Lake Lavon Crappie Fishing Guide : Updated Reports & Pictures Weekly

Hit the lake with Mike at 7 am yesterday. Decided to go where I have never been before and see what was out there.

Same story. 18 ft is the magic number. It really does not matter where we go as long as long as u find structure in that depth. If you power fish- spending no more than 2-3 mins, fishing everything you see or know, you should limit. We hit standing timber 14 ft-22 ft, Brush piles, and rock piles in 15-26 ft. Most of the fish were 1-5 ft off the bottom. Black/chart on 1/16 th oz was the choice, as always. I would post some cool side scan pics, but my boat is not here to pull the pics up. Next report, I'll post some up.

To get a better understanding of Side Imaging, you can read a blog I wrote with some pics to explain at the images.

http://fishgame.com/ctblog.php?p=3

I scan everything before I drop the trolling motor, to make sure there are fish there. Even if  I have have a honey hole, I scan it first. I scanned a spot yesterday I fish a lot, and I had to stop the screen. It had more crappie on it than I have ever seen before. Over 50 were boated in this one spot with 31 keepers. In less than an hour.  The structure was one single tree in 18 ft of water. So what I'm saying is, scan it before you fish and decide if the amout of fish at the targeted structure, is actually worth your time. I don't stop unless I see more than 15. If you don't get bit within 3 minutes,  go to a new spot. Sometimes minnows out fish jigs, sometimes jigs out fish minnows (90% of the time jigs rule the water).

Nice report and photos...

Nice report Carey. Yesterday was good on the weather . Glad you got into the fish

Nice report & Info. Carey!!

Those are some nice slabs

Keep doing your thing T-fly !

Very very nice!!

Good job Carey!

Stupid East Wind.... Fish bite the least when it's blowing out of the East. WHATEVER!






Above is what y'all need for the tourney this weekend on Lavon. 14-15 inchers. (7) 14 inchers and you will be in the top 10 I would think.

Started the day out meeting the one and only "Dutch", as we all call him, at the lake. He wanted to learn how to use his side scan and actually catch fish on Lady Lavon. Didn't take him very long to figure it out. I had him follow me around the lake and mark stuff and had him go venture out and find the fish on his own. He did very well..... Dutch and His son were landing tons of fish at every stop. Caught well over 100 fish today. Dutch and his son were using jigs and I would back them up and send down a minnow. Sometimes they would hook more than I would. But in other spots, minnows dominated. Fishing was at it's peak at 830 am. Slow in the early morning, due to they are still out hunting. As the sun comes up, they find the closest structure to sit on for the day.

Again though, 14-20 ft of water. Today the pattern was 2 cranks off the bottom pretty much everywhere. Black and chart Thump Buddies were the ticket. I did however, see Dutch catch multiple fish on diff colors and combos. Every time I looked over at him, he had a new color on. Lol...

After we got done and the heat got to them, I went out before this storm hit and got my limit before the rain got there by 15-20 mins.

Great report Carey, and congrats to Dutch and his son

There ya Go Dutch!!!

Good job Dutch and Son!

Thanks again Carey for a Great Day on the water. We both learned a lot. Color doesn't matter, except when it does.

Funny.

Forgot on the water and after pics. But here is Marcus with a huge bag of crappie.



He loves fish.



Had a good day this morning. East wind was annoying again, but some monsters were getting yanked out....... No pattern change.


14 yr olds can do it.






Dads can do it too!

To windy for me today. 4 - new to crappie fishing people, wind, snags and hungry crappie dont match up. We caught a bunch and lost a bunch. Wind got really bad by 9 am. Caught some good fish. Same pattern

Decided I needed a bigger boat. I have been quiet for the last five days due to no boat and was waiting for the shop to put her together. She's 19 ft long and 7 ft wide. Just plugged her in, to charge, for her maiden voyage in the morning! Fits 8 people now.

Sweet!!

Keep growing, T-fly !

I think I'm done. This one I will keep and name.

Nice lookin rig!

lookin' good!

Outstanding!

Nice rig Carey and good looking fish. We gotta hook up again soon. Its been a while

congrats carey

I love fish too, apparently not as much as Marcus. Nice boat

That boat is to dang purdy. Needs Crappie slime all over it real bad.

Well, today was a tough one. Pretty much people on every hole I wanted to fish. I think it's time for some new brush piles to appear in the lake. I have never seen this many crappie fishing people on the lake before. Crazy.

So, I went way way north. STILL a ton of people everywhere. Crazy.

With all the people anchored in the brush piles, we had to go look at old honey holes and found 2-4 per spot. Talked to Randy and they had the same experience today. Weekdays are way better obviously.

Went to some newly sunk structure. Apparently, it grew legs and walked off. Side scanned the area, and it had walked 32 yards from it's previous position a day ago. -I love it when people anchor RIGHT in the middle of the brush and then drag it away.... Just love it......

Still boxed 18-20 but we had to work hard for them. Lost 4 big girls at the boat. Only one 14 incher and the rest were 11-12 inchers. Same pattern.



Got a 13 inch black crappie today

Nice catch! Will you be having another tournament on lavon this summer?

Thanks Carey for a great trip( minus the getting out of the boat part). It was tough today, minnows were best, but I kept being stubborn and trying a Jig at most spots and managed to boat a few on one of my hand tied jigs and a few more on Thump Buddies. All in all a great trip and can't wait to do it again.

Nice new boat!

Great report.... Really like the new boat. Should be a fishing mochine!

So, I got bored and decided to put a old hose to use and a old umbrella.





12 ft tall bamboo columns.

Cool!!

Now that's a crappie condo! Nice new boat you got too!

What a condo. that should really attract them!!!

Very nice report TFly!
Helpful, details, ton of pix...
Oh, and once again, very helpful to novices & advances alike!!
Thanks again TFly!!!!!!

It was just like fishing Fork on a Saturday in June Carey. I ended up with 22 keepers for the day and that would have been great except I had two people with me. The wind and boat wakes keeps it fun as well trying to stay on the structure. I wish I could have gotten on more fish but everywhere we moved it would only produce 1-3 fish. Tough days are always good learning days though.

2 person Hot Trip Special! Tomorrow AM Trip Now open. I need to fill it. $175/ 2 people. 6 am till 10 am. PM me or call me or text me.

if i didnt have a doctors appointment to get my mri results i would be all over that for sure!

I have the pm slot open now too. 3-7 pm. Same deal. Thought I had to go to the airport. Crappie all day now!

Carey that's a nice condo. Never seen one like that before. Should hold plenty of fish.

Ur gonna really like that G3 with the Yamaha.....Looks great!

I have had the 16 ft G3/ 18ft G3 and now im trying the 19ft G3 out...... Im almost all the way through thier whole fleet.

I pinched a nerve in my back last night, so I am going to see if I can get out and fish or not. So, I am going to attempt this shortly.

Sorry for the delayed reports. Super busy and to tired to type. So, here it goes:



-Grass Hoppers are everywhere on the lake. Happens every year this time. Ya'll should start to see the Freshwater Sponges popping up soon. They look like a jellyfish with eggs. And no, they are not gar eggs floating in the lake. The whole jelly thing is a whole colony of animals. Means the lake is healthy!


Friday Morning (Hubbard):

My guys for the day were here on a family reunion, so, we were limited on time. So, instead of a crappie trip, I told them about White Bass and Hybrid Striper fishing. 6:05 am, graphed fish in 23 ft of water and watched them move up to the point at Robertson Point. So when they came up to chase shad, 6:15am, we were right in the middle of them, I never had to turn the main engine or the trolling motor. After about an 1/2 hour, people started to figure out we were on fish and came to join the fun. The fish started to move off the flat and all of us followed them. Everyone was catching. I had the guys fishing a 4 chart swimbait with a chart fly 18 -inches above the swim bait, burning it on the surface. The guys landed 97 keepers ( white bass) and 12 hybrids ( 4 keepers) They had it down to the count, due to they had a very high wager going. All fish CPR'ed due to they were in a hotel. Off the water at 9:30 ish.






Friday Afternoon (Lavon):

Started the trip at 2:30pm at Lavon, for crappie. These two, have never been fishing before. So, it was a learning trip and catching trip.



Started them out in 16-18 ft of water in submerged timber chasing crappie. Caught some monsters too.



All fish were 2-5 ft off the bottom everywhere we went. And there were fish everwhere we went. I had to tell them most of the time they had one on and set the hook. Near the end of the trip, they were doing it all on their own! Dad was in the background, it was all about the kiddo this trip, and he hooked into a nice Flat Head Catfish that took him for a ride.



Dad asked me about the Black Bass fishing on the lake in the early morning and I told him we would give them a shot for an hour later in the day. So later, we went to Black Bass town and I got him one on the line.


3 lbs


He loved the fight, so we took off to a spot I always catch a big one at. She was in the exact spot I catch her in every year. Dad jumped her 2 times and was all smiles the whole time. He did perfect!



8 lbs for his 2nd ever Black Bass. Could have stuck the kiddo's head in its mouth!


I kept seeing fish, on a submerged road bed where the rocks were on the sides of it. I had them drop down on them and found some more monster crappie right where the Black Bass was.






Ended the trip about 6-7 pm. No hero pics due to it was way to hot to put the fish on the tailgate. Lost a lot of hooks, but your not crappie fishing unless you get snagged all the time. I pour my own Slabs for sandies and powder paint them myself, as well as my own Jig Heads. So then when I loose stuff, I dont have to think about lossing 3 dollars every time I snag.

Saturday AM trip: Crappie:

East wind and rising air pressure made it a difficult trip, we really had to work for them. The pattern was 2-4 fish per spot, then you had to move to the next spot. Minnows out produced jigs 10:1. We only had 10 minnows. lol, so 95% of the fish were on jigs again.



This little guy, we will see on the water a lot. He is already a jigging pro. Good job teaching Dad. All I had to do on this trip was to put the boat on top of fish and they did the rest.



No clue how many we caught, but we did not limit on this trip. 30-40 keepers? I have no clue how many we boated though? All my days are getting merged together...... Taking Dad out again mid week to learn Side Imaging and how to find the structure and fish. See you then!

Sunday AM trip (Lavon) Crappie:

Met the guys at the lake at 6 am sharp, and we were fishing at 6:15. Hit a community hole first and pulled out 16 within a half an hour. All fish were 11-12 inches here and my guys mentioned somthing about my website, big fish, ect. They were poking at me about the average sized fish. I toild them the next spot holds some monsters and quit complaining about catching keepers. So off we went to the big fish hole. And he landed a big fish. 15 inch White Crappie! Blind in one eye.



Then a 14.5 incher



Later we went to some deep timber and started to look for some more white gold. Dropped down on some brush in 20 ft of water and my clients rod started to bend in half.




Nice Flathead!

After we got that fish in the boat, we tried again to catch some crappie in the pile. They were there!







Everywhere we went, again, was full of fish. 15-16 ft was magic today.







Tip of the day:

Dont bounce your jig all over the place like you are slabbing for sandbass. HOLD IT STILL. If you get bored and insist on jigging the jig, drop your rod tip, 1 inch, and immediatly put it back to the starting point every 10-15 seconds. That way the jig will sit in the strike zone longer.

Tuesday and Friday AM slots are now open for some fish catching action. Contact me for the trips. Sandbass on Hubbard, or Crappie on Lavon. Or, we can hit Hubbard for some Crappie. Ya'lls choice!

Damn! I always enjoy your posts and pictures. Great job!

Nice report Carey!

