What happened to Lake Amistad

I don’t hear about any good fishing there anymore. What happened?

The tall Hydrilla is strong. Big fish in the grass are hard to come by; as they are not relating to it yet. Don't know it that is because the Crayfish are not there or what. I was there in August and Heavy Drop Shotted many miles of the best Hydrilla there. You can get lots of blow usp on a Frog over the grass; but most are missed and the ones you catch are small. Only averaged 10 Bass per day with the larges coming on my Spook beside a grass run.

It is like a New Lake with all the excellent Hydrilla. You have to fish many, many days on a regular basis to find the best areas. If you are thinking about hiring a Guide, don't bother. If you are set on going just do what you do best and move often.

Maybe TPWD needs to restock it.

Restock it with 900 billion blue gill every year.

After the loss of hydrilla and the low water the forage base took a big hit. Most lakes will struggle if the forage is lacking combined with spawning cover. It didn't help when the elites came and the fillet knives shortly after.

Bassmaster, snow birds with sharp fillet knives, dropping the lake 60 feet, yeah take your pick!

Our club was down there last weekend. Some had limits and some didn't, our BB was 5.80. They were good on top in the morning and were on the crawfish bite during the day. It was hot, water temp was 87 to 93 and lake was down about 33 +/- feet. It was better than a kick in the nads.

I don’t understand why so many think there are no more crayfish on Amistad. The 5-6 lber we have fileted over the last couple of years have been plumb full of them.



Those Cajuns from Louisiana sure will travel far to have a fish fry. They are most certainly the ones to blame.







No not really. Didn’t filet any fish over 2 lbs, but they were full of crayfish and so was my livewell after weigh ins.

After seeing the amount of carp on the shorelines in march and April I have to think they are eating eggs. There were tens of thousands of them in some areas.

The results have been posted from this weekends State Championship under tournaments, "ole Blue" is still fishing tough

Debra

5 fish per team?

Good question,
Right now there's a lot more good habitat than there are fish to populate it.
The mystery to me,--- two and three years ago after the hydrilla got re-established from the big draw down.. There was a LOT of small fish. With two distinct year classes, one 10-13" the other about 15-16" They were everywhere.. people were saying "come to Amistad" if you want to catch numbers of little fish. You would think that those fish should now be plentiful with two groups of bigger fish.. That is definitely not the case.
IMO this past winter and early spring confirmed what some of us believed was the end of the larger fish that survived the draw down which killed the hydrilla. I also believe that the majority of crawfish and a lot of small bait fished perished in the hydrilla as it was being left high and dry.

I don't claim to know what is wrong, but there is definitely a problem and since it's a federal lake it may never be addressed.
It's sad to see the lack of upkeep and maintenance as far as the lake is concerned but they sure have a nice new office building that cost US taxpayers a small fortune.. While the buoys continue to go unpainted, un light, broke loose and on the bank, or that special one at Box they finally secured a road cone to before someone got killed.. Not to mention the tire reef at east Diablo when the tires break of and float off across the lake waiting to ruin someone's day or life. Lets not mention that huge courtesy dock thats ruined at Box.

Honestly Amistad went back to being Amistad. The years where it was really good wasn't the norm. Historically Amistad has been just like it is now. It just happened to hit an upcycle in the Mid-2000's and now things have kind of evened out a little bit.

^^^^^ This

Debra

Final weights could typically be (5) fish per boat total 30 fish for (2) days. Winning club had 50.13 lbs

Debra

If your going to Amistad now days its for the scenery not the fishing... most of our local lakes out produce Amistad darn near every day of the week. Weird how Falcon seems to continue to produce much better quality and Amistad became a dink factory. Those weights Derbra posted are a joke.

Debra was this up to 4 teams per Club (8 members)? 50 lbs won this? For two days? We'll see what the S.I.T. does. Locals are struggling some right now including guides. If locals fish 2-3 times a week and struggle I can definitely see out of towners not fishing but once a month struggling.

Correct ^^^
Each club is allowed to drop the lightest weight each day. If the first place team had 5 fish per boat (4) boats with (1) drop potentially 30 fish for the 50.13 win overall.

I did not participate just passing on the info

Debra

Wow O’ Wow, I was told it was slow; but that is real sloowwww.

Needs to come up 30ft and hold for a year....

Bassmaster 2007 happened. Now that MLF and BASS have smaller fields and are going to smaller lakes pray they don't come to your honey hole Tenkiller is about to get outed probably.

