Cedar Creek Lake Reports for August 2021

Friend Cliff and I went out yesterday (Aug 3) at 8:30 AM and fished til about 4 PM. We caught 168: 155 white bass, 6 hybrids, 6 cats, and an estimated 35 lb, 33 inches long buffalo. We found fish at Long Ridge West, Key Ranch, Spillway Hump, Enchanted Isle Ridge, Game Warden Hump, Spillway Point, and Long Ridge, where we left still catching. Four of the hybrids were caught at Long Ridge. Here is pic of buffalo - I was in quite a strain in that pose:

Wow! That is a beast! Thanks for the report!

Great report Dennis. Thank you !! I thought your arm would be sore from your trip to Texoma. LOL. Are you still catching them on # 4's ?

10# test line is truly impressive for a monster like that, DC
I caught one slightly bigger than that on Twok few weeks ago on 10# test also. It took me forever to wear him out and net it and BARELY fits the net. Think i strained several muscles I didn't know i have lifting it in the boat. Lol

4's and 2's. There are new smaller shad and older bigger shad in the lake. One structure may have the small requiring a 2 while the next structure may have the larger shad requiring the 4.

Great catch Dennis , congrats on your trip to Texoma, Thanks for the report

Nice post and fish. Good job.

Thanks for the report. Will be there Saturday through Tuesday with my grandson again this year. Just finished rigging their rods with some number 2’s. Also going to try the Hellbender and pet spoon thing and let them “drive” the boat.

Thank you for your report. it is a great picture.

spacejunkie: Rig some rods up with #4 Mepps also. We caught all fish on 4's today. I believe there are 2 sizes of shad in the lake - the older, bigger ones and the new hatch. Fish could be on either one, so you need to be ready for both.

awesome buffalo

Thanks. Will do.

Dennis just curious but do your Mepps have feathers or are they the ones with bare hooks?

Bare hooks - called plain Aglia.

So far this morning has not been a good morning of fishing. Finding some fish but can’t get them to bite. Tried MAL lures, slabs everything that I typically catch whites on here. Stopped for lunch at Star Harbor, will try it again after lunch.

Have you tried tolling the hell pet? I bet you will get bit using that technique. Thursday I located several schools of fish. If I stopped and threw a Mepps #4, some groups would take it while other would not. Since I didn't have my Mepps #2 with me, I trolled and the group that didn't want the Mepps #4 would clobber the pet spoon.

We had the same thing yesterday. Marked lots of fish that didn’t want to bite. We finally caught about 70 yesterday evening at the Tennis Courts and Rock Pile Hump on MAL and #4. Good luck.

Went back out after lunch and not any better. Found fish but couldn’t get them to bite.

Best concentrations of fish I found were on spillway point, didn’t matter as they wouldn’t bite. Also had a huge school at the rock wall that wouldn’t bite either.

Ended the day with only a handful of fish. Last time at CC, end of June we caught 115. What a difference 45 days makes!!

That sounds like fish were on the small shad. To catch them I use the #2 Mepps method that I show in the YouTube video link in my signature block below. Else, use the hellpet trolling method to catch them.

I will add that when we caught them on 4s Thursday, we had to reel the Mepps really fast to get them to bite.

I have marked fish many times an spillway point and have come up empty handed. I sometimes call it sucker point. Directly east of that position is spillway hump and like usual there were good concentrations of fish on Thursday.

I gotta thank you DC. The Mepps lure/technique you talk about is so much fun!! I got into a school of whites in 13 FOW on Lavon and they would crush the #4 Mepps Aglia.

Nice Buffalo! what a fish!

Awesome report Dennis.

August 5: Took golfing buddies Rob and Bobby out for the 1st time. Took us a while to find fish. Ended up catching about 10 at the Rock Pile and about 57 more at Enchanted Isle Ridge. One was a hybrid and almost all the rest were sandbass. Both were able to learn the Mepps technique, even though they had equipment problems. Bobby discovered upon reaching my dock that a part of his reel was missing. So he used a spin-cast rig of mine. But that had the line break leaving it empty of line. He then used one of my casting reels and, since he was not used to them, he was backlashing constantly. Finally, we spooled line from one of my reels on to the spincast rig, and he caught some fish. Rob's problem was that he didn't have a full spool of line on his casting reel, and the line was very stretchy. He couldn't reel it fast enough to get a bite, and if they did bite it, the stretchy line made it very difficult to feel. So, I traded reels with him, and he started catching fish. Understanding the issues with his rig, I was able to compensate and catch fish on it. Here are pics of Rob and Bobby with fish:
Rob


Bobby

August 11-12: On the 11th I took out Chris, who is new to the area, and my friend Gordon, and on the 12th I rode with friend Cliff and his friends Dave and James. Fishing was the same for both days - we could find plenty of fish, but getting them to bite was a constant challenge. We ended up catching over 60 on both days, but threw many casts into fish and got no bites. We did learn something to help induce a bite yesterday. First, let me say that it appears more and more of the fish are on the newer, smaller hatch of shad. For me, that means fishing with the Mepps #2. I would try a 4 at each spot but there would be no takers. Switch to a 2 and I could catch some fish. The 2 things we learned yesterday that helped induce a strike on the 2 were (1) to wait 5 to 10 seconds after each drag of the bait, i.e. let it sit on the bottom motionless, and (2) Do a one turn of the reel drag followed by a 6 or 7 turn of the reel drag. Those 2 things substantially increased our bite per cast ratio. So add those to the Mepps 2 technique shown in the YouTube video (link in my signature block below). I think the need for these two additions is temporary and won't be necessary in a few days as the shad get a little larger.