Today was temp hot! Not fish hot. Boated 23 I think. Lots of big girls today. I had another little person in the boat. She can bait her own hook and crappie fish like a pro. Good Job Little One!



She caught pretty much all the fish today.

Dad and Gramps did fair. But, its all about the kiddos when they board my boat.









Saw something neat today since the whole lake was glass. The channel catfish were everywhere today on the surface. They were eating all the grass hoppers. Every 40-50 yrads was a channel cat crusing the surface looking for hoppers. Wish I had my fly rod. I used a jig and bobber and landed 12 in 30 mins to 19 inches. All released. I would just putter around till I would see a V in the water from the fish cruising the surface and just cast ahead of them. They would hear the jig hit the water and attack the bobber 1st then the jig most of the time. Fun stuff. And I am serious, they were every 40-50 yards. All over the lake.

Man it's freaking hot outside.

Started the morning off at Hubbard looking for topwater action (didn't feel like slabbing today) on sandies and hybrids. Found two schools but nothing that was keeping my intrest. They guys were having fun, but 8-11 inch fish are not my game. I told them we can hunt some more but the action would be over within 30 mins or so and I suggested we hit Lavon for some crappie instead.

Got to the lake and I gaurenteed them a fish at the first stop within 1 minute. And I delivered....











Caught 40-50 crappie, blacks and whites. After the heat started to get to them we retreated to the on lake restaurant and got a couple beers and cooled off. My temp said 103 at 11am. I noticed my fly roin was still in the truck and my client today said he flyfishes, so we stopped on the way in to see if I could get my client to hit a carp with the fly rod, we saw a couple good ones, but they spooked. Hit the marina and got some good blue gills all over the marina. 8-9 inches was the average. Nothing under 8. All released. All on the fly rod.



Not tailgate shots today.... Way to freaking hot. I picked up a rod and dropped it it was so hot. Anything metel was dangerous to touch. I read 91 degree surface temps. Lowest I saw was 89. Sandies should start their annual boil every morning very soon. So we can go limit on sandies, then an hour later go limit on some crappie!

Great job as always, T-fly !

Round one:

Fishin picked up at 830 and on fire till 1030 and slowed. Landed about 50-60 fish. To hot to do a hero picture otherwise the fish would bake on the tailgate. 6-7 fish were over 14 inches.







Round two at 4 pm.


.......:..... To be continued.

Great report. Hope it cools off a little.

Round two:









Used minnows and Black and Chart Thump Buddys.

Landed over 60-70 fish. Lots of right at ten inchers. If they were not 10 inches, they were 13+ inchers. Had to teach the guys how to crappie fish. They caught on quick. Except Dr. kept jigging his live minnow. Almost slabbing it. - he did catch a magnum sandie though......

Hit three bush piles. Windy. Not as hot out. Steady bite all day. Not epic, but fun as always.

When they would say there are no more fish on the pile, I'd grab my rod and drop down and show them they are still there. Lol, got to keep the jig in the strike zone. If you jig it up and down, the crappie are going to think you are retarded. Hold the jig or minnow still!

I'll have to say, today was one of the better fishing days except for the wind. The first four fish that Bobby landed were all over 13 inches. Huge and fat!





But, the area we were in was a bit slow and not much shad in the area to hold fish. So, on to the next spot, two boats already there. Went to the next spot, one boat already there. Went to the next spot and did ok with a dozen keepers or so. Everything was on standing submerged timber. Brush piles were void of fish, at least the ones I checked. Hit deep submerged timber, but there was a current from the wind and didn't do to well there. Scanned it with my Humminbird 898 and saw a couple fish here and there. But they had moved out of the area. Bobby has a 898 as well, so it was an electronics trip as well. Showed him the light and I have set him free to do it all on his own. I decided to hit one more spot to finish his limit, and on the way, I stopped at a single tree, and holy molly, it had over 200 crappie on it.



My side imaging lit up with the white dots all over the tree. He finished his limit in no time. Fish moved up to 12-14 ft depths today. Any deeper and you got nothing. Gizzard shad invaded the rail road track area. They were there in the bajillions! I could not even throw a bouie on structure, cause I couldn't see the bottom they were so thick.



Got two Black Nosed Crappie today too......


Lots of big fish today. Landed about 10-15 that were 13 plus inches. Only kept 11 inchers and up except for two or three 10.5's that gut hooked. They were inhaling the Thump Buddy's in black and chart on 1/16 th oz jig non painted ( I have no clue where my pink powder paint is at..... Didn't matter though, they were actually swallowing the jigs!



The crappie were slamming the jigs today. Some of them hit harder than I have felt in a long time. Everyday I'm like a kid at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. I love seeing my clients face as a huge crappie flops on the deck. It was not an epic 100 fish day, but it was big fish day! Lots of Big Fish with a limit of crappie to fill the freezer.




I'm will be on vacation starting tomorrow till Wednesday. Going to blow some cashn in Vegas..... Have fun y'all!

That's a nice mess of fish!!! Congrats.

Well, my flight to Vegas got moved to tonight so I hit the lake. Got there at 630 and scanned some trees but they were not loaded up yet. It's been year since I targeted the Black Bass, so we hit the banks with crank baits. Landed 6-7 Blacks all on cranks.





After I had my fun with them, it was time to hit the crappie.



Fun day. I didn't have to run and gun all over the place for once. Casual fun chatted with a bunch of y'all, gave Oscar a 14 incher, cause all he was getting was 10 inchers, lol.........


- all fish released -

Well here I am in ST. Louis at the hotel getting to see all the fun you are having...I'm jealous as usual.

Tomorrow I will be on the Beach in Pensacola Florida by 11am...hope I made you jealous...LOL. :-)

As always I enjoy your posts and pictures. Keep up the good work!

Illl be in Vegas in 6 hours. Lol. I will be having fun before u even get to Florida. But, I would rather fish in FL than go to Vegas....

OH My My My I have been away from the Forum for to long. Congratulations to everyone on their nice catches. Jealous I am. Boat looks nice Carey but how does it feel is what I want to know. Dennis and I should be ready upon your return (if you return). Maybe a evening/night trip on Hubbard or Lavon would be nice. Less the heat.

Boat is way smoother and bigger. More room!

Report: Monday 1 hour of fishin

Rain kicked us off the lake this morning so we pushed the trip to another time. I waited out the first storm and headed out. Hit the black bass till 10 am and caught 6. Nothing over 4 lbs. 3-5 lbs average.

So, I hit two spots for crappie. First spot picked up 8. Next spot finished my limit plus some. Then the next storm started moving in on me. Left them biting.

Very weird day. Got them in 14ft and over 20 in "7" ft. One in "6.5" ft. Jig didnt work very well. Minnows ruled the day. Not an epic trip. Had to work for them. Wind was blowing in every direction. Not a lot of options to fish today. But it was fun.

No pics today. But fish were in 14-7 ft again. 10-12 ft was magic. Everywhere we went we nailed them. Biggest was 14 inches for the day.

I fixed the video, so it might take a bit for it to flip over the right way......



He got a nice flathead while crappie fishing today. Fun stuff. All the crappie we got today were in 6-14 ft today. The black crappie are shallow mainly is what I have been finding. Caught over 100 fish today. Sorry, no hero pics. Im off to Broken Bow to guide some trout so I was in a rush to get stuff done..... Minnows and Thump Buddys



Sandies invaded our spots today and could have had a 4 man limit in no time..... But it was a crappie trip today and the guys didnt want anything to do with sandies....

Nice job !

Nice work putting your clients on the fish. Nice bonus Op, too! kept waiting for the landing net lol...nice grab!

had a great time while fishing w/carey today! only wish i got the phone to record sooner,oh well,blessed day,doing what i love to do and blessed to see another birthday....as its been forestaed,if you catch fish,thats a bonus,whats more important is the company....

Glad you had a good time and enjoyed yourself. Carey is a awesome fisherman with a ton of knowledge. Bet you learned alot. Congratulation on your catch.

nice reports Carey! Congrats to all.....

kb,we did learn a lot and that was my co-worker that caught the flathead and biggest crappie of the day,,,,

He also caught the largest crappie, blue gill, white bass, and biggest largemouth- even though it was only 6 inches.

Finally had the day off today to do some things. Sorry about the delayed posts. I get home from 10 hours on the water everyday and I pass out on the couch within minutes.... That heat is crazy some days.


13 inch Black Nosed Crappie

Fish have been shallow the last week. My depth has been 6-14 ft down on rocks, brush , and timber. About 9 am is best fishing time as the sun get up a bit.



Carolina rig a minnow on a size 6 hook with a 4 inch leader. Hold the minnow in the depth the crappie are at and it won't last long till you get a thump.....

One of my trips was a " Catch whatever is biting best at the moment"

So, we started with largemouth bass first and set up on a point I know always holds easy fish. Within 45 mins, they landed 7 Black Bass.









After the large mouth bass expedition, we went to a secret crappie spot.





The guys actually got bored of catching catching crappie so they asked to go get sandies. So we went slabbing for sand bass. Caught about 100 of sandies and a bunch of doubles, and caught a couple crappie on slabs and the flies I tie on above my slab.



My tailgate pretty much looks like this everyday, sometimes twice a day.

Or the cooler looks like that.....

When they are hitting jigs, black and chart is working good. I started using purple and chartreuse Thump Buddies and they love to thump them....

So today was my day off, and everyone asked what the heck I was at the lake today..... ......

Because all I do is guide and fish...... So I was there to get my own limit of crappie, but first I wanted to find some black bass too....



Caught 5 chunks and moved on to crappie.



1 hour limit after I hit the black bass......

That is some reel nice work on all those species. I made a mistake by sharing our new crappie taco recipe with my wife's good friends and they put in a request at least twice a week. That's ok because I love em too. See ya soon.

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.

Thanks, crappie is tomorrow. Today was sandies. Hit a brush pile in 11 ft and pulled out 12. Only pile out of the wind. It was blowing out of the south then the west then the south.......it had the crappie confused a bit. Sandies steady/slow. Actually had to work for them today.

Lost about 20 slabs to the rocks today. But I made 100 more twenty mins ago!

At the start of the trip, I asked my guys if they knew how to throw a bait caster. They both said yes. Both rods came back to me like this: " Carey, I have a tangle."



...... You think?

So the spinning rods got busted out. Same patterns on crappie and sandies.

It amazes me that I see some of y'all on the water fishing the same road beds, but you don't have the gear I told y'all they are biting on. I have used every lure there is to throw for the sandies on Lavon. 1/4 oz Chartreuse Thorn's work best, but a bomber 1/4 oz will do the exact same thing, seeing as to how they are the same mold the Thorn's are.

Again, 1/4 oz!

Anyways, got to the first spot, and Momma, land a triple! 3 keeper sandies in one cast. She did it a couple times at that. The guys said it was her trip, so she was by my side the whole day. Everyone had fun catching fish as the schools of sandies would swim by. They were roaming today, so when one person hooked up, everyone else did too. We hopped roadbeds and drop offs trying to find active fish, but again, they were roaming and wouldn't sit still.





On the way in, I had one secret brush pile that is hidden from the wind, and you. Told Momma this is the day she will catch a crappie. She pulled out 12 off of one pile. She said she is an expert now..... She got two monsters at that!





In my head, this was a very slow day but steady. Air pressure was dropping on us the whole time. When it would steady out, the fish started to bite again. Winds were all over the place too. Still good action though! Im just used to an "every cast" bite.....

But aren't all rods bait casters? Didn't realize there was a difference until now...

Too funny. Great photos and tips. TFS as always, Carey.

Crappie didn't pick up till about 10 am. Then it was on fire.



