Jarred and I were talking about the whitebass fishing in the creeks and I think it's possible that they have either spawned or might just be way way way upstream. Whatever the case it seems they ain't in the lower part of any creek. We did hear a couple of reports about the fish being caught in the top end of the flag pond cut. Lot's of boat traffic Saturday up in the creeks so I'm sure some fish were caught!

The fishing clinic was a lot of fun. I got to meet some great people and enjoy a Spring day on Nails Creek. Thanks for putting this together, Ben.

Enjoyed the ball and meeting new folks. Thanks for sharing your fishing tips HLS and providing our meal. And thanks to the cook!

I went to check out newman bottom yesterday morning. I noticed all the water from the fields is gone. A game warden said they won't open the road again until they repair that small bridge by the parking lot. I walked to the creek and fished about 400 yards up stream. It was way too swift to fish a jig so I walked back to the road. I started fishing a little feeder creek that flows into the yegua. I began to pick up one here two there. I already had about seven whites when I found a nice hole that I probably caught twenty out of. Quite a few were throw backs. I even caught some big crappie. Then a friend of mine showed up around 11 am and he caught about ten whites and four crappie. I ended up with sixteen whites and three crappie. Both male and female whites looked spawned out. The crappie were full of eggs.

I started out at the park & Cedar Creek Sat. morning. It was a beautiful day. The park looked amazingly green. My buddy, neighbor, and I walked up the creek and fished for a few hours. We ran into HL&S there. Nice guy. Unfortunately we did not catch but 1 or 2 fish on Cedar. Trying not to get skunked, we decided to walk into Newman Bottom. The gate is still closed. i wasn't looking forward to the walk but was excited about the possibilities of catching there. Got into NB about noon. There were alot people that also made the walk. The parking lot outside the gate by the oil wells was full.

The road to NB was washed out pretty good at the pipe culvert near the parking lot. it is still passable but needs work. unless the park plans to put more road base down there, I don't think it will be open soon. The rest of the road was still in pretty good shape. The parking lot still looked good.

We started out fishing just below the bridge. We'd find a hole and catch a couple then get hung up. Then they would stop biting. We went upstream from the bridge and caught a few more. By 6pm we decided we'd had enough. We were tired, and our legs/feet were hurting. And we still had to make the walk back to the truck. But, we left them biting.

My neighbor (Royce) caught about 18 or 20 with a couple of huge crappies on river minnows. I caught 12 whites 2 huge crappie, and one big 8lb blue cat on chartruse road runner/black grub body w/chartruse curly tail. That was fun on 6lb test line in a fast current. My buddy (Bob) is retired Army and a beginning fisherman. He managed only two but was taking in what we were doing.

The banks were slippery. The water was stained. It was up a few feet and running pretty good too. We didn't get into the fish like we thought we would. I/we just assumed the fish have moved way upstream from NB. Irwin Bridge might be the place to be?

All in all it was a good day fishing. I don't know how the rains will affect the fishing there, but I'm sure it will.

Keep the reports coming.

tight lines all!

Thanks for the reports!

I'm looking to paddle up Birch Creek Thursday morning if anyone is interested. Probably fish more for crappie then whitebass because that side of the lake (birch creek) didn't flood nearly as much as Cedar, Nails and the Yegua.

I took off work this past Friday (the 16th) and fished cedar creek. Got there at daylight and fished until about 10am, and wound up with 2 whites, a crappie, a goo, and a turtle. All fish and turtle were caught right next to brushpiles, slowly bouncing chartreuse roadrunners off the bottom. Most other people that were there had 1-3 fish, and i did see one guy with about 7.

Its pretty crazy seeing all the dead carp, buffalo, and gar scattered all over the ditches.

All those dead buffalo carp are a strange sight indeed.. and something I've never encountered before.. I suppose the stress from the drought coupled with all that flood water filling the lake so quickly and then receding just as quick might have pushed them too hard. But if you have noticed it is mostly the buffalo carp that are dying unless they get trapped and the pool drys up. One theory I have is the buffalo ate Bag-Pod Sesbania beans before coming up the creeks as the upper end of the lake filled. Last year when the lake receded those Bag-Pod Sesbania bushes covered much of the lake bed and are toxic to many animals including us..

http://essmextension.tamu.edu/plants/toxics/detail.aspx?plantID=37

Went to Irwin Bridge on Friday 3/16. there were lots of water. A few people got some catfish and drum. Lots of people bow and arrow gar.

