Well, my wife finally made up our mind lol. We got skunked out on benbrook again. We were after hybrids or sandies whatever we could come across and just got nothin, fished bubbles and humps with live and artificials. As we're pulling out of hte marina we notice there's a new stick sticking up and I look at the depth finder and right where my boat sits it's 1.3ft deep, thinkin this is wrong I stick my net in the water and sure enough it's at the most 19inches deep at the back of my boat when it's in the slip.

After getting skunked, seeing the lake almost dry enough to know we have to take the boat out and potentialy wont even be able to launch it soon she told me that we're moving to eagle mountain. Now I gotta call up there and get some numbers and ifnd out if that lakes just gonna go dry too cause I don't wanna sign a 1 year lease on a slip only to have to pull out in a month because it hits the bottom too.

Anyone have any experience on eagle mountain that can speak to the water levels?

Benbrook finally beat me, when I'm a better fisherman I'll go back and try again. Until now it's a dead hole as far as I'm concerned.

Hows the lake level?

Good Move.

Em won't go dry, you should be able to find one with deep water like 15-20'!

the lake level at benbrook is down like 4ft right now I think. The lake is deep as hell, there's still 40+ areas all over the place. Problem is I'll be in 40ft of water and the entire east side of the lake has trees sticking out and a lot that are just below the surface and beyond that I have a 24ft pontoon... I don't take that thing home. I need to be in a slip, it's just too much of a pain to launch with as often as I want to go out. It'd cost me more in gas to tow it 3-5 times a week than it would to leave it at a marina. Benbrook lake marina has some awesome guys at it, they've been real nice and friendly, helped me out a bunch with a number of things and the price is low... however, the marina is about to hit the dirt with the lake levels going down and I just can't keep my boat there for much longer.

Add onto that the fact that the fishing sucks and it makes the move pretty easy. I know people constantly tell me they're getting fish but when I sit and watch the tournament on thursday weight in with 1 or 2 fish maybe and rarely anything over 2-3lb I start to wonder.

My fishing experience from when I was younger must have spoiled me. Once we learned my home lake in GA we never came home skunked, we might not have caught many keepers but I don't remember a single fishign trip longer than 2 hours that didn't produce at least A fish. I've gone out on benbrook and cheated (fished bubbles) and not caught anything, a sand bass school is like a pot of gold if you find it but you have to chase the rainbow to locate one. There ARE fish in the lake but they really don't like artificial baits. I know guides go out and do well but I'm just not seeing it.

At this point my confidence is shot, I've started doing something I never do before when I fish for black bass... I swap lures constantly. I used to be confident enough to go to a spot, look at what was going on in the area, pick a couple of things and throw em. I'd toss something heavy and weedless to get a feel for the bottom so I knew what I was dealing with then pop over to whatever bottom-mid depth rig I was gonna use that day whether it be a crig or crank or jig. fish it for a while and if I got no action move to mid-top stuff like shallow cranks or top waters. If I didn't get any action there I'd move a little and start again.

Now, I'm hitting spots that 'should' have fish and throwing my hole freaking tackle box in desperation trying to find what the finnicky little basstards want. It's not like I'm missing fish either, I'm not even getting bumped out there when I fish for black bass and I'm fishing in the spots everyone tells me to fish. I go back and talk to those same people and the storey is always the same "Sometimes they just aren't biting" that's BS to me, fish gotta eat and I'm a food delivery service.

So... gonna go to EM. I know if I was a better fishermen, knew how to read my electronics better, and had better presentation skills I'd be able to fish benbrook with more success but I'm starting to think that even with all those increased skills the fishing would still suck and if I take those same skills to EM or anotther lake I'd be nailing fish left and right.
Now I get to go to another lake and start from scratch and hopefuly build up my confidence again instead of tank it like I did on benbrook.

Good luck at EM. I'll prob be right behind you. I did some research before and found the best slip deal at the Marina off Azel. Very nice and month toonth, not like some on yearly contract. Take a look. Can't think of the name.

if you think of the name lemme know. The marina I was lookin at is pretty pricy and has a 1 year lease.