After I was done with my client, I went out.

45 min limit of crappie, one channel cat, two sandies.



And a 15 inch kicker that had a small 6 inch yellow bass hanging out its mouth. Off the water at 145 pm

Sweet! Minnows or jigs?

Here is a video to show you what I am doing.



( Click on Picture Above to Start Video )




(25 Fish Limit of White Bass)

So, yup. 40 minute limit today. Only reason it took so long to limit today, was I did the video, so it took 10 mins off my focus time!

After I hit the limit, I picked up Paul from the boat slips and we hit the crappie. We got a 2 man limit ( 50 ) of crappie, on 3 different brush piles in 9-12 ft of water. All on minnows, within a 2 hour period.



( 25 Fish Limit of Crappie )


Easy easy day...... So are all the other days

Been a while since I got into the Crappie like we did today and even longer since I left them biting. Thanks, Carey.

Started at 8 am today. Sandbass were on the roadbeds but had lock jaw. Tried multiple times, but would only eat live minnows or shad today. Still loanded close to 50 sandies....

Since they were slow, we hit the crappie. Steady bite today and not a crazy bite every time you drop. We actually had to wait 15 seconds before we got nailed most of the time. So, it was steady today and I have no idea whow many fish were boated. 100's is all I can say.









I found some Black Bass as well.





Saw another dead striper today. this one was 24-25 inches. That makes 5 total dead ones in the last week or so..... All healthy and fat. Lake might have turned but I dont see any other signs that it did.

Good job of catching TarponFly

Had to share this pic of a Rainbow Trout I caught yesterday:



Full report in the fly fishing section.

Windy as heck today. Forecast was 12-14 so I said the heck with it, let's go! Lol, it was more like 20-25 mph. We were stuck on the south bank all morning long. Tried to go diff places but the waves were stupid big. So, we fish 8 diff brush piles in 4-15 ft. One deepwater condo in 18 ft also produced. 41 crappie with two throwbacks, lots of sandies, a blue catfish, and some yellow bass and 3 largemouth were landed. Sandies were thick on the roadbeds in the morning. We didn't stop to target them, but one of my piles is within casting distance of one, and I was landing one every cast for a bit till we ran out of crappie on the brush pile.

Minnows were king today again. But the guys did try jigs here and there and caught them on every color. No pattern today, just fish the structure. The fish were IN the brush today. Lost lots of jigs and hooks. Shad were thick as gravy everywhere we went. Might have been slow for that reason.

Every fish was 10.5-12 inches or they were massive 13.5-15 inches. None were in-between. The 14-15 inchers looked like they were going to explode they had so much shad in them. Lots of them had shad tails sticking out their throats.

The big fish definitely made up for the smaller fish. I told the guys they would land 5-7 big ones over 13 inches, and they had 8 slabs and the rest were11-12 ish.

I would have pushed the trip to a better day, but they were a 3 hour drive home, so we had to stick it out. Not a two man limit day, but almost.

In another post, I saw someone talking about the trees, yes they are there, but u have to tree hop a lot to get a steady bite. They r good for 3-7 crappie per tree. Another guy answered how to fish them, but I tend to shy away from them unless I'm tired of trolling around with the TM. But that rare. End of October I will hit the trees a bit more when the fish go deeper and will be hanging spa round them in more numbers. If you don't have a trolling motor, standing timber is your only option. Don't anchor on my freaking piles! I found one of my piles 81 ft away from it's original drop spot today. Fine with me, cause I had to side scan it to find it again and some of y'all will go back there and it is obviously not there anymore.

Attention: the Dad and daughter that were at my last 2 seminars, that fish lavon w/o a trolling motor, please email me a date to go out. You two have a free trip on me....... You know who you are.



And all the female fish had egg sacks. Some we bigger than others and some looked like they were going to drop eggs tomorrow, but they won't. This is a yearly question on the forum. All fish are developing eggs right now to spawn in the spring. I catch spawning fish in a creek in the winter, or December-January they spawn in this creek. It's a secret creek, so don't even ask which one. I don't only guide at Rowlett Creek and White Rock Creek in the winter months, I have many others. I go to which ever one has more of a chance to limit at. But again, the crappie won't spawn this year. Just once a year. In the fall the temps go down and the water cools off. So the shad push up shallow to feed due to the oxygen levels are higher now. So the crappie follow them shallow and sometimes stay in 2-4 ft is there is good structure. I have been finding mainly black crappie super shallow these days, but no big push of crappie super shallow yet. Water was 75 degrees today and freaking windy.

Amen Brother! You are the Man! Great report as always.

Grabbed the guys at 10 am and hit the water. Glass calm out. Then a storm moved in about 3 pm and the clouds shut the bite down. Never hit a massive school of them. Most on one pile was 7. Jigs worked and minnows worked. Minnows work a little bit better, but jigs worked ok as well. We caught them as deep as 17 ft and as shallow as 6 ft. No pattern.



The fish were inside the brush. Not many at all, were on the outsides.

PS: purple and chart and black and chart were the color they liked. Thump Buddy's

Lake turned over a couple days ago by the way. But it has not hurt the fishing.

Sorry for the delayed reports, I have been to tired to surf the net. Small weather changes are affecting the bite. Steady sunny weather is prime crappie time. The bite is changing now, so I figured I'd let y'all know due to CAT Jr. Anglers are having a tourney on the 20 th. So here she is.

Spider Rig or str8 up jigem up. Or use minnows are still are outproducing jigs 3;1

Again, fall pattern has them scattered everywhere. People are spider rigging and getting them at the dam, but I'm still on brush piles and doing well. U just have to move if no bites after 2 mins or so.  Best depth on my side is 11-12 ft down over brush or a tree top in 15-17 ft of water. When they are hitting jigs, it really has not mattered the color or anything. I threw a bunch of colors on monday, and they hit everyone of them. Seems like 10-2 pm is best bite right now. If there is not a lot of bait in the area, not a lot of fish will be there. Find the thread fin shad and the crappie should be in the area somewhere. I have been using a Carolina rigged minnow, or str8 up pink headed jig 1/16 th oz with a minnow or jig. White chartrues and black chartrues are top colors. Zoom tiny flukes in albino and red ones are good right now too. The black crappie have come out to play again. We have bee landing a lot of them lately. The monster 13-14 inch crappie have moved deeper. Most fish are averaging 12 inches or so in the brush. Timber and dam have been pushing out the big girls here and there. Sandbass are very spotty. Black bass are very good.

Nice report Carey.

Crappie were not helping me at all today. Good thing my clients asked about Sandbass fishing before we left the dock. After two hours of beating deep water brush and rocks for crappie, we only landed 8. But they were all 12-14 inches.

Gave up on them and went looking for some sandies. Look at the firs road bed with side scan, cause u don't want to motor over them or they will spook. The first one was void of fish, so on to the next one. First cast produced two sandies on one rod. When on like this for a couple hours, and then they vanished. They took home a limit of sandies and 7 keeper crappie. Slow day but steady in my world. Tomorrow should be a one hour limit if the air pressure drops down a bit. It was pretty high today at 9 am, 30.30

I like it 29.85-30.10

Slowly falling or rising a point at a time, like:

29.97
29.96
29.95
29.94........ and so on.

If it falls two points or more every hour, the fishing seems to be always slower. If it's to high or even to low, they will shut down. Nothin you can do about it, but it will tell you a little reason to why ur not catching anything. If it's 30.40 and above, I will cancel your trip. Not worth the time to fish high pressure systems. The day after a cold front is always a blue bird crystal clear beautiful day, but 99% of the time the air pressure sky rockets and the fish get affected by it and will get lock jawed.

Good Job,and thank you for fishing report.

What a day: Monday Funday ( multi species report )

Video Fly Fishing for Sandies ( Below )



Started at Creek X with a fly fishing client at 730am. His first cast didnt really go anywhere, but the next cast he rolled it out perfectly. And, wouldnt you know it, he hooks up.



He then tells me, "Going to be a slow day, huh?". He caugth 40-50 and he was done at 10 am. 95% of his casts resulted in a hook up or bite. And only two other fly fisherman on the entire creek.



Solitude at its best.


After I dropped him off his his car, I went back down and got a limit of sandies in 30 mins or so. -I was side tracked tring to float a fly past some 40lb Grass carp eating disk shaped seeds on the surface. All I had were some clousers and one elk hair caddis which they ignored. But, I have a good fly now, to throw at them next time. ( I was CPR on sandies today so no hero pic )

11:30AM: I arrive home and kicked stuff around the garage. I was bored, so I figured, I'd take the boat out to Lady Lavon for some crappie before the rain hits (sprinkled on me for 5 mins).

2:00 pm: I quickly arrived in a cove and started to fish the shallows in 1-4 ft of water.




I hit every stump I could reach. I landed 34 Male crappie, all keepers from 12-13 inches on average. Not one female. I probably hit 40-45 stumps. So, I went out in to 9-16 ft of water and fished brush and tree tops. In 45 mins I had landed 14 Fat Slabs and everyone of them was 14 inches or so.





All Crappie are still swimming.

5:30 pm: Im home again. Boat back in garage. I'm bored again. So, I am off to Rowlett Creek to find something big to pull some drag!

6:10 pm: My drag starts to scream!

Here is my opinion on the air pressure: Air pressure affects a fish's swimbladder as it rises and falls.

http://www.usairnet.com/weather/conditions/?station=KADS

From what I have come up over the years, the fish are more comfortable in a range from 29.85 to 30.10.

If the Air Pressure is 30.40, or higher, I will cancel your trip.

If the Air Pressure is 29.60, or lower, I will cancel your trip.

If the air pressure is 30.50 or higher, you are going to have a hard time even snagging a carp turd. I stay home and I won't even go fishing.

The reason I will cancel your trip sometimes are due to the air pressure, and I will give you an option to pick a new day, or go out anyways and only catch a couple. So if I call you before the trip and say: " you have an option" : that means I don't like the something about the weather, and I'd prefer we pick another day. I like to limit every trip and then possibly go limit on Sandies after crappie, or vice versa. If the pressure is out of wack, we are not going to do that.



Now, this is not by the book. This is all what I have noticed while fishing. Sometimes they will bite when the air pressure is all wacky, but 90% of the time, the air pressure, will prove itself.

I find that fish 15 ft or shallower are most affected by the rising and falling of barometric air pressure. The fish in deeper water, are already pressurized, due to the water pressure as you go deeper, so they don't seem to be as affected as the shallower fish. Again, this will only tell you why the fish have slowed down and are not biting anymore. There is nothing you can do about it, but wait it out till it stabilizes or just go home.

As an example:



This is a perfect day with the air pressure. You read it from the bottom up. The top number is current and the bottom number is hours ago. As you can see, the pressure is going up, but its rising slow and steady. That's a perfect day to fish in that scenario.



Now, the pic above is a very bad bad day to fish. We start at 29.83 and the pressure plummets all day and won't stop dropping. This really will shut the fishing down to a trickle or non at all.

My rule:

Example: If the pressure is at 29.87 and drops two points to 29.85, the fishing will slow down a bit. If it drops or rises .02 or more, your fishing trip might be a site seeing trip.

If it rises or falls .01 at time, you should be fine.

If it rises more than .02 fishing is slow.

If it falls .02 or more fishing is slow.

If its steady, or rising .01 or falling .01 every hour, fishing is good.

If the pressure rises or falls more than .05 an hour, I'll just go home.

I am pretty sure, a couple of you guys were out yesterday Crappie fishing Sandbass fishing or hybrid fishing, and that 830 in the morning the fish completely stopped biting. The air pressure had risen .02 points at a time within the hour and then it started to drop rapidly as the storm front started to roll through.

