Impressive as usual, Carey. your dedication to TOW is admirable. I enjoy your reports and appreciate you sharing your knowledge on the current bite. You make fishing look more a science than an art!

Same pattern the last week. 12-14 ft down is magic in 14-15 ft depths. Minnows are still king of the lake as the water heats up. You will need a 1/2 lb of minnows per person usually. Brush was killer today. Timber, not so much. A lot of timber is right under the surface now so be carful. The island cut is a no go now. Very shallow and has concrete right in the middle of it. So go around the island. Two hour limit today. Most were 12 inches, biggest 14 inches. Left them biting with 37 keepers and 14 dink crappie and a couple sandies thrown in.

Fish 12-16 ft of water on average. 18 max depth on brush. Fish are holding 10-14 ft brush that sits in 14 ft is magic sometimes. 15-16 ft is ok but fish will be in 12-14 ft of it most of the time. I have been finding the big ones hugging the bottom. It's luck to land on a pod of 13 plus inch fish. They move around a lot at night so the next day, your honey hole a couple days ago will be dry. Make sure you have at least 20 things on gps in those depths, and u should do well.

Timber is popping out 2-5 fish per tree in deep water. Again fish are holding at 10-14 ft but scattered through the timber.

Black Crappie are shallow. You have to stump and tree hop in 5-8 ft of water in protected coves. Or brush in that depth would be killer. Long rods are important while doing this. If you bump the structure with the trolling motor or even boat, you probably spooked the whole school. The blacks are targetable in the shallows. You will still catch them randomly while deeper fishing. Blacks weigh more than whites, so if you pattern the black out, fish them hard. 7 13-15 inch black crappie would win it.

Fish 13 inches and plus are what you are looking for. I, personally, would only be looking to box 14-15 inchers to win the money. ( I'm talking about white crappie now) now I'm sure you have heard me say minnows will win it. You die hard jiggers might need to bring some minnows and just bite the bullet. Two people, I recommend you buy 1/2 pound of minnows per person. If I was was in the tourney, I'd get a lb and use all the bigger ones first. If you can net up some thread fin shad and keep them alive in the bait tanks, 4-6 inchers, all you will get is bigger crappie. Great great bait!

I Carolina rig them.

8 lb line
6 floro for leader
1oz slip weight
Two way swivel
Size #4 hook or #6. -smaller one when fish are slow to bite.

I slip the weight on the main line first.

Tie on the swivel

Add 5 inches of 6 lb fluorocarbon as leader and attach hook. 3-5 inches on leader. No longer unless fishing standing timber or bridges where there are not a lot of snags the minnow can get into.

Don't stay in one spot for more than 15 mins and no bite. I usually move after two to five minutes an no bite. If you anchor on the brush, you just spooked the school. They are shallow right now. Water is very clear in some areas. Plenty of structure to fish for everyone on this lake. There is no way I can fish more than 20-30 way points in one day. There is no reason to, unless they are slow. As long as you are in this depths, you should do very well. Hold that minnow as still as possible is the depth they are at and you should have fun. Bring lots of hooks and weights. If your not loosing gear, your not catching fish. I have a bunch of pre made, by me, leaders I can attach quick, without having to re rig the whole setup. Don't let your line hang at an angle, it must be up and down, vertical.. If it's at an angle, your over a limb or u have a fish. Bring lots of hooks and weights, ya I said it again, but I'm serious.

At the entrance of every cove there is timber. Find those areas and again, you should have fun. Use as many rods as you like. Spider rigging submerged structure will rake them in if the sandies stay out of the way. Lot of work for that though.

Bring ice ad water and keep hydrated. Cold water tastes way better than hot water.

Fish are biting and a lot of big fish are being caught.

Yesterday we got top the lake at 730 am and the fish were biting at every stop.










Lake record



Went through a pound and a half of minnows in less than 3 hours yesterday.

Yesterday was crazy good with all species biting. I sleep in a bit and got to the lake about noon. It's was hot out! I decided to target whatever was biting and gave the best action. So I tried the Largemouth first.

Caught some small pigs.