Lol nobody going to tenkiller with fillet knives for 2lbers

Meat fisherman isn't the problem, or Bass because we caught a lot of big stringers until around 2014. Locals think that when Mexico had to dump a ton of water that put Amistad 7' over full for 2 weeks that there was something that was bad in the water that killed a lot of fish, said the water had a oil type off color film on it. There are a lot of mines in the mountains around the lakes in northern Mexico that release water into the Rio Grande. that along with the lack of bait fish. Quit stocking Stripers would help.

The Mexico dam break was always my theory. Hasn’t been the same since.

I don't get the blame Bass , how many years was that, there are other big tournaments that go there also.

Lack of baitfish in one thing, there will be lots of very poor looking fish caught. All head and the body will look like they been under the knife and the skin laid back on them.

That started it. Amistad had a tremendous genetic base back then. Same thing happened to falcon. Luckily for falcon, it's a different fishery with a better consistent forage base and more cover even when low. Turbid water definitely helps too. Once you start removing huge amounts of larger classes of fish, it takes years to get those fish back. Its my opinion obviously, same thing happening to Toledo.

After Bass went there like 3 years in a row and 8 lbers were caught left and right, and Televised nationally, people from other states, as in, many states away began flocking to Amistad for their vacations. Many of them, realizing they might not be back, put fillet knives to a lot of big females, especially during the spring. Good for the Del Rio economy, not good for Amistad. I was raised in Del Rio and fished tournaments there since I was 10 years old. Fishing sucked back in the 80s and 90s, not sure why mid 2000’s were so good, but when a lake begins to put out off the chart fishing, inevitably, people find out and it’s never a good thing.

Honestly, I don’t know how any lake could thrive when they dump the water every year during or right after the spawn. Mexico isn’t doing us any favors with their piss poor water management.

There is little man can do to make changes to this fishery or to Falcon for that matter.. Or let me rephrase..

There is little man WILL do to improve these fisheries.

The biggest of the battles now, and in the near future is water.. And who controls it.

The International Water and Boundary Commission (IWBC), TCEQ, and a host of other acronyms believe that they are doing a good job of managing the water supply along the Rio Grande..

Why do they think that? Because there is still water coming out of faucets in all the cities along the border and water still runs down the ditches in the fields..


And you can ask any of their "Managers" and they will tell you that fishing is purely a by product of the two lakes creation..
I have had folks tell me that they don't care if another fish is ever caught out of Falcon.


And when you boil it all down, I guess the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the not quite as many..


Do I think the IWBC is doing a good job with water and management of the Rio Grande? [censored] no..

I think it is one of the biggest government boondoggles in America.. Go take a look at their budget, see how many employees they have, see what they do, and look at the results of what they do. We are not getting a good ROI.. Of course most anything the federal government manages it [censored] up.. And wastes more than it creates..


We as fishermen, and lovers of both fisheries, are purely and simply at the mercy of mother nature.. PAW can stock all kinds of fish.. And it does.. And being that we are primarily bass fishermen discussing this issue, it is good to know that PAW routinely stocks both lakes every year with almost a half million fingerling bass.

But stocking them does not a great fishery make. A lot of things have to happen to make a fishery decent, much less great..

And man is out of control for the most part..


Amistad is fairly antiseptic for the most part, with its rock perimeter in a very high percentage of its shorelines. Less condusive to the growth of brush and trees.. But the Hydrilla is a savior and the one thing that keeps the lake as good as it is.


Falcon on the other hand is probably a third rock bank, and the rest a mix of sand soil that the bushes and trees and you name it love.. If there is any moisture to grow it.. But I can tell you that right now the top fifteen feet of what would be pool level is so thick with huisache and retama and mesquite that you cannot run a hog thru it..


Both of these lakes will get better.. And they will get worse.. They will improve when a disaster happens and fills both of them.. And Falcon will never be full till Amistad is.. Unless IWBC decides to keep Amistad lower.. Which is being discussed by the way, instead of spending a half a billion dollars trying to plug up Amistad's leaks..

It truly takes a disaster to fill these lakes. And with todays management for flood control and water supply being the yin and the yang it is a difficult task to serve both masters..


When the flood of 2010 hit, both lakes had a lot of room for water.. But they hold a miniscule amount compared to what rain can fall in a very short period of time.


We are just waiting for that time.. Both lakes will fill again.. There will be a resurgence in the fishing.. And truthfully all we can do is have some Florida fish in the lakes, and wait for Mother Nature to do her thing.. The rest will take care of itself.


BTW.. If yall think that water in Amistad is bad water from Mexico.. Send it to me.. We'll make bass out of it..