Example: We were fishing yesterday morning at Rowllet creek, as soon as we got there we started to pick up hybrids left and right every single cast. Then at about 830 the fishing completely stopped dead in its tracks. The air pressure had risen .02 points and and the fish completely stopped biting. We could see 20 to 30 hybrids sitting right in front of us but would not even budge. And again, there's nothing you can do about it, either wait it out or go home and come back when the air pressure stabilizes. I see this happen to me almost on a daily basis. I save the link in my smart phone, and refreshes every hour as I'm guiding to tell me what's going on under the waters surface.

Great info, Cary.

Carey you are da Man !Thanks for sharing your knowledge.One day when i'm not busy i will def book a trip with
ya.

man id sure like to find someone guide wise to take me out on some bank fishing

Now booking trips for Crappie fishing at Lake Lavon & Lake Ray Hubbard.

Sandies and hybrids have started thier way back to main lake so now I'm back on the boat and on Lavon for your pick of Crappie, White Bass, and Black Bass.

$225 for 1 or 2 people @ 4-5 hours for any kind of fish you want to target.

Sand Bass and Hybrid Striper and Crappie and Largemouth Bass and Channel Catfish @ Lake Ray Hubbard ( your pick )

Whichever lake you pick, you will have fun. And if we limit on one species, we will try for the others!

$225 for 2 people ( $75 each persons added )

Sorry for the delayed reports. I have been working from 6 am till 8 pm everyday and the last thing I wanted to do was type when I got home. So here is the Lake Lavon Fishing Report!

Fishing for sandies is still getting boring. Every time you drop down your slab, your lure will rarely touch the bottom as the fish will pick it up and you usually reel up a double on one line. The sand bass are 12-14 inches on average this year. We have a small jig or fly tied 18 inches above the slab. Most of the sandies have been holding on the humps. We don't have much structure in the lake and the humps are really the only thing for them to hold on, with the lake so low. Usually this time of year they are holding on the roadbeds, but they are to shallow at the moment. I am using a 1/4 ounce chartreuse slab, I pour them and paint them myself. -not for sale.

Instead of packing up and heading in after my clients had enough sandies, we will go see how many crappie we can put in the boat, depending on what species of fish we were targeting first. Every trip produces some catfish on the slabs too. And, this year the crappie are huge. 90% are 2lbs or a bit over, 13-15 inchers on average. Black/chart and white/chart jigs made by Lightsouttackle.com, called Thump Buddies are the hot jig right now. I am fishing 8-15 ft on timber and brush piles to pull these huge slab crappie out of. I won't sit longer than 2-3 mins on a target. If I don't get a bite or a fish within that time frame, I move to the next target. Cloudy days I am fishing above the brush piles. Sunny days I am fishing in the brush piles or super close to the timber. If the wind is not blowing over 12 mph, limits of both crappie and sandies are pretty common in my boat.

Now for the fun stuff I have piled up in the photo bucket. Remember how I said the sandies are getting boring to catch? Well there is a reason for that. And here is why, this is what I am looking at as soon as I pull up to the humps.



-Everyday they are sitting here chillin.

Below, John said he has caught 30-40 fish in one day! So I took him to the humps and he quit at 263 White Bass. Trip was 5 hours but he only made it 2 hours.



On my Humminbird, I like to use my Down Imaging to really watch them. You can tell if your on dinks or keepers after you have stared at it long enough. Pay close attention to the graph so you can stay on the bigger school of keepers.



The White Bass bite is just plain crazy right now.



So, after we catch enough sandies, we go and see how the crappie are biting.



And again, the crappie are pretty big this year, and pull hard. They look like a big bass coming out of the water they are so big and green.





Three man limit of Sand Bass.



Above: thIs trip started at 545 pm. The little one landed the biggest fish of his life so far, 4-5 lb blue cat on the slab. They limited so then we headed out for crappie and got a few before the darkness took over.

Had a great father and daughter trip! She was a crappie master! Never crappie fished before, but she out fished pops! And caught some toads!





Dad still had some game in him though!



She was all smiles the whole trip, as are most.

Pulled a couple Black Bass out as well. Hooked a 6-7 bled and almost had the net on her, but the hook pulled.

Crappie are almost spawned out. They are pretty easy to catch now, but soon, all the slabs will be on piles in huge numbers.



She saw dad catch a bass, so she topped dad to show him up!

So they got a limit of Crappie



And a limit of White Bass



Below: on this day, we limited on sandies in 20 mins or so and landed over 300. Then a storm started to develop and we had to seek shelter for awhile. We saw the sandies boiling on the surface while it was raining, teasing us from the shore.



We had about an hour till dark left, so we hit a tree to see what the crappie were doing. That storm made them go into a feeding frenzy!









Then I finally get Edward out after the rain and wind cancelled trips. Still the day was windy, but he opted to go. Crappie were slow, but got got a few. After awhile I got the pattern down and figured they were just not hungry at the moment, so we hit the gold mine of sandies and filled the boat up.





This morning was greatness:

Got to the humps and started scanning to find the big ones. Took me 10-15 mins to find the keepers and then it was on. Started fishing at 7 am, limited at 730 am, total tally this morning at 8:20 am was 237 sand bass landed. Rain and wind picked up a bit so we headed in as they were very happy and put a dent in them. We trailered out of the water as people we just showing up. I was home this morning by 845 am.



Other than that, I took a couple days off and hit Lake Fork and entered a Bass Fishing Tournayment. Click the blue link for Pictures and Report on that.--------> Bass Report Click Here

Hit three brush piles near the ramp this morning, 20 yards, and pulled out 17 crappie 11-13 inches. As I was out there, 4 more crappie homes were built.

I have never in my life seen Ray Roberts bush piles before. Those things are bigger than a school bus! It would take 100 trips out to drop stuff to make one that big.

If the wind would lay down for a bit, I bet those crappie are starving for a jig! They should be finishing up the spawn and headed for 8-12 ft. Waves were 3-4 ft main lake on noth side of island.

Now when I say I'm fishing the humps, I'm fishing at the bases of the humps. Like all around the bottom of the humps. Sometimes I'll be up on top of the humps but most of the time the sandies are around them no farther than 50 yards usually. Quarter ounce slabs are definitely key. Chartreuse seems to be the color but it really doesn't matter what color they are. Lavon is a little bit stained at the moment so chartreuse is obviously the better color of them all. Every day were limiting within a half an hour weather permitting. Getting solid 13-15 inch fish in the batch as well. Very nice fish this year. Last year it was 10 inch fest. This year is just plain Awesome! -but gets boring, lol.



The humps keep producing blue cats and channel cats every day.



My client and friends, and even other boats fishing the humps actually are still getting bored of catching them after an hour or two.

Again, the days graph always looks like this. -all day long. After you get bored of catching Sandies, you can go look and see what the crappie are doing or the largemouth or the catfish or the carp or even the drum: then you can go back to the Sandy's any time of day. Crazy action.



Nice boots dude!






Today was the same. 30 min limit. We threw back all of the 11 and unders. 99% of the fish we pull into the boatyard actually keepers but no reason to keep all the small ones when there's plenty of 12-13 inchers.




As for the crappie right now, they're finally starting to move out of the shallows And piling up in brush piles in 8 to 15 foot of water. Today 14 foot was the magic number. Meaning that we were in 14 feet of water with a brush pile present in the depth of water. The fish were holding 10 to 12 foot in the brush or around the bush piles. We only hit two brush piles on the way back to the ramp and picked off about a dozen slabs. Black and chartreuse, pink and chartreuse, and white and chartreuse have been the colors of choice. And I am using Thump Buddy's made by LightsOutTackle.com

Great report, as always. Pics never get old

Nice report and great tips. ...I've become a fan of Lady Lavon...
As the water gets warmer can u recommend a spot for me n my Tube ??

Until the thermocline settles in, crappie fishing is plain terrible. The sandbass are on fire though.

It takes me almost all day to put 20 crappie in the boat. They are just to spread out and to much baby shad everywhere you go. They are consistently full.

But for the white bass:

Fish were blowing up everywhere today. They didn't really start boiling till 830 ish. Then they stopped at 930-10am ish. It's dink fest out there, so if ur in a dink school, move to the next boil till u see or catch some bigger mags. I got a limit (25) of Sandies that were all 14-16 inches. Caught 100's of 8-11 inchers.

I was throwing a topwater and the small ones would just try to eat the hooks on it. Some people think they are tring to eat the whole lure. Not correct. The dink whites and yellow bass are not hitting your lure, they are trying to eat your shiny little hook that looks like a minnow to them. To shy away from the dinks and yellows, switch out your hooks to the duller colored hooks. Your dink ratio will probably go down 75%. I also add a bronze single hook to my slabs, instead of a treble hook. Way faster unhooking the fish, a little safer for humans -that decide to hook themselves, less wear and tear on the dinks or the fish your releasing. Those treble hooks destroy the little guys and rip them up pretty bad.

The amount of 8-10 inchers is amazing, from what I saw today during the boils. Next year 10-11 inchers is going to be easy.  

Again, I was using 12 lb Berkley Big Game/ 1/4 oz slab chartreuse/ saltwater steel hook size 1 with a Thump Buddy Jig 18 inches above it.

The fish boiled everywhere today. All over the lake. Mainly around the island and at the dam. But I saw them and caught them all the way North near the timber.

So right now I'm doing Black Bass/ White Bass on Lavon. Crappie trips will be back up in about a month or so.

Free seminars @ Bass Pro Shop Garland next to Lake Ray Hubbard.

August 3 rd on Saturday

How to walk the Banks for the following in local creeks and rivers :

Trinity Rivers North of DFW.
White Rock Lake
White Rock Creek
Hickory Creek
Rowlett Creek
..... And a few un-named creeks and honey holes.

Slide show w/ what, where, when, how, and how not to. I'll tell you everything I know, just take that info and go catch ya some fish!

3 pm: Annual Spring White Bass/ Hybrid Striper Spawn

4 pm: Annual Winter Crappie Run in Creeks/ Rivers


Question and Answer after each seminar. After the last seminar, we can go to the fishing department and get you geared up with the rods, lures, lines, reels, ect and I'll show you everything I use to catch the fishies.

Please do not call up there asking about the seminar. They have over 300 employees working at any given moment. Some people don't get the memo, that the World Champion is coming to do seminars. This will not be cancelled.

Nice Catch guys, I just got a new boat it been 2yrs seen I've been fishing. Thanks 4 the info.

There's some monsters in there!

Today's Report: Terrible. Caught 100's of dinks. East wind killed it. Tomorrow better looking. Glad the day is over.

How did you fish it today and what will you do tomorrow to hopefully produce better results?

sandbass? thats all thats in there are dinks!

Nice fish.

Lake Lavon Report: been super busy and to tired to post anywhere. So here goes the Lavon Report for the last 3-4 weeks. The wind has been absolutely terrible. When it's not to windy, under 12 mph, limits of the tasty fish r being taken. And to add to that, the crappie have grown enormous. 15-16 inchers are actually very common. We came .08 ounces from beating the lake record last week. One shad away, lol. I'm sure this year the record or a couple of them have been eaten. There is still a couple weeks left to catch a female full of eggs that weighs 3 lbs. I know she is out there ......






Gear: 10 ft & 12 ft Bass Pro Shops CrappieMax rods and Pro Angler rods.
Spinning reels with 8 lb mono

Jigs: Black Chart / White Chart - Thump Buddy's by lightsouttackle.com
Using hand poured 1/32 & 1/16 th oz pink jig heads

Fishing Areas: Rip Rap ( rocks ), standing timber, brush piles, submerged boat ramps, sandy coves or along the sandy beaches.



