we'll took the boat out by the hot water spillway had alot of bites there brought in a few mostly little cats though tried a couple other places around the dam before it got too cold, decided to bring the boat in and fish of the dock by the boatramp and man had better luck there catching couple of yellow cats, and blues overall pretty decent day out on the lake

what bait where u using and where at off the dock and what time ive only got one yellow off that lake it came from the spillway 43 pounds

also welcome to tff your going to love it here maybe ill see one day at the lake i have a tff sticker and a 83 monark deep vhull bass boat

i was using liver mostly and i was fishing the boat dock just on the end dropped my line, was out there today didnt take the boat but fished by the dam and boat dock didn't have any luck oh well try again next week

Brazos Fisherman,
Thanks for posting the Gibbons info.

I too fished the hot water discharge the past few days. Yesterday, I had similar results as you..only small blues. Last week, though I had 4 keeper cats in a couple hours... biggest was 22". Also caught 'in slot' black bass, unwanted gasper goos, bluegill perch and even a turtle all bathing in the hot H2O Spa. The shad were thick. Tilapia were there too. At home filet time, I counted the anal fin rays on the largest cat and was surprised to confirm it was a channel cat ...not a blue.

The many cold fronts seem to make the bite fluctuate on and off at Gibbons, but I haven't figured out the pattern yet. Will be out there tomorrow as it is raining today.

I'm going to try to go this week.

any luck this week at gibbons might hit the lake after xmas

We fished Somerville on Tuesday, Gibbons on Thursday and my brother went out again Friday on Gibbons. A few 17 inch blues bit, but as always more small that large ones were found. Caught/released a nice black bass in the hot water discharge but we kept catching unwanted goos and mostly small cats. Earlier this week a 50+ lb blue was taken there by Rod and reel according to the park attendent. Saw one boat saying they caught about 25 crappie but we again didn't have any luck chasing crappie schools. Anybody figure out what the trick is to finding the crappie on this lake? Seems some people keep finding their limits when most the rest of us find no crappie anywhere.

We fished on Thursday and caught a lot of dinks but nothing big. The bite was good. I think on the crappie people have found some brush piles to fish. The two places I have caught them at are one left of the boat ramp in the trees out by the island at the point going in to the lake. And then the trees straight across from the boat ramp there is another brush pile. If your not right on them you will not catch them suckers.

Has anyone ever drifted the main lake for blues?

taking the boat out this morning we'll see how it goes!!

Well? How did it go? Did you do any good?

ya we had a aight day we fished the hotwater discharge aught a few outta there and then over by the damn we kept catching little ones, im still trying to find the big one's though liver worked great as usual just gotta firgure out how to keep it on the hook lol

The best bait out there is cut gasper-goo. Fish with minnows just outside the hot water discharge straight down. WHen you get one cut him up and set up a fan of rods up and down the current from the hot water. I met some old guys that tore them up on a regular basis with this method a few years ago when I was coming back from crappie fishing. I have seen them several times since then and they have yet to show me a stringer with less than 50lbs of fish. I'm a trotline man or I'd try it myself. I just wish they would open a trotline "season" out there. They have always wanted that lake to be a great bass fishery but the big flatheads keep wiping the bass out. I talked to a guy fro tpwd about 7 years ago while fishing on Somerville. He told me that during a shock survey in the late 90's they were amazed at the number of big flatheads that they stunned. These fish are difficult to catch on rod and reel but are there in force and play hell with the other fish species. To ban the productive way to fish for them is like banning the harvest of does in the hill country, it just doesn't make sense! Oh well. One voice of reason won't bend narrow minds!

ONe reason Yellowcat are hard to catch, if you use cut gasper, cut buffalo, cut carp, or stink bait, yellers don't regularly have that on their menu...more likely to catch one while fishing for gasper or crappie with a minnow than anything. Tellers have to be targeted with the right bait and patience, willingness to catch only one fish or none per trip.