As I was fishing a point, the sandies started to boil literally all around my boat. The shad had come up and tried to hide next to my boat and the sandies were hitting the side of the boat chasing the shad. Caught about 50 of those all 9-12 inchers, kept a couple for neighbor that like fresh fish once a week, and then, the yellows moved in so I left.

Then I hit a brush pile for some crappie. I was in 15 ft fishing a pile that produced very good the day before. I caught one.

So, I moved 40 ft closer to shore and hit a sunken willow tree in 10 ft.



Limited in less than 30 mins. Caught about 40 off of this 5 ft tree in 10 ft of water with 4 being 14 inches and one being 15 inches.

Moved to the next brush pile 100 yards away in 10 ft and the same thing, rippin lips for 45 mins. In less than 2 hours my talley was at 87.

Then my buddy called and wanted to come play. Ate lunch and we went back out. He wanted to bass fish, so we went to a spot, side scanned it, and the fish were stacked in the spot. Caught about dozen black bass from 2-4 lbs within 20-25 mins. Left that spot and hit a brush pile for more crappie, caught 6 there and Jeff even brought up a 14 incher and was bored of them cause there was no hard fight to them. Ok, so we hit the bass again.

Average sized for the day.




Found them pushing shad up on point on the flats near the dam. Used Lake Fork Tackle ring fry chart TX rigged. I'd say a solid 15-17 lb stringer was caught. We never did hook a big one though on this trip. There are a bunch of 5-8's out there.

Also a paddle tail chart with 1/4 of the tip cut off. LFT

Can't really say anything new. Fish are doing their thing as usual. 10-14 ft down on structure.

Lots of 14 inchers and 15's











Almost forgot to mention we stopped to throw a limit of sand bass in the boat before we hit the crappie.



Sandbass we holding on all the submerged roads and old submerged ramps in 10-14 ft of water. 1/4 oz chart slabs are key with a jig or fly 18 inches above. I had my guy today drag the slab over the road beds. If they were not in the middle of the road, they were on the sides that are lined with rocks. Side Scan helps with this. I'll mark one side of the road with a bouie and then the other. Then, we cast through the bouie like a soccer goal and drag it all the way down the road and repeat. Landed over 150 sandies in an hour. Then we moved on crappie. No surfacing activity. On a side note, don't sit on the road beds. They spook. You have to cast to them.

Another slow day today. I thought it was going to be faster fishing.


Crappie are doing the same thing as they have been for a month. 10-14 ft.



Had almost 20 in the boat within 30-45 mins. Only one small throw back today. Most fish were 12 inches average to 14 inches. Minnows and jigs.

My client asked how the sandies were doing on the lake. So we went to a submerged boat ramp.








Caught 30-40 within a 1/2 hour and moved on to crappie again. He didn't want to keep any sandies. I bet if we anchored on the spot, everyday you could catch over 500 of those sandies within 5 hours. Every drop produces 1-2 sandies.


$150 /2 people 5-6 hours of non stop catching. �$75 a person

Let's go fishing catching!

TexasOklahomaFishingGuide.com

Humminbird Pictures:



School of sandies on a huge ball of shad.



Submerged tree with crappie on it. All the yellow blobs are crappie.



Massive school of sandies on the slop of the small hump.



Above, you might want to slab this hump! All sand bass.



A tree loaded to the T with crappie on it.

Report: Same thing as always. Sandies and crappie were nailing our baits all day long. A bit slower due to the cloud cover, but it was still very good fishin!



Sandies and crappie doing the same thing today. Hit the largemouth first, they didn't wanna play, so we hit the sandies. Caught 50-100 of those, then crappie.

Same patterns. Wind died completely and the lake went to glass at 3 pm, slowed way down.

Today was a kid trip. Dad said to keep the kids happy. PERFECT! So that made it my choice on what to fish for. I love days like these.

The amout of fish you pass on the way to your favorite fishing spot is crazy. You can launch your boat and actually catch fish right there. Heck, you can stand on the bank and catch fish on the ramps. Largemouth love ramps to ambush shad eating the algea. Ramps usually have rock on both side and obviously, an end. The end of the ramp usually drops deep due to all the back wash from boats trying to trailer the wrong way. So the Largemouth sit on the rocks and below the ramp where it ends and come out and attack shad out in the open. -but now I just rambled... So anyways, you pass a lot of fish. Here is what I am talking about. I decided to try and get as many Lake Records in the boat I could get! So it was a catch everything day. Last night I rigged all my rods for everything that swims that was catchable with rod and reel.