Rip Rap: vertical fish 1-5 ft of water up in the rocks and fish slow covering every nook and cranny. Make sure your jig is off the bottom about 6 inches or so. Also jig and bobber on 4 lb line is deadly and u can cover lots of water a lot faster. Small twitches is all that's needed and sometimes just casting and letting it sit, will entice a strike. I start with the bobber 6 inches deep and cover the rocks in 1 ft of water. Then I make the bobber 1.5 deep. I keep making it deeper till I hit 5 ft. Then I move to the next spot 40 yards down the rocks. Some days you won't have to move and you can limit out your 25 crappie per day.



Standing Timber: work your jig 1/2 foot off the bottom next to the standing timber and hold it still as possible. Work the entire water column on the piece of timber your working. Sometimes they will be a ft down in 15 ft of water hugging the timber waiting for the shad to come by. The shad are spawning everywhere in the mornings so the crappie are 1-2 ft till 7:30-8 am. As the sun comes up, the fish that are not spawning, move out to deeper water. I try to start the foot down on the standing timber, before I send the gym to the bottom. So try to work the upper water column first before you start yanking fish from the bottom through the school that's higher up.

Brush Piles: find brush piles in any depth right now and there should be a fish in it. I have been focused on 5-15 ft of water while targeting fish in the brush piles. Somedays they are hanging out around the piles and sometimes they r deep inside of them. Make sure you have a lot of jigs on board. If your not getting snagged, your not crappie fishing.

I fish the top part of the piles and then move to the outsides of the pile before dropping directly into the pile.

Submerged Boat Ramps: Lake Lavon is dotted with submerged boat ramps. When you find them, I like to fish them with the jigging bobber, no bobber just a Jig, and then I will vertical fish it. Crappie and bass are spawning on the merged boat ramps right now. Only way you can really find them is with side imaging. After you find them figure out where the end of the boat ramp is and start from there. You want to work your way up towards the beach.



Sandy Coves & Beaches: The sand is hard enough surface for the Crappie to fan out of bed and lay their eggs. Best way to approach these: is a jig bobber covering water from 1 foot 4 foot. Cast to the beach and work your jig and bobber back to the boat. I prefer to use 4 pound line with a 7 foot rod with the spinning reel. Medium action on the rod. Remember you have to adjust the depth a lot till you find out if they are in a pattern or not.

Tire Reef: Fish live minnows or checks going to six-foot down. They will actually spawn inside the tire so always start out 3 inches deep. Then go deeper as the day gets brighter. They will spawn on the sides of the tires and on the cables that old tires together. You're just looking for hard surfaces during the spawn. I can't Spohn in silt otherwise the eggs won't hatch and they know that.

Live minnows are obviously golden. But if you can throw a net, a 2-3 inch live thread in shad or same sized gizzard shad, with smash the crappie. They can not resist a live shad if they are near it. Minnows on a size 6 bait hook with a small split shot to keep them now at the depth you want it to stay. I use pegged bobbers. When pegging them in, tap it. Don't mash it in there or you kink the line.

If you look at your line and see a kink or fray, cut it off and re tie. The next fish could be the big one and when u go to sling it in the boat, your line snaps and you instantly say a curse word as you see your fish slip back into the drink.



To book a trip with me, my contact info is below. All morning trips are booked for three weeks out. I have a few PM slots open here and there. Let me know the dates you can go and we will see where we can fit you in.

Siri types everything for me. There's a couple words that don't make sense within the last post. Sorry. To lazy to re read it and fix them.

Great reports TF. looks like you are all over them

Great report TarponFly. Lots of nice fish in those pics.

Monday Report:

Did everything in my report from yesterday and had an epic day again. After my client limited, I joined in for some fun. We landed 150+ keeper crappie from 7:10 am till 10 am ish. This trip my guy limited by 815. Everywhere we went to we hooked into fish. 9 am we were releasing 14-15's.

Good grief! Why am I working!

Very nice. Good thing we booked a trip. I dont want to miss out the action.

good thick healthy fish!

6:17 am left ramp.
7:11 am limit.



So much for a 4-6 mph wind. Picked up to 15-18 mph out of the north.

Used pink/chart Thump Buddies. If the crappie are there, it doesn't matter what u put down there color wise. Minnows not needed. I sent one down on a stump and no bite. Sent jig down and got slammed. Minnows suck right now. Tires, piles, rocks. Everything produced today. Deepest I fished was 18 on a submerged road bed. Fish were scattered around on the concrete flat part and not on the rocky sides. But they were not spawning. No bait around. Just hanging out. Tried fishing with two poles, but as soon as it got to 17 1/2 ft we got wacked.

I went looking for the Sandbass school, and they r still hiding somewhere.

Round 2 in a couple hours.

Wow! That's fast!

Wind didn't die down till 30 mins before dark. My client took the afternoon off from work,'so we went out anyways. Tough battling waves sometimes. Put a major current in the timber and fish just didn't want to eat. Weatherman was way wrong today. Suppose to be 4 mph all day.

West wind tomorrow. Should be really good.

Tires, timber and brush 16 ft or shallower. Even got one in 1 ft. Not many spawning males today. So I'm sure the wind and front pushed them back a bit. Black and chart thump buddy's was the color of the day. White and chart worked better in the am.

Same thing. Different day.








On the tailgate, those fish in the back are 11 and 12 inchers. The rest of the fish were 14 to 16 inches on average to put it into perspective

any catfish seen on sonar or side scan or caught

Very nice, your on a good pattern for sure, Lavon sucked for me today, caught about 20 but last weekend we limited Saturday and Sunday fishing for only about 3-4 hours. The fish I had been on did not want to play today. I did try some new areas and new stuff today but never found the jackpot I was looking for, one fish here and there. I might have actually seen you today also.
Care to share your depth today?

Hey Carey, which boat ramp is good to launch at Lavon? Thanks.

Slower on the PM trip. North wind kicked up a bit. Suppose to be out of the west. Still got them though. 3-17 ft was main focus. Fish still spawning. Females starting to empty of eggs and not super fat anymore.

That is one very large black species crappie on the front row, could be the lake record.

That lake record is going to be on my dinner plate! Thanks Carey for working so hard today. What Carey did not post was this was the first time I have fished for crappie. Carey is an exceptional guide and not only puts you on fish but shares his knowledge.

Had some wires cross this morning frying some electrical. Irritating. So no report for the AM. Took 6 hours to re wire with the help of BaffinBay.

Hit the water at 4 ish to make sure everything was back to normal and fished for 2 hours and wacked 80-100 crappie. We were going to try and keep 13- 14 inchers for a cool picture and threw 10-12' back in, but an east wind picked up and I was to beat to battle the wind and trolling motor. So we left early with plenty for my buddy to take home. Couple 16's in there. 4-8 ft of water. 8 lb mono

Pink Chart
White Chart
Black Chart

Thump Buddy's plastic jigs

Glue them to a jig head with Quick-Lock glue and hold on!

If you have emailed me or left a message I'll be responding after 12 pm tomorrow. This is when I get home at night from the lake, so it's to late to call y'all.

Nice seeing a lot of y'all today!

Those giant slabs were supposed to be my catches.
Lol

Could someone pm me a good spot to fish on the bank? It doesn't have to be a hidden spot, just where a lot of people are catching. Boaters probably have a good view of where bankers are at. Been going to Lavon 5 times with minnows and only caught one crappie. Would appreciate some help. Thought about giving up but I can never give up on fishing

Nice catchin.
Thump buddies website i think has changed to:
http://constantpursuitoutfitters.com/home/index.php?route=product/category&path=65

Rail road tracks at Mallard Park. NE side.

Thanks ChugR.

Friday...Caught 60-70, kept 14's and up. Lost a bunch of slabs. Left net in the truck.

If you guys want to get into them. Carey knows where they are...

Landed 60-80 crappie this morning. Wind didn't know what it wanted to do. But it was blowing pretty good keeping me off my favorite spots. Colored jig really didn't matter. Everything we sent down they wacked. 4-17 ft today brush and timber.

Amazing. Just got done looking through pages and pages of crappies I've only ever dreamed about. Growing up in MN where a fish grow so much slower, a 16" crappie is a once-in-a-lifetime fish.

One question though. In the Midwest, alot of guys will preach CPR on those bigger fish. Do the fish down here grow so quick that these big reservoirs can support taking out these monsters, or will you typically see a few boom years, then they get fished down & come back in a few years? Don't take this as preaching or anything, I'm just genuinely curious.

I'll throw my 2 cents in. Lavon has big crappie compared to most Texas lakes. However, on any lake or pond in Texas a 14" or even 15" crappie is not that big of deal unless it is a body of water overrun with dinks. I CPR anything over 16" most of the time (not that I catch crappie that big that often).

Lavon is a young fertile lake that has rather limited access due to drought. For a time in 2013 NO boat ramps were open. There was a drought up to about 07 and then the lake went from record low levels to flood stage almost overnight with fields of vegetation flooded. The 08-09 crappie are some of these big fish that are being caught now I bet. We have had many consecutive years of very mild winters. However, threadfin shad were killed off in big numbers this winter on Lavon, so the fishbowl is low and the crappie are hungry.

Most people do not have the success that "TarponFly" has on Lavon. He's got it figured out.

Gotcha. So these 14"+ fish are only 6 years old? That's incredible. If memory serves me right, it takes somewhere around 15 years to grow a 15" fish in MN

Gosh, this makes me wish I had more money as a college student at DBU. I've mostly been regulated to catching Joe Pool specials and those Mountain Creek Crappie. This makes me so jealous.

crappies dont live that long in TX water! They have a much short life cycle, and the foods are abundant in our lake or resevoirs, so they grow big quickly.

White crappie rarely exceed two pounds, and live around 2–7 years. So big fish are on their last leg. There are two ways to look at it. Let them live as long as possible to possibly spawn one or two more times to pass superior genes or make one Heck of a thick samich! Reality is this debate has gone on for decades while ole boys like Carey keep catching and proving they are A Ok.

Of coarse everything is bigger and better in Texas.
Way to wack and stack Carey!!!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_crappie

I still remember when we had no limit on crappie. We would catch 100's of them and feed the entire neighborhood. The fishing during the spawn was simply bananas. I would not call Lavon a young lake since it was impounded in 1953. It has always been known as a crappie/sandbass lake. Throwing back 16 inch crappie is not a position most people find themselves in. A 16 inch crappie is pretty much at the end of his life cycle so returning him to the lake is not going to do much. I say catch them and enjoy them at the table.

Reggie

Lavon is anything but a young lake, was completed in 1953.

+1.

Grew up on Lavon catching sandbass and crappie. I would agree. A 16" here is almost done. Especially if I catch it...

Are the ramps still bone dry?

Collin and power plant ramps open.





Same thing, different day. The crappie bit all day long. I went back out and scanned for two hours with side imaging. After I was done, I limited in less than 45 mins. As soon as the sun set over the trees, they vanished.

Great report!!

Wind sucks. Fished 7 - 15 ft of water. Every time we would break off in the brush, I would put on a different colored Thump-Buddy. It didn't matter the color still. We sent down 9 diff colors and they all got wacked.

If you catch 4 dinks in a row, move to the next location. Little guys hang out with other little guys.

nice pic of monster slabs!

Hit the water around noon. Not one truck in the parking lot. Saw two fishing boats and a sail boater. Windy as Eco out of the North. If your trolling motor can hold you, the fish are there waiting for a jig.

