DFW Lake Selection Advice

Hello All,

After years of pining for my saltier home waters, I finally got my own rig in DFW which is a 17' G3 CC modified V. I don't know a lot about freshwater fishing but I want to catch fish I can eat. I would ideally like to target hybrids, but I cannot afford a trolling motor right now. I am going to attempt to target them but not sure what I can do if they aren't on the surface. Crappie and catfish interest me as well and I am going to target them.

My question to yall is what lake do you suggest I start exploring? I live in lower greenville in dallas, ray hubbard is the closest and my first thought. I understand it gets very windy and can be crowded, but I think that is probably an issue I am going to find with all the closer DFW lakes like Lewisville and such. I am pretty confident with my boat, it can handle solid chop in the open bay down south. I will not be fishing if winds are above 15 mph anyways.

Any advice y'all can share would be great, my buddies up here are all private water duck hunters and don't know much about the lakes. Thanks yall.

Hubbard is my favorite lake in the metroplex, I'm jealous you're so close! That's definitely where I'd stick to for the most part, especially with you targeting Hybrids. There are some nice catfish in there as well! Side note: wind is good!

If you ever find yourself wanting that saltwater kind of fight you should definitely target Carp. Their fight is similar to Redfish!

I have heard they eat flys too, I will have to check it out thank you for the advice.

You might consider getting a guide to learn about fishing in freshwater before you go out on your own. I would recommend getting a guide on Tawakoni, with a guide like Joe Read, if you want to learn about catching hybrids. You can figure it all out on your own, but you can save a lot of time by getting a guide.

Don't let that trolling motor scar you away from going after hybrids. Lot's of times they want that bait on the move anyways.
Drift socks can help slow you down when needed. And there's always the old fashion anchor when needed.

Hell-pet rig in low light conditions = hybrid stripers.

Tie up to the columns under the bridges on Hubbard and you can catch crappie pretty easily right now.

Thank yall very much. Luckily I do have a drift sock so I figure I will try drifting some of the popular hybrid spots I found online, I guess I will throw lures or something. I drifted a lot in Corpus... never deeper than 5-6ft so this will be interesting. I will probably hire a guide at some point if I am not catching by winter but I am looking forward to the challenge of finding these fish.

I have a good Minnkota 24 volt 52” shaft trolling motor Maaxum I will sell you for $250. My son lives in Arlington and I could send it with him if you are interested

Do you have a fish finder at your helm? If so, troll around the lake at low speeds looking for signs of bait under your boat. Stop and jig with slabs and spoons.

I have a depth finder with some sort of sonar but it is not a great one, pretty much only use it to check water deeper than my rod

I was planning on saving up for a motor with spot lock capability, thank you for the offer though.

Any fish finder is better than none. Daylights burning; get out there, find the fish, catch the fish.

hell ya

Took the boat for an inaugural spin today, nearly didn’t even bring a rod and managed a few whites drifting around a point I found on Carey Thorns website with slabs around noon today. They pulled drag out of my concept tx set to for specks, was a great time. Good luck to y’all this weekend!