I spent about an hour today testing a Mepps #1 set up like a #2. It caught white bass on most casts and also caught two hybrids about 20 inches long. The fish are feeding on the new, smaller hatch of shad, which makes it hard to catch them. The smaller #1 Mepps seemed to match the hatch.

What time of the year is the best schooling action on Cedar Creek?

I'm not the guy to ask since I don't go looking for schooling fish. Ask that question as a new topic. I know there used to be a group of guys that got out early every day looking for schooling fish. Hopefully one of them will address your question.

Awesome thread.

Got to sunken island this morning at the break of day and started fishing in about 13 fow or so and was trying a #4 Mepps. Tried using it for about 30 minutes or so with no luck. I then tied on a #3 and started catching fish. Just as Dennis had said, they were feeding on the smaller shad. The wife kept using a #4 with no luck. I was right on the edge of the drop off just off the 8 to 10 fow and the fish seemed to be in more quantity coming when I was casting to the shallow water. Fish started schooling like crazy and they stayed up for at least 30 minutes. We just kept following them. I never dreamed they would stay up that long. Guess the cloud cover had something to do with it. There was some small fish and also some good fish mixed in. While sitting still, I was casting the Mepps and reeling it back to the boat just like you would when using a #4. Seemed to want a slow retrieve today, just fast enough to make the blade spin. Ended with 25 keepers and threw lots of smaller fish back.

Thanks for the report. Sunken Island is one of the most consistent places on CC to find white bass. I am catching whites on both #2 and #1 right now due to small shad.

Checked out Dennis Christian’s map and don’t see a spot called sunken island, where is it?

I think this is it:

Yes, that's it.

Dennis have you fished any evenings lately? I haven't been down this year but thought I might since school is starting up.

Thank you

8/23/2021: Took neighbor Patrick and his two fellow, retired Dallas police officers Andy and Julian out fishing on Cedar Creek Lake. We started slow but finally got into a good school of white bass on the north finger of Spillway Hump. We used #2 Mepps to boat a total of 83 fish.
Here is Andy with nice white bass:


8/27/2021: Took house guests Franklin and Andy out twice. We fished from 8:30 AM to 1:30 PM in the morning and caught 106 including two 21 inch hybrids. Almost all were caught on Mepps #4's. We found fish at Long Ridge in 23 fow, Key Ranch Drop-off in 15 fow, and at Merimac Point in 21 fow. We made an afternoon run from 5 PM to 7:30 PM and caught 36 at East Dam Hump in 22 fow using #4 Mepps. Here are some pics of both outings:

Continue on on sharing the gifts and blessings, DC

Thank you DC for always sharing your trips with friends,family, and to all of us that enjoy fishing .

Well, same place, different day. Went out this morning to sunken island at daybreak and after seeing fish on the finder in 7 FOW, decided to start there. Wife and I both started throwing a #4 Mepps with little results. She caught a couple of small fish and I had a good sized carp pull off at the boat. After a little time and not doing so well, we moved out to about 13 FOW with still no luck. Around 8 ish, we moved back to 10 FOW and I changed to a #3 Mepps and started catching fish after 3 or 4 cast. I guess unlike Dennis C on the south end of the lake, where he caught most of his on a #4, these fish were feeding on the smaller shad still. Sat there in the 10 FOW till 9:30 and ended up catching approx. 45 and ended up keeping 26. Fish seemed to come in waves and would slow down some and then pick back up to catching one every cast. Most fish were in the 12 to 15 inch range with some smaller than that. Like stated above, only 3 fish on #4's and the rest on #3's. Fish seemed to want a slow retrieve today.

I went out briefly Saturday at Long Ridge West and Key Ranch and they wanted the smaller Mepps - for me that's a #2. No takers for a #4.

I don't normally fish on the weekend but I have a young neighbor (34 years old) who wanted to take his 2 brothers and his 12 year nephew out to catch sand bass. He wanted me to take my boat and be the captain while he was going to act as the first mate. His 2 brothers and nephew are not fisherman so trolling was pretty much my only option. Long ridge had been producing for me lately so I started there. The hell pet combo did not disappoint and everyone caught fish, started talking smack and had a smile on their face. Stayed there for about an hour and they were still biting when we left. I headed to the east side of spillway hump. There were fish but most were small. Kept a few and then headed to the sunken island. I came around the island on the east side looking between 14' and 21' of water. There was a boat on top of the island and a guide on the west side but he was in shallower than I wanted. As I came full circle I spotted a huge school of fish stacked between 16' and 18' on the south side. Caught doubles on 2 passes and then my neighbor asked if we could lock on top of the fish so he could show his brothers and nephew how to vertical jig a slab. That freed me up to finally get to fish so I pulled out the mepps #4 and started to wear them out. The fish I caught were magnums. The fish they caught on the slab was barely over 10". After about 30 minutes of catching fish, we left them biting because the nephew was getting board and hungry so we headed back. Caught 50 but kept 35 so they could have a fish fry Saturday night. Mission accomplished!

Thanks Dennis and RoadRunnerTR21 for the reports. Weird how I could not buy a bite on a #4 at sunken island, but RoadRunner caught his fish on a #4. Just goes to show you that things can be different in the same spot depending on the fish. RoadRunner, do not know what time you showed up at sunken island, I was in a blue colored pontoon sitting in the shallow part of the hump. If that was me you spotted on top of the hump, next time stop and say hi. Always good to meet new people and share information.

justchillin according to you post I think you were out there yesterday. I was there Saturday morning around 0915. Where on the lake do you live? I'm in Key Ranch.

Great Catching Dennis