I ordered some brush pile seeds, online last week. So I planted them to see what would happen in 12-17 ft of water. I went back later and they all grew out very nicely. Not surprising to me because I see this happen a lot. Within an hour usually, if placed in the correct spots, fish will show up to a freshly sunken structure. After two hours I scanned one of them and saw some fish on it. Caught 6 crappie. 2 dinks and 4 keepers with a 2.33 lber.

Fish are still spawning. Males are suited up in all black. ( note top left fish in pick ).

Again: color didn't matter. If they are there, they will eat.

Don't anchor on brush piles.

If your new to the lake, get out of the wind and run along the banks in 10-15 foot of water, anywhere really, and you will find a brush pile. If you don't feel confident in doing so, learn.

If you don't want to learn and just want some meat. Stump hop all day and u will fill that live well up. 6 inches to 3 ft off the bottom next to the logs. Remember this too the logs have a root ball system. Don't only fish the right next to the log, fan out and fish it 4-5 foot around the stump. Sometimes those root balls get exposed and the fish hold and spawn on them too.

Dang it son! That's some fine fish and a hell of a report! Sounds like you know your stuff. Congrats

Thanks.

It was a very hard day. But a steady bite when I could hold the boat still. Weather man is in training or something.




Rant: move it people


Please people. Don't take your merry little time launching ur boat or putting the boat on the trailer. At least power walk or something. One guy at the ramp took 21 minutes to put his boat on. 8 mins of that was him in the actual boat.

If your boat doesn't start, pull it out and work on it on dry land so the rest of the working boats can launch.

When the PVC is marking the end of the ramp. They r not ment to be bumpers to help get ur boat on the trailer. They are mashed down into the mud so u know when to stop ur trailer.

This one really pissed me off. 2 pm I'm on plain headed to Mallard from Collin Park. I see a boat with a guy paddleing like heck in a 15 mph west wind. So I cut over to see if he was just trying to show off or really needed help. Turns out 3 boat wizard by him and didn't assist. He said he waved them down and they just kept going. I literally tow back 2 boats a week on average. Sometimes my clients loose an hour, but how would you feel if no one stopped for you? Carp turds.

Don't block the ramp. Pull ur boat all the way out.

Don't back ur boat down the ramp and then hop out 10 ft from the water and start organizing the boat right before u put it in. Put it in the water and do it there, or on dry land before u think of launching or getting in line.

It all comes down to:

1. Get in line
2. Launch
3: Park Truck

Nothin there but those three things should be done unless it has to do with those three things.

If there were ramps open else where and not just one lane, do what u want. But be courteous to everyone else.
If your truck is not in line, ur not in line. Standing on the ramp doesn't mean your in line.

Someone is going to shoot someone down there one day.

Tomorrow is going to be very windy again. Worse actually.  Monday 20+ winds coming.

Black/chart white/chart pink/chart Thump Buddy's.

my my
mymy tarpon fly get hot when people act like jerks ? i second that emotion.you go guy.

I have to say though, the view while your waiting is very nice.

Don't you just love the boat ramps in the summer --LOL--. My worst pet peve is the family who pulls up and backs down about ten feet from the ramp and then decides to unload their car of coolers, water toys, life jackets, beach towels, umbrellas ,put sunscreen on each other and then can't get their boat started once they finally back it in the water --LOL-- I see this at least ten times a summer and that is the extreme --LOL--

Nice catches Carey sorry i haven't been in touch

Wind kicked me in the butt bad today. Only ended up with 12-15 keepers. Caught 50+ but were dinks or right at 10 inches.



Fished 6-22 ft timber and brush. Fish were tight to the structure.

Wind and a broken throttle cable kicked us off the lake today around 10:00am, tuff ride back to the ramp with one person pulling the throttle body and the other holding the tiller to steer in the whitecaps. We ended up with 30 big keepers though, the bite was a little tough today but better than Friday. Water is still a little churned up.

I went to Little Ridge last Saturday and a guy sat there and cleaned fish on the ramp for about 20 minutes. Blocked the good side of the ramp for a bit.

When it was finally my turn to lauch, got the boat down the ramp, went to crank the motor, ttttttttttttttttttt! Wouldn't start, so, pulled the boat off the ramp, parked the boat in the lot, switched batteries, and blammo, she starts. That took me about 10 minutes.

Had to get back in line, and low and behold the same guy is still filleting fish at the top of the boat ramp!

Courtesy and preparedness is a lost art.

Fished the tires yesterday evening. Crappie and sandbass taking minnows and jigs as fast as we could give them. Had to go through a lot of dinks to get the keepers, but got some nice ones. Got a big male still all blacked out too.

Carey
No report from yesterday? You holding out on us, did you do any good with the light winds, I bet ya"ll smoked them.

unless he was pulling my leg,another member told me you couldn't clean fish on Lavon?

got a trip tomorrow with carey.

got a trip tomorrow with carey.

My understanding is that Lavon has signs that says no cleaning fish. It wasn't the fact he was cleaning fish, its the fact he was doing it on the boat ramp.

Kinda Tuff out there today, only manged 2 keepers with 1 a 17" they came out of the only standing timber off close to the bank ~8 FOW.

Saw a few caught but couldn't locate any brush in 15+ FOW that wasn't getting pounded by wind and waves.

Wasn't a single parking spot available in the Power Plant Parking Lot.

May try again tomorrow.

DC

Got up and went to Fork this morning for some bass fishing, loaded up and hit Lavon on the way home. Got to the ramp around 12:30 and saw Casey loading up to leave. Anyway I ended up with 22. All fish are still being caught in 5-8 fow.
All on Marks hodgson jigs, there was a old boy around me said he is close to a limit and he was using minnows.
Collins park Boat ramp was a mad house

To tired to post. But here is a quicky.

6-18 ft brush and timber and ledges where it drops rapidly.

Minnows were key today due to heavy traffic. Otherwise black and chart and white and chart Thump Buddy's have been loading the boat up. There have been a couple days I have had my rear end handed to me. Slowest day was like 14 keepers. Big fish are still around and make up for the shorter fish. Not really limiting everyday, but the big ones equal (3) 10-11 inchers on the filets.

If it is calm winds; under 5 mph, we limit. If the winds are over 10 mph; it's tough and the fish seem to spread out more. Cloudy days are tough too. This morning was a bit tough so instead of a full day trip, 8 hrs straight, I broke it up to 7-11 am and 4 till dark. That made it worth it. The second half of today was night and day. 630 pm the winds dropped to 2-5 mph and we started to wack them. Then the sun dropped behind some clouds an hour before dark and they shut down to a trickle. The sunnier it is and calmer it is, the better. They will hold tighter to the structure.

And yes, the ramps were crazy. People who have never backed a boat down the ramp, proved it.

Wake boats were out in force at the dam and pushing 4 ft waves all over the place. One almost knocked my client out of the boat today.

Be prepared to wait up to 45 mins just to launch sometimes. Lots of newbies who have no clue about keeping the ramps moving and take their sweet time to launch. One guy took 23 minutes to launch yesterday. Backed his boat down the ramp, stopped 5 ft from the waters edge and got out, then started to organize the boat and walked around it a couple times. Then tied his boat to the dock and took a freakin phone call while sitting in his seat for 3-4 mins chatting away. 16 boats in line. I had already pulled out and my client and I were just watching the mess.

At noon it took me 38 mins of waiting in line to trailer out. Holidays suck for only two lanes on the whole lake, open, to launch.

When u are going around points, take them wide. The shallow water will creep up on you fast.

At Collin park, don't do this:



He was very very lucky he didn't drop off the ramp I have no idea how he didn't. He had to be centimeters from falling off the ramp. There is a concrete picnic table that was dropped at the end of the ramp so we have something to launch from. If u don't back up str8 down that, u will have to call a tow truck after u fall off of it. Seen it happen at least 7-8 times already. One guy decided to just gun it and ripped his axle almost all the way off. He dragged the trailer up the ramp with the axle dragging behind.

Lots of 14-15.5 inch crappie still.

I'll post a better report when I get a day off with pics and stuff.

Anyone caught a 17 inch crappie? My biggest this season was 16 inches.

Yep spawned out 2.72 Labs. would've been an easy 3lb two weeks ago.

D

he got real lucky

Not limiting everyday, but 10-20 keepers on average is good now. They moved to every depth. No solid pattern till a thermocline settles in.

Slow, slow , Slow, went this am for three hours and only caught 9 keepers, all on jigs, too slow for me, been a great two months though. The freezer is very full and I am done with Lavon this year, the pre, spawn, and post spawn fishing is officially over for me. The huge numbers of big fish was crazy this year, up until today, every day I fished the past two months I had at least a 13-14lb top 7 fish stringer every day, they were so big I weighed several fish this year, sad it's over.
Good luck with the summer fishing pattern this year.

The last week has gotten a bit tough, but the fish r still catchable. Minnows are king at the moment. Jig bite still produce for the die hards.



Black and chartreuse and white and chartreuse jigs, preferably some Thump Buddies, with a pink head on the jig head. 1/16 oz



( Ranger gave my client some fish at the end of the day yesterday, thanks man. )



In 3-4 hours we average about 10-15 keepers person on the crappie.



One of my clients had the lake record black crappie at the boat before the hook pulled out. Had to be 15-16 inches long and fat! Sad few minutes. Client still kicking himself for that one.



Fish are holding in the timber now too. 3-5 fish per timber if they are there. 10-15 ft is an average depth of where we would find them.



White Bass: old road bed near power plant/ Avalon/ and south side of island cut along the banks in 10-15 ft of water. Some old ramps holding them here and there, but some days they never show back up to the spot they were in the day before. Sporadic top water is starting to happen again. Very random though. The pop up here and there for five minutes maybe 15 to 20 minutes. 1/4 oz chart slabs with a jig or two tied above it 12-18 inches spaced out, is getting them at the moment. Minnows 6 inches off the bottom, if you find the school. We will anchor and set out rods and wait for them to pass back by. They are working the banks searching for baby fry schools. Beaching the boat at the island hopping out and working the banks with spinners seems to be producing a couple in the mornings. That is the sun comes out they seem to be moving back out into 10 to 15 foot of water on average. I expect the White Bass bite to pick up in the next month. Once all the small fry balls get bigger the top water action should get a lot better.

Black Bass Report: Early in the morning fishing the rip rap, with top waters has been producing some great blowups and 2 to 4 pound fish. As the sun starts coming up, and the top water bite slows, switch to a white and chartreuse spinner and still work the riprap and timber. As the sun is at its highest switch over to a Texas rig with either creature baits or watermelon red or watermelon green 6 inch worms or creature baits. Lake Fork Tackle, Okeechobee blue beaver tails or the watermelon red and green work well also. The rail road tracks, the dam, the tires, swimming beaches with brush piles nearby, old submerged ponds, old submerged roads and boat ramps, and even the humps and 20 foot of water are producing fish. Average fish are 16-20 inches. A few 6-8 lbers have been caught too.

Top Water Catfish Report: yesterday my client glanced over and pointed out a carp sucking the surface. I could not see what he was pointing at but he said it was up on the surface for about 15 to 20 seconds. About 15 to 20 minutes later we hopped off the brush pile we were fishing and got on plane. around the spot he said the car was in, all of our eyes in the boat got huge. I ran over a school of about 30 to 40 catfish to 8 pounds. All sitting on the surface. Look like they were sucking air as I ran them over. I stop the boat turned around and they were back up on the surface. Put a bobber and some bait on and immediately hooked up. Every time we would hook up the school with spook would take 3 to 5 minutes to pop back up. For about 10 to 15 minutes I could not figure out what the hell they were doing. Then as they were up again on the surface sucking air I told my clients to hold off and I trolling motored over to them to try to figure out what exactly they were doing. As I got to the main school of 15 to 20 Fish sucking air, is what it looked like, I noticed the water was brown like somebody diarrhea in the water. I took my minnow net and scooped up the brown stuff. These are my results.





