Tonight we caught a dozen fish from two to five pounds from 6 pm - 8 pm on Lake Lewisville, but we never seem to get the big bite. Where do the big one's live? Lake Lewisville is a great lake for catching a mess for the table. I hear about the big one's in there, but I have yet to see one, and we catch a lot of fish.

Big fish generally favor fresh prey,they don't get big eating punch bait and garbage.
If your perch or shad die then get them on ice ASAP
I never use a bait longer then 1 hr, no bite in one hour and I move no less then 100yds (in a proven spot) then rig fresh bait and back at again.
FWIW all my shad go straight on ice from the net

We typically use fresh shad. Thinking about upsizing the bait. We have definitely found a concentration of catfish between 15 and 20 feet of water, but I am questioning if the big one's swim with the smaller one's. Last nights bag included three five pound blues, five two to three pound blues, and three channels (1 pound). So there is definitely several year classes in that catch. Do you have to leave this spot to catch big one's, or do you just upsize your bait to keep the smaller one's away? We don't need any catfish for the table right now. We have plenty of that. Looking for a big one tomorrow morning. Thinking about anchoring up in the spot and throwing some big bait!

Up our way the Big-Blues are on the nest and will be for a little while longer and welcome to the forum !!!!!

I never use anything under 6" inches with shad and prefer 8" or bigger
Thread fin or Gizzards, I also chop the tails for a bleed out and swap bait every 30 min.

Question for the guys that catch the big ones, is it normal to catch a big one in a place where there is a lot of two to five pound fish?

I think Stinkbait Tom has them pinned up in Hickory Creek.

Upsized the bait today and went out with my son. All of the bait we used today was in the 6 - 8 inch class. We missed quite a few fish, but the fish we hooked were in the 5 pound area - around 23 - 25 inches. Still no big-guns. Still had a good time.

I don't think this is a big fish spot, but we can definitely put fish on the table there. And, we have the spot all to our self everytime we go. Haven't tried it at night yet.

Keep at it, use big baits. Sonar can help u out in finding them, if they are there. If not just just keep at it...usually the the big boys come out to play once the little ones have a soar mouth.

Some big cats hold tight under structure in shallow water during the day.
Some will cruise the edges of a channel with the other average fish. Good example, say your fishing with 10 rods positioned around the boat. Your only catching fish off 3 or 4 rods and the rest stay dead for the few hours you are in the one spot. The 3 or 4 poles are aren't wearing you out but are steadily putting fish in the boat. That little sweet honey hole up front stays that way for the stay. The fish are cruising through there holding tight to something. More than likley it will be a channel when you finally go over it when leave, looking at your sonar of course. Fairly often on a set up like that you will catch a trophy sized fish along with the other 3 to 10 pounders. I'm not implying just because you find a channel means you will find that particular scenario but thats not a made up example.

I have marked my gps each time we catch a fish, and the pattern is really concentrated. The fish are definitely holding to something or cruising the area consistently. I don't really see anything remarkable on my gps or depthfinder, but there is something there they like. We have pulled about 50 blues out of there in the last two weeks letting most of them go, but like I have said, I would think it would just be a matter of time before a bigger fish strikes a rod.

Take me with you and maybe we can figure it out together.

Finally got the bites we were looking for. Caught some large bluegill from my HOA pond and we steaked them. Head and tail off. Nice wide 5 inch baits. Had a hard time finding good shad, but finally found a cove loaded with them.

Confirmed that there are some larger fish in the area I have been targeting. I found a hole in this area with slightly deeper water. Not a big area at all. Small area of 20 feet depth in an area predominately 17 feet. Drifted over that deeper section, and it was on, twice.

Finally something bigger than 5 pounds. My son landed both of the larger fish. The first one a ten pounder, then a 20 pounder, both on bluegill. Lots of fish under 5 pounds as well on the shad. It may have been all about the bait. Had some big bites on that bluegill. We missed a couple of really hard bites on those baits.

Good Job!
IMO,its always about the bait!!
Next time just score the perch tail down to the vertebra
and let'em slow bleed and use plenty of hook

At 10 am this morning, landed another big fish. 33 inches 17.5 pounds. That's three fish between 10 and 20 pounds this weekend from our honey hole. My guess is there is one in there a lot bigger than that.

We could have probably done this from the getgo. We have just upsized our bait per advice from this forum. At the crack of dawn my castnet landed a buffalo carp. That made some really nice, big bait, and the carp outproduced fresh shad 5:1. I was surprised.