I left Irwin Bridge about 2pm and got to Birch state part around 2:30pm. New bathroom is not opened yet. Saw a few people got some white, wading. I did not want to get into the water but my wife persuade me to go in with my little rod (4.5' long). I got in got white on first cast. Came back to the shore to get a string to tie the fish. Then I got another white on every cast. Got my limit about 45 minutes. All fish are about 14" -15". I got several which is about 16" to 17". Fish still bite. but I got limit already and have to leave the park.

I came back on Saturday. Got limit again in an hour. I fish 15 minutes longer just catch and release.

Sunday, it was slow. When I got in the lake, the water seem to be colder, wind is stronger. Fish still bite in the morning. So, I am a bit selective. I release all the fish under 15" long. I caught 19 white between 15" and 17". After 1pm no more bite. Completely silent. Either all the fish go deeper water or already up stream. If I did not release all the fish, I would have limit also. But I'm happy with the 19 large fish.

It was a great weekends for me. This is the first time I ever caught my limit. Oh well, I only know about Summerville two years. and know about state park last year.

Sorry I don't have picture yet. I will load up to night or tomorrow night.

Excellent report Lotus. Was there a big crowd? The WB should be there and glad to here that they were.

Ok....I have a job and a lawn that needs seemingly constant care of late. Lol.

I will definately NOT show all the pics since "somebody" miscounted the Hybrids. Let me apologize to Ben B. who had to get back to town first. I got a new truck (wife's now) and had to get it trailer ready. The boat trailer also needed a new tire that took me 2 1/2 hrs. to get the previous night. (don't ask...but waited for and hour and 20 minutes at one place before they came to me and said they didn't have it but it will be here Tom at 8:30am.....)
We wound up catching 16 keeper Hybrids. The biggest was a bit over 25". Could have had more and caught some more. Lost 2 to broken lines.(Didn't reset the drag after catching several WB, and changed rods once and didn't set the drag. One to a knot that came undone....and one to somebody who was slow to the net as he was admiring his in the net. We had several "doubles" since the Hybrids were stacked up together.


Tink had a great time. And got a little scared of the lid popping up.

The females were ready...

I don't care what they some say about Hybrids reproducing...I think and believe they do in Somerville. Do they reproduce in the same species or cross with the WB? My answer would be both.

Water temp was 67 degrees in the lake.

We also kept 27 WB , but threw back more than a 2 man limit. We did catch a few dinks, 7-8, that where Hybrids. We can all thank the Dundee Fishery for those.

I took out Richie (Hogwild), and his dad on Sat. intent on giving them a thrill of catching a limit of Hybrids. It was not to be. We concentrated on Hybrids, then I said that we might as well catch some WB. We caught over a 100 fish. Some were small Hybrids. We kept 57 for the table/fish Fry. It wasn't fast action like it can be but we only went to 2 spots. One didn't produce at all but I wanted to try it anyhow. (North Island and hump)

BTW, the Humminbird 788CI is "the bomb." Great depthfinder with GPS/tracking/plotting, and waypoints to mark.

The funny thing about that day is the fun that Richie's father had in catching the fish. We had WB chasing our lures to the boat, missing it, then putting the lure back down in a circle motion with one foot of line out catching them. I had one chase my lure up to the guide then jumping out of the water to try to get the lure. Richie's dad just starting jigging his Rattle trap type bait and was catching fish left and right. He'll probably remember that for awhile.
Richie showing off-


Another 2 fer..


We saw the gentleman that had boat trouble the previous day out with friends. We gave him 4 lures Friday after we helped him trailer his boat. It got busy in that little area after folks started seeing us catch fish. I think that my boat has a target on it somewhere.

The fish were spawning in the lake where we were Sat. I could see it in the water columns on the graph and on top of the water. (polarized glasses)

HLS, I'm sorry that I couldn't make it over to Nails. I had 6 boxes of chips for the event. The water was too rough to travel that far and it was a drive from where we launched.

There was not many people on Friday and Saturday. But it was crowded on Sunday. The worse part is that people fishing from bank, each person has like 10 to 20 poles and leave very little room for others to fish.

Any way... I cannot find option to port picture from my computer. It seems that I need to load the picture to some web space before I can post it. Sorry no picture at this time until I am able to learn how to load the picture.

lotuslover,
email me a couple of your best photos to fishtales@theeagle.com and I'll post them for you..