Small baby fish fry. Not able to I'd them yet due to they were to small and look like all the other fry when they r that small. I also saw couple sand bass busting through the small fry schools. I have had multiple people call and ask me why are the catfish sucking the surface? I could never answer them because I never saw this before. Pretty neat to see that many fish that big eating bait that small. But if you think about it, that's what the biggest creature on earth eats. The blue whale. Plankton.

My prediction is like Lavon will turn on in 3 to 4 weeks as soon as the plankton and fish fry get a little bit bigger. Should be a good year as long as we get a thermocline. Last year we got screwed and didn't get a thermocline due to the Highwinds keeping the lake churned up. No thermocline means that the fish can be at 32 feet all the way to 1 foot. If thermocline settles in it usually settles in at 17 to 18 foot. If that happens all the fish will be 1 foot to 16 foot somewhere in the lake making it easier to find them. Also, having a thermocline prevents the balls of Bait to go deeper and run away from the game fish. Having a thermocline makes the bait balls get pushed to the surface and the white bass Crappie and largemouth are able to school them up easier.

Thanks for all that information...
Where, when and how...
That is a report!

It's that time!

$250 / 2 people crappie fishing at Lake Lavon. Gates are closed and the fish are staying on pattern.

Crappie are averaging 13-14 inches with a few 2 pounders thrown in. 15-16 inchers!

Call text email or PM me.

Fish Gaurenteed!

Same post as the previous one. Crappie doing good on Lavon.

I have an opening today at 3 pm till dark. Three people max on crappie trips. 14-15 inch fish some pushing over two pounds still.

Pm sent

Wildcatlighting.com on LED

Report: June 15 th

Lavon Report:



Where did all the fish go? Took us a little less than two hours to get a limit of two different species. I thought I would've been able to do it faster but I'm blaming it on the 16 to 20 mph hour winds this morning. Throwback lots of 10.25 inch fish. We kept all the fish that were 11 inches and over. Only kept Sandy's that were over 15 inches except for one maybe two that we kille throwback lots of 10.25 inch fish. We kept all the fish that were 11 inches and over. Only kept Sandy's that were over 15 inches except one 12 inch that floated back up.



Sandbass: Feeding sporadically during the day. They are in 2 ft of water and out in 35 foot of water. Small fish in upper water column. Bigger fish seem to be cruising the bottom. When you are slabbing, don't lift the rod more then 2 ft off the bottom. They will even eat it dead sticking the slab, holding it just 2 inches from the bottom. Once you get about 2 feet off the bottom it's almost a guaranteed small sand bass or yellow bass.



If you're in one of the feeding frenzy's, it will start to trickle down and eventually stop. Within minutes the yellow bass will move in. I call them the cleanup crew. Once you start catching them it's time to Move On and go check one of the other spots. White slabs from moestackleshop.com are the only thing you need.



Crappie: they are holding to submerged in standing timber. They are starting to hold in some of the brush piles. Black and chartreuse and white and chartreuse Thump Buddies on 1/16 th oz jig heads are the only thing I use for crappie. They seem to work very well. Rocky Tops and Thump Buddies will last till you loose them. They are made of stronger plastic materials. 9 ft deep-25 ft deep. Most of your bites are going to get hammered 11 to 18 foot next to/or in structure.



If it's sunny, you really need to be tight to the structure. 2 foot off of standing timber you might not get bit at all.

Today and Yesterday:

Got a limit on White Bass.

Also same trip:

Got a Limit of Crappie




Rated #1 Multi-Species Fishing Guide in Texas.

TexasOklahomaFishingGuide@Yahoo.com

469-528-0210

-a few week days left. All weekends booked till August.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's time to give Mr. Thorn a call. That side by side pick of 25 and 25 looks pretty cool man.

Still murdering the fish..... Had some new to fishing people. Took a bit to teach them to set the hook and what a bite was. After an hour, they were catching crappie in the thick brush and slabbing up Magnum White Bass. The sandies were suspended today 300 yards out from the rail road tracks in 25 ft of water. They were hanging at 15-18 ft so we had to measure 15 ft of line to get a bite. If you were off by a foot, to deep or to shallow, NO BITE. It was very precise. Crappie were at 9 ft-18 ft on timber and brush. The bigger fish seem to be on timber, like the 15-16 inch crappie. Most are 10-11 inches on average with 10 being big usually.

Nice catch

I went Thursday afternoon and found a couple loaded trees in 19ftw, but they didn't want no part of what I was givin them. Caught a few, but not very active at all for me. I figured it was due to the "fish don't bite when the gates are open" myth.... However it looks like Mr. Thorn has busted this myth. Guess I'll try my hand again tomorrow morning.

Every morning we chase the sand bass to start the morning, cause they are just so huge and fight so hard- just plain fun. After about 830 am, we switch to crappie if the sandies slowed, or we switch over when we get the limit of whites.




If you don't want to do that, that's perfectly ok. lol. You hop on my boat, just tell me what kind of fish you want to target and we will go catch it. ( except catfish, just not my thing )



Now, back to Crappie. I don't know if I'm looking forward to the gates ( on the dam ) closing or if I am dreading it? Currently the dam is releasing 3059 cfi. The Crappie are pretty easy right now even with the gates open. We start in 6-10 ft early morning in the flooded willows and follow the fish out to 15-20 ft, as the sun gets higher and higher. With the lake up 4 1/2+ feet, there are willows all over the lake that are half submerged along the banks. The crappie are up in the feeding on the spawning shad, and the small fry that are hiding in the willows. As the sun comes up, the fish push out and find cover in 15-20 ft just off shore. I am finding them on my Super Secret Secure Crappie Brush Piles that are in 12-18 ft of water and Submerged Timber in 20 ft on average. A bushy standing timber bunch, in 20 ft, seem to be the ticket from 9 am-7 pm. Anytime before 9 am, they could be in 4-10 still hunting. Same thing for after 7 pm. Finding timber with regular 2D electronics is a bit difficult. Side Imaging helps with this 100%. If I didn't have it, My world be different.



We stayed after dark a couple nights ago and set up in a cove and turned my lights on. 19 ft Green strip of LED's. Lights up the whole cove and brings in the bait fish super thick. Then the crappie come in. We didn't land any monsters, but landed tons of 9-12 inch fish. Only took about 30 mins and it was a bite of a fish every couple mins. Live minnows under a bobber 3 ft down next to the half submerged brush along the shoreline. -I would rather sleep than go out there at night. So no night trips, yet. Those start next month and will mainly be at Lake Fork.


I have been using Midnight Special Thump Buddies,

http://constantpursuitoutfitters.com/hom...p;product_id=60




We can go get a limit of sandies, then after that, go get a limit of crappie. Or just focus on one species. I'm just there to net fish.

I have not used White and Chartreuse, mainly cause I used them all a teaser jig for the Sandies. (LANE, SEND ME MORE!) They are so durable, once you glue them to the jig head, they don't break apart or tear. You just end up loosing them in the brush or on a 3+ lb crappie (or a massive sandbass). I caught over 2000 sandbass on one jig before it broke off...... -no fisherman exaggeration there.



As the sun gets up, having the jig more that 2 ft away might be to far to get a bite. You have to be very precise on putting that jig in 15-18 ft of water right next to the timber, or in the brush itself. Some single standing timber may be hard to find on the graph sometimes. Like, getting the exact pin point on where to drop a jig. Your GPS can be off 5 ft or so. so, sometimes the gps says it is right there, but it might be 5 ft to the right or left, or just somewhere not there, lol. After 2-3 passes I will move on to the next structure if I cant pin point it right away. But right now, I try to find the tree with the most stick ups or super big secret brush piles.

Todays Report: Some reports coming in, that fishing is slow. Well its not, its on fire and easy. ok, I say its easy cause I am a guide. Normally, its off due to the gates open and all. But, the fish are where they are suppose to be and they are hungry. They seem to nail it on the fall every time right now. I don't target the visible stuff. Most of that stuff has been hit 1-5 times through out the day by other anglers. I like the non visible stuff. Accuracy is very important in this game. Hit all my spots for sandies this morning, and they just were not awake yet. I bet they are going nuts right now though. we started at 630am, and at 645, I told my client, this is not going to happen today. Full moon, glass water, no bait fish activity like the last few days. Just 6-8 inch sandies eating the small fry all over the lake. I said we will keep looking though. 9 am or so, I confirmed its not happening on my end. He asked what else will eat a fly. I said "Carp, Drum, Black Bass, crappie, and even catfish in one spot...." -And, of course, what do you think he picked....lol, the hardest most temperamental freshwater fish out there. Crappie. I said no problem! Went to a Secret Submerged Timber pile and dropped a marker on it.



Caught the tail end of the structure. All the white little round circles are the crappie. Hazy pic sorry. Busted my phones camera glass. On the left is the sanding timber on the fish finder picture


I told him, to the left of the marker, is your target. The fish are 15-18 ft and precisely at that depth. ( this guy is no newbie at fly fishing) I picked out a Clouser fly, white and chartreuse, and backed the boat off about 30 feet from the target. I had him overshoot the marker by 15-20 and do a count down to 15-18 foot deep and make short strips. It was GAME ON after that. The rest is history. Killing Crappie with the fly rod, EPIC trip as usual but with a twist, lol. Crappie have never seen that, but they obviously loved it!




Every single fish my client landed engulfed the flies. Most pretty much had the fly in the back of their throat.



He was having a blast targeting those crappie. I was hoping he would hook a mag sandie to play with but just didn't happen. He was perfectly happy hooking crappie. We even left them biting.

I am completely booked solid this month except for a 4:30 PM trip on june 24th.

All weekends booked in July. I just have weekdays open here and there......I'm on the water from 6 am till 9 pm usually, so texting me is best way to get an answer.

Excellent report Carey

Awesome report! I always look forward to your updates.

Three guys today are from Utah so 2 of them fly fished, one is actually a Green River Float Boat Trout Guide up there. That's my fav trout river, so we had lots of stories to tell. Wind was a bit high but the crappie were biting on every spot we went. Even rolled up on some new spots loaded with them. While at the dam, we were dropping on brushpiles in 20 ft. Clients were catching them on the fly rods and regular rods. I was slabbing in hopes to find a mag sandie while they played with the crappie. I ended up never hooking a sandy at the dam, but I did land 12 crappie over 14 inches. They were hovering two ft off the bottom on the drop off. We wended up with 68 keeper fish over 11 inches and many many 9-11 inch fish. Some of this timer has like 50-100 crappie in them. Got lucky and had one give us 19 keepers as fast as we could drop down to them. Same depths as last report above. Average was 6-10 keepers per spot with some dinks. The Spotted Gar were working new hatching shad schools on the surface and they guys thought that was a hoot. The caught some great looking monster crappie today. 15 inches is gigantic to them as their crappie up north are 4 inches he said. I told them their moms are close by. They got hot to fish them now, so they are going to try and replicate it on their home lake and drop some brush. Hope they get them!

Wow was it good to be back to some great fishing.



