Fairfield 7/18/09 and water level information

I had not been to fairfield in a while before yesterday and I have been noticing all kinds of questions regarding rain, boat ramps and water level. Fairfield is in decent condition and could use quite a bit of rain. The water level is way low and the south ramp is not usable for any decent size boat. I did see a small boat launch there and when I say small, I mean not much bigger than a canoe. The north ramp is still usable but you need to know what you are doing to make the launch and pickup easy. Thanks to Parker (from Tff) and one of his crew mates, I was easily able to get the boat out. You need to stay in the center of the ramp to pull the boat out.

Yesterday, Fairfield was loaded with folks from TFF and it was nice to meet those of you that I did not know. I headed to the lake with a former TFF'er &*^^%^& Parker, it was good to talk to ya and you seem to be a cool dude. You are deff. funny...lol I thought the fishing was excellent but found that others were not quite so lucky. I heard jackie blue was out but did not meet him and also heard varner was out. Hope you did well Varner as that is one heck of a long drive. The drive home was miserable for me. I was just beat down.
I arrived at the lake at 4:30 a.m. and fished until 11:00. We found fish in two different spots and caught between 25 and 30 reds with the largest being 40 inches. All fish came on artificials and the fish were loaded along the hydrilla lines in both areas that we found them. Lures were key as these fish are staying in fast moving schools. We would catch a few and then the fish would move and we would follow. I have heard that the lake was low on large fish but I found that this is not quite true. The thing is, people are using the wrong lures and the wrong size lures. keep in mind that a large fish can consume a very large bait. Those of you that are out, take a look at the size of the gizzard shad you see floating on the surface, those are perfect size for a decent sized red. As stated, most of the fish came from the hyrdrilla ledges but many fish were also caught along points that were loaded with bait and channels where the water would drop a few feet. The fishing is excellent if everything is done just right. I did make a few mistakes at the beginning by using too small a lure but I made up for that fast. The smaller lure caught lots of small reds but once I upsized, the big boys started coming to the boat. Using the right equipment, the small 18-22 inch reds can be landed in seconds. Keep that in mind for quick action, if you waste too much time on the little dudes, the schools will move quick and this will cut down on your numbers. The fishing was excellent and the only person that caught something that I would have had a hard time matching was don miller. That dude caught a rod and reel and no matter how hard I had tried, I dont think I could have pulled that one off. lol
One more note, We trolled a minute and had two hits within a few minutes and called it quits because it was getting late. Trolling should work very well right now, especially as the day heats up. Good luck to those of you that head out and I truly think that trolling will be very effective during the hot hours of the day.
Here are some photos to go with the story and report.I kept one fish to make fish tacos and fish sandwiches. (*&&*( kept a limit for fish fry and neighbors. Someone asked if the fish died when we caught them and no, they did not. They died once they hit the bitter cold at the bottom of the ice chest..lol

One more thing. I saw some animal that I have never seen before. It was swimming in the water near the dam on the west side of the lake. It looked similar to a tapir but was light brown in color. Was way too big to be a beaver or nutria and the thing swam very well. It swam quite a ways out, grabbed a big shad and swam back to shore and was gone as quick as it made it back to the cat tails. Anyone ever seen any crazy looking creatures out there? I have seen all kinds of animals and am a nature nut but have never seen anything like this. *&&^&* and I tried to follow the thing with the trolling motor but it was fast. Could have been a funny looking light skinned hog with his ears up while swimming but I have never seen one swim like that in order to pick up a shad. Thanks..

Great report! Thanks....

Love that lake!

I have seen some big otters there. Awesome report!

That's a great report. Much thanks for posting it.

Mind telling us the lures that worked best for you and sizes?

My guess would be an otter...those critters can really eat a bunch