to do is reel the slack up for a perfect corner of the mouth hook set. also, with bigger baits, i wait until there is a "homerun" or "slam dunk" before i even touch my rods.

Hi RCP, just emailed you. Bluebird skys and light wind are probably working against you. Get out there right before daybreak and dipnet some of those spawning threadfins. Against the rocks I like to use a simple bobber w/ tightline rig. I.E., fish them like you would minnows for crappie, just make sure you use a swivel cause the live shad will spin around. If they are dead I like to tear them in half.

Shallow-Deep we tried both on Friday night? First time we have been skunked in over a year or more.

We were out on Lewisville from about an hour before dark till about 2:00 am no luck.

We tried around the old dam new lake side by spillway. We tried shallow on 720 side of deadmans going up toward white house and we tried near Lake View marina. We tried on bottom and with bobbers???
We are still trying to wash smell of skunk off.

Hints ideas???

Mark I had the same problem. Are we wrong in thinking that the spawn is on yet?

I fished Lewisville and Grapevine on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from shore and all I could catch were a few 11" Channels. I think the blue skies had the biggest impact. I tried shallow, deep, stink bait, cut shad, corn, maggotts, everything I have always used and caught fish and I could only muster up a few little ones.

Still better than yard work at home.

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"Still better than yard work at home. "

You know it!

Go to a smaller 2/0 hook. Use worms and find a place to waid out and cast then walk back to the bank and fish. Windy points with the wind in your face. the waves ster up the mud and the come in to feed. I bet money you will catch fish!

Until Friday night I could say I always catch something!

Well I am trying again tomorrow night so hopefully I will have some better luck. I'll keep y'all posted!

I was out last Friday morning from 9am to 1pm, I saw no topwater sandy action, no birds working and caught about 20 cats, all about 6 inches long from several places in 2-3ft of water using sureshot. There was a guy that came in while I was loading the boat and he had about 20 very nice size crappies in the livewell. I guess I should have been fishing for them. He was using jigs around stickups in 7-8ft of water.

Joe