------New Lake Lavon Jr. Records

(pending paper work)------

Channel Catfish Jr Record Holder Below:



Blue Gill Jr. Record Holder Below:



They were under the tires as usual. 3-5 ft down. We used raw bacon for those. Bacon stays on the hook, the white fat part. you can catch 100 gills till it falls off.

I think this was in December. It was winter in the video. Summer time is stupid easy for these little critters.



White Bass Jr. Record Holder below:



Found these in the same places. The sandies were on the move today. Got them at the Road beds and glass house. I was side scanning in 15 ft of water looking for them. Then I thought it was chatter cause it said the fish were in 2 ft of water right up on the bank of the point. Joined another boat that had kids and everyone was catching.



White Crappie were also landed ( mostly by the little one. He was a Crappie King! Same Pattern on these as usual. Most were in 10 ft on brush).



I goofed up and and mixed lakes up. I thought we had the Jr Record Largemouth (Black Bass)to we stopped fishing for them. Only took 15 minutes to land a keeper. Wish I would have double checked on that one. They were popping shad everywhere. Saw some 3-4 lbres bust right near the rocks and casted to one that busted and he landed a good one though.....



Stopped at 8 spots which all hold different kinds of fish all thier own ( blue gills live over there, Black Bass live here, Crappie live there, sandies live 40 ft that way, carp are around the bend ( we had that record too, but it bent the hook str8 !) ect.... and the kiddos landed every single fish we were targeting. Made my trip easy and the fish were working with me. Crappie were way way slow today anyways

Nice looking boat, Thanks for your help, and your fishing reports.

Crappie are doing their thing still. So are the sandies. Same pattern for both.


One of the (9) MRB's is void of fish.




MoonRiver and his buddy put a dent in the population today.





They were so thick, the guys would snag them by accident.

The fish didn't eat till 735 am and them it was almost every cast a fish was boated. Same pattern. If you don't know, read some pages back. Crappie were also doing the exact same thing. Landed about 20 of those in an hour, lots of 10-11 inch crappie.

All sandies were caught on Chartruse Thorn's ( slabbing spoons I make, not for sale though ). 1/4 oz

Crappie on Thump Buddies in Purple and Chartruse and minnows.

Below is what we were doing all day...... Limited 50 sand bass in 1.5 hours. - and it was a bit slow actually.



End Result: Fish Fry

Great pics and video Carey. it's nice to see the live action. Were you guys fishing a submerged boat ramp again? I'm going to give it another try on the crappie this weekend since it looks like the weather is going to cooperate.

Thanks again for the report! Keeps us weekend warriors going!!

Crappie 10-15

Sandies on all 9 roadbeds I have found

Today was stupid on The road bed. It was loaded up with 100's of fish. We were crappie fishing



But they asked about white bass fishing, so we hit the road bed for 10 mins a caught a fish on every cast. Then �back to crappie. Yesterday before the storm was pretty good, but again, today it was loaded to the T with them.





All sandies caught on Chartreuse Thorn's 3/4 oz in 11-14 ft of water on road beds

Brush in 10-14 ft is the magic number for crappie. Minnows rules, jigs not so much.

All I can say is I'm glad I'm not a crappie or a sandbass in lavon. My days would be numbered. Great report Carey. you make it look easy.

Been busy and the 12 hour days are draining me of energy, so, I'm sorry about the delayed reports. I'm going to mix up all the species of fish into one report to save me some time. So, here we go:( FYI- pictures are all out of order)

White Bass:

They have been doing the same thing they have been doing for 3 months. All 14 roadbeds / old ramps ( that I have found so far) are holding fish. Today we pulled a limit out in about 2 hours. Marcus threw back all the fish that were 12 inches or smaller so he had some big fish for the grill today. The wind was out of the south and it was bit choppy today but they were stacked up. Then the wind shifted out of the west and they moved somewhere. So off to the one of many, RB's. Side Scanned it and the fish were loaded on this one again. All three of us got a double on the first cast. Just crazy fun. You actually get bored of catching them after awhile......