Once we got to the spot, it was game on the rest of the day. Mainly Crappie. Had a 4 year old in the boat and he reeled in over 99% of the crappie today. Lost a few, lol. The little one got to put the fish in the box or let them go. Some of the big fish never made it in the box and he threw the big girls in the water giving us a heart attack! He was really funny to, Every time I would check to make sure the fish was legal on the golden ruler, he would tell me, "Its over the line, Ill put in in box." We left them biting and went in before the kid had a melt down. It gets hot out there with a vest on. Don't keep your kid out there against their will. If they want to leave, leave. Or they wont want to come back out with you. They took home around 35 Crappie or so. Black and Chartreuse Thump Buddies and minnows today. It didn't seem to matter minnow vs jig as the jig caught just as many fish. Shallow to start. 4-5 ft then merged out and followed them to 15-18 ft.



Dropped them off at the dock and my Brush Pile Seeds came in the mail. So I planted 2 of them today. I plan on catching 20 minimum at the new -secret for now- brush piles. I hope they grow up by tomorrow morning.

After that, it was dead calm and HOT. I jumped in the water a few times throughout the day after 11 am. My mission now was to find where in the heck the sandies went to. They have been hiding a bit for a couple days. I ran into a school on the surface near hybrid point and pick 3 mags out of it. But just to man dinks in the school. Most were just over 10 inches. Went over to Intake cove and joined up with PlanoKeith and caught a few mags there. But again, It was just to hot. We decided to split up and do quick looks at the spots they are usually in. Not there. I ended up at glass house as last stop and saw Keith stop in the middle of the lake and I saw his trolling motor down so I figured he was on the dinks on top. Cruised up there and they were going ballistic on top.9-12 inch fish. I got bored of every cast so I tied on a 5 inch top water spook and started burning it across the school. I would only slow it down when I saw a big fish behind it or I got a good explosion. These Mags would come up and just slam it! 15-16 inch sandies knocking my spook 2 ft in the air. Then you have Keith screaming like a kid in a free- all you can eat candy store. He got a bit quiet when he saw I was videoing., lol. It was awesome. Every time you would bring a fish to the boat there were 10-20 behind it. Lots and lots of times, I could a reached over the side of the boat and hand fed the exploding fish. They would boil right up next to the boat. The shad would try and hide around the boat. I had to pick 40-50 dry baby shad out the back of the boat and stuck to the engine. They were apparently jumping all the way out of the water trying to get away.I might be able to get a vid up. Movie maker not happy right now.



In the middle of the ciaos, I had a school of 8-10 4-6 lb blue cats under the surface swim by looking for shad. There were shad flying out of the water everywhere and sandies just crushing them for acres all around Keith and I. You would see a ball of 3 inch shad roll by the boat on the surface. they would get 20 ft from the boat and just get pounded by the fish. It was like a national geo documentary.



Then about 20 mins after the top water mags was over, the 8-12's were still going mad. Keith said he had big fish under him at 15 ft. I did too. So I counted down 15 ft with the slab and started slabbing at 15 ft deep in 35 ft of water. Then it was game on! Mag after Mag after Mag. in the 1 hour were there I bet we caught 80-100 keeper sandies. No idea how man dinks we caught.

Nice report Carey, I ran into a big school two weekends ago in the middle of the lake by the Island. All dinks though but still fun to catch. I only keep about 8 for dinner anyway...

:DCarey you doing night trips? don't see a thing on your website, less boats, less heat. thanks L ike

Was supposed to go tuna fishing Thursday night but after a 5 hour drive to Freeport and jumping in the boat for 30 min, the port engine went out and we had to turn around and come back to Dallas.

Last week, I had caught a couple of crappie while sandbass fishing, so since I had taken the day off for fishing and did not know anything about crappie fishing, I texted Carey and asked if he could show me the ropes. We spent the morning going over the electronics and what to look for using my boat and then stopped to do some fishing later in the morning.

It was really cool talking with Carey and actually seeing what he talks about in all of his threads. We were able to use my SI to scan for piles and look at trees for fish. I also learned just how much of a finesse fish this is compared to sandbass or tuna for that matter.

We caught enough fish for dinner and I caught by PB crappie which beat my PB from last week..

I would recommend Carey anytime, I always learn tons from my trips.

I only fish Lavon, so if you sa camo G3 with rods in the rodholders say hi!

Here was the PB from today. I am sure that we could have caught a limit but I do not chase limits, only dinner . I kept 8 before we started throwing them back..

Lake Lavon has been amazing.






It's been Insane. Top water bite has been greatness. Throw anything at them and they will bite. A three inch chrome popper will catch two fish at a time they are so aggressive right now.



You throw a topwater in the feeding frenzy, and before you close the bail on your reel, you have one. I like to burn the topwater back and have the Sandies popping at it- but just out of reach. You will figure out a speed to just keep the Sandy's trailing the popper without eating it.. When I see a bigger wake, or a blow up attempt that is bigger than the smaller blowups, I'll slow the popper down and walk the dog. These big 15-16 inch Sandies will launch out of the water hitting the poppers so hard it will actually scare you.



And not to mention the Hybrids we have in the lake now. I see them on a daily basis right now. Not a lot of them, but they are there. 17-25 inch fish there.



Limits of Sandies are almost a guarantee for the average joe that fishes every weekend.



Top water, rattletraps, slabs, cohoes, whatever. It all works. When they're on top. Try to fish the outside of the school and don't motor up and stop in the middle of it. They will stay up a lot longer that way.


Above is the Sandies just waking up and starting to bite. 630am





The fish can be up on top and feeding for so long that multiple boats will run their trolling battery out of juice. Even mine was just about out at about 700-730pm when the fish finally stopped. Probably had 2% left and was only going .25 mph. Crazy good days.



The fish are gorging so furiously, that they are getting fat! Just beware of all the shad they're going to barf up on your boat. And of course what they eat, must come out. Prepare for that, #2.


Did you see the fish suspended at 15 to 18 feet, get the slab out and make it as long as the rod. Then, most rods are about 2 foot distance from the reel to the first eyelid of the rod. So if Your rod is 7 foot, make 5 pulls of line from the reel to the first eye. You should be somewhere in the fishes face by then. Raise the rod tip up in the air rapidly like a shad would be, trying to get away from something, and let the Luer pull the rod tip back down to the depths -And repeat. You will start to feel them picking at the lure. Start setting the hook and have fun.



Down Imaging of suspended Sandies in open water.



Two-man limit of white bass, and we stopped at one brush pile to pick out some crappie. Limits of Sandy's usually take less than one hour. Most of the time 20 minutes or less once they surface. Instead of waiting out in the middle of the lake for the Sandy's to start surfacing, go check the points first. We've actually been limiting on Sandy's before they even start busting shad on the surface.


Above you can see dark shadows with round circle shadows. That's a side scan off a submerged tree. The round circles are huge crappie. 15-16' inches. With a few 10-12's mixed in.

And when I'm using a slab, I tie aThump Buddy jig in white and chartreuse above the slab 18 inches.

For crappies, but he's black and chartreuse or white and chartreuse. "Thump Buddies" last on the hook and won't rip apart. Only time you have to replace them, is when you lose your entire hook and jig. They are super tough made of like volleyball material. Impregnated with garlic smell. The fish can't resist.

Above you can see some long round white shapes hanging off the side of the tree on the right side. We pulled 15 big Crappie off the right side of that tree in 15 to 20 minutes. And called it a day. ( meanwhile, Sandy's are blowing up all around my boat)



Catching Giants.



I can't say it any better than this. The fish are in brush piles and timber. The best spots are the spots you cannot see. 10 foot of water all the way out to 25 foot of water on anything submerged. Best depth of submerged structure seems to be 10 foot to 18 foot.

You can catch me up on Facebook @ Carey A Thorn

I've been doing some live video so while you're at work, you can watch the fish in action. A lot of tips tricks locations and videos on my Facebook page. Updated daily

See ya posted this wed am but man that's old as dir#@ any report current or is it too hot for ya LOL

BTW posted while back about night trips not seen reply????

Last four pics were yesterday morning. I usually take most Wednesday's off.

Pic a night you want to fish mid August.

Lake Lavon Fishing Guide Report:

It has been a great year on Numbers. A couple fish are hitting 15 inches but most are 10 1/2 to 13 inches.



My main depths are 8 foot all the way down to 22 foot. If I was to narrow that down a little bit, I would say 12 to 18 foot is key. I was to narrow that down a little bit, I would say 12 to 18 foot is key.

I got a Solix 12 from Shut-Up-And-Fish, and oh my god is this thing awesome. I could tell you exactly how many fish are in a brush pile or sitting on a piece of timber. And I can almost tell you exactly how big they are.



The mega imaging is incredible.



We have been using white and chartreuse jigs on 1/16 oz jig heads. Sometimes we will use 1/8 ounce if it's really windy or there's a current.



On the good days, we can catch a limit of white bass and then switch over and catch a limit of crappie! Lavon is great right now.



Some days brush is better than timber, and then some days timber is better then brush. Every day has been different. I just scan all the structure before I fish it to make sure there is enough fish on it to keep my customers happy. I try not to stop on structure unless it has 15 or more crappie on it.



One other tool that has helped me tremendously that I got off of Shut Up & Fish as well, is the Minkota Ultrex ipilot. I don't have to stand on front of the boat anymore with my foot on the pedal keeping the trolling motor over the structure. I just spot lock next to the structure, and let my clients decimate the crappie population below the boat.



It is a pain in the butt for me to post on here now as I have to send all my pictures to Photobucket and then upload them to hear. These days it's a lot easier for me to post on Facebook. You can look me up at Carey A Thorn on Facebook to see updated information.

I will be having a seminar at Bass Pro Shops in Garland Texas that sits on Lake Ray Hubbard. This will be again July 29 at 2 PM. If you have visual or hearing problems I suggest you get there a little bit early to secure a seat up front as these seminars get tons of people. This seminar will actually be on three different species of fish. Some days it's just too windy to catch crappies. The sandy's are usually always willing to feed. If you want something bigger I will also be covering the black bass. All in one seminar.



In the picture above, from the Solix 12, you can see every single tree in the picture is absolutely filled up with Crappie! It's been a great year so far and it should get even better before the fall hits. If the lake wood to hold a thermocline, it'll be a lot easier to catch these. It's already easy, but it will be easier.



One of the worst things you can do is anchor on top of a brush pile. You end up squishing it and dragging it off of its location. Then you will go back to that spot telling everybody you caught the heck out of the fish only to realize the brush pile is flattened now. Yeah, anchoring on the brush doesn't help your future catching experiences. If you squish it the fish will not come back. This was the next day, in the picture above, after I saw a pontoon boat anchored on this brush pile. This brush pile used to be 12 feet tall. Now it's 3 foot. This picture was taken almost a month ago, now it's just the debris field with no fish.



Word of wisdom, make sure you understand the restricted zones on where you are not allowed to fish. They are not marked very well but if you have GPS they are definitely marked on your GPS mapping system. It's a $450 ticket if you are caught fishing in restricted zone's such as right up against the damn itself, any of the pump stations, or the power plant. The game warden does not care if it is not marked properly. And you will lose in court if you try to fight it anyways. As many people have tried and failed.



It's getting hot outside so Try to drink two bottles of water before you even hit the water. Once you get on the water you'll start catching fish and forget to hydrate yourself.

If you would like to book a trip the easiest way to contact me is via text. I will obviously answer the phone and emails. But a more direct answer would be via text. If you have any questions please text me with your questions and I will answer. Thanks guys have a great week. I have tons and tons of pictures within the last time I posted but y'all get the point. Lavon is just kicking out fish.