Coleto Creek

anyone fished Coleto Creek lately? i know water level is up at 100% any reports

Redfishlaw usually posts reports.
If not, go check out his website at www.fishcatchingtravel.com

I went Saturday. Was mainly there to hang out with my daughter and granddaughter but I did get out for a few hours of fishing in the afternoon in my Hobie. It was tough (typical since they killed all the grass back in 2014). Water temps are between 93-96. Anything below 20 ft is a deoxygenated dead zone. You can see it on sonar. Guy at the park office said TPW figured out they screwed up when they killed all the grass. They know there's a major oxygen issue. He said TPW is going to reintroduce some naive vegetation. That will help but it'll take years.

That said there is still lots of bait but the fish are gobbling it up. The 3 bass I caught were all fat. Also managed a big crappie. All were caught on a chartreuse/black lipless in about 12-14 ft.

TPWD Guy #1 - "We really need to control the vegetation on Coleto Creek Reservoir."
TPWD Guy #2 - "Gee, I don't know. It seems like every time we try to "control" vegetation, we eradicate everything and the lake suffers."
TPWD Guy #1 - "But we've learned so much!"
TPWD Guy #2 - "Well, we destroyed Lane Conroe and Lake Austin. They still haven't recovered."
TPWD Guy #1 - "Those weren't our fault! There were, uh, hmm, conditions beyond our control on those 2 lakes. Yea, that's the ticket."
TPWD Guy #2 - "Well, I guess we could try........
TPWD Guy #1 - "All right! What's the amount of coverage rate for this stuff again? I keep forgetting."

Maybe on more truck load of grass carp won't hurt......

Nailed IT

TPWD Guy #2 - "Studies show that we should use 5 - 9 carp per acre to control the vegetation in Coleto Creek."
TPWD Guy #1 - "Alright, I'll make the phone calls to set up delivery of the carp!"
TPWD Guy #1 - "Hello fishery. This is the TPWD. I would like to make arrangements to put triploid grass carp in Coleto Creek reservoir."
Fisheries Guy - "Excellent, how many carp are you going to need?"
TPWD Guy #1 - "Yes sir, very important question. I have the formula, uh, right here. Now, where is that piece of paper? Oh yea, now I remember; we'll need 500 to 900 carp per acre. By my calculations, we should need anywhere between 1,550,000 to 2,796,000! Let's just go ahead and round it up to 3,000,000!"

One only has to look at what they did to Calaveras lake!
It was one of the top bass, crappie lakes in the state back in the seventies and early eighties, until they started dumping everything that swims into the lake as an experiment. No grass as well, so it's just a punch bowl.
It's now a great lake if you like to catch big transplanted redfish, but if they ever stop the stocking the lake is a honest to goodness dead sea!
Most of the bass are gone, the crappie are non existent, and have been for years, and the catfish had to be stocked for the first time in years.
Once they kill the grass that is it! Years ago they tried the re-vegetation fiasco, and it didn't work so good luck with that!

I have seen a great bass fishing club try to replant vegetation on Conroe. I applaud all of their efforts but it's about as futile as trying to remove sand from a beach with a spoon. You just can't duplicate what Mother Nature can do.

The problem with Conroe was those same old biologist that went around killing grass and stocking the grass carp are long gone, and now you have the younguns who come out of college and are just carrying on the same failed mindset and practices of those long gone biologist, and too scared or naive to admit it hasn't worked.

It’s the homeowner that don’t like the grass. They don’t like the idea of having 1-2 million dollar homes and can’t get the ski boat out of the boat hanger.