Yesterday, I had a couple guys hop on the boat. They said they were newbies. They usually just sit on the bank with some earthworms, but they never caught anything. So we hit Lavon at about 7 am and set up. They usually turn on by 730, but they were late.



We started to boat fish one after the other by 750 am.



We never moved from this spot till 11 am landing 100's of sandies. They caught more fish, obviously, and the biggest fish of their lives. They were a hoot.





After they had sore wrists and the fish would not quit biting, we called it day. I asked them if they ever caught a crappie before. They said no. So, I stopped at a magic brush pile and I gave them a crash course on jigging. I said we wouldnt leave till they both landed one.



So, yeah!...... Everyday has been great on the White Bass bite. Only the day we got the tail wind from the hurricane was it slow. It was super slow. But other than that, the bite has been going strong and almost impossible to not limit.

The Crappie Report:

Fish are very easy right now. 8-15 ft depths.

The reasons some of y'all are having issues:

1- your fishing the same structure you were fishing when the lake was 5-6 ft higher. They moved out of those areas for the most part. Plus those hot spots are now visible and get hammered. You need to find new brush piles in deeper water. 15 ft seems to be a good number, but I have 4 piles in 10 ft of water, and the fish are stacking on them. So again, learn to find new brush. You must cover a lot of water. Every so often, you will land on a big school of them and catch 20 keepers off of it. -Just have to find that spot.

2- minnows are king. Jig bite will pick up as it gets to 75-80 degrees and minnows will not be king anymore.

3- your fishing in your honey hole to long. Move to find those aggressive fish and put the crappie in the boat. Don't wait on them, go get them!

As some of y'all know, I guide year round for rainbow trout in Beavers Bend State Park @ the Lower Mt Fork River. They stock this river with 4200 fish every other Thursday year round so there are always fish to be caught. Its only 2.5 hours from Dallas and your in the mountains. You don't have to fly fish either. You can do it anyway you want. Drag a minnow in the Blue Zones and you will limit quick. Drag a 1/8th oz white rooster tail on 4-6 lb line on a spinning rod. or fly fish using all kinds of different flies that will produce a nice fish in your net. 20 fish landed is a slow day on my end there. 50-75 is an average outing with Tally's of 100 being broken on occasion. Big fish swim here. My client hook a Rainbow Trout that was about 25 inches on Wednesday. 5-7 lb trout right there. Hooked another one later about the same size. Both got off. They looked like a salmon. Huge fish......



Lower Mountain Fork River Fly Fishing Report:

So yup. Same thing everyday up there. I have been up there once a week or so for the last couple months. Nothing has changed. Crowds have gotten way smaller since school is in now. We saw 4 other anglers on the red zone all day.



Night and day compared to the last couple months. In two weeks it will be a ghost town and no group of kids everywhere. All the canoes going downstream all day long, was ruining a lot of my holes and the fish were super spooky. But now, they are starting to come out and feed again. Caught a lot of fish that have been in the river for awhile.



Super pretty colors. Lost Creek and Evening Hole was stocked full of fish. A few good fish have made their way to the bluffs again. So fishing the whole river has started to get better. But, here comes the heat again......




lol, Fish will always be there though. Just have to throw what they want to eat. Spillway Creek fished pretty good. You really need to focus on the shady spots when the sun is up. They will stack up on top of each other and there will be 20-30 fish balled up in a shady pocket the sized of a large trash can lid. When you go into lost creek, watch what they are doing since they are easy to see there. Then take the pattern you have just learned from them and hike up Spillway Creek. Lots of fun but mending and high sticking is very important. Side casting is too. Some casts need to be thrown up under a over hang to get the fly to drift in some hidden pockets. Don't just drift the obvious spots. Drift the fly in every spot you can everywhere.




The browns have been hiding under the small grassy overhangs along the shore lines. Very tough to get out. Most of them are caught before dark and on WB's at night.








Cant wait till Nov/Dec when it gets cold. No pressure from anglers, so they stock 4200 fish 0n top of the last stocking that barley got a dent in it. Great winter fishing up there and views. The cabins are super nice too.

Mike Landed 32 rainbows
Chris landed 15-20
I landed 75 and quit and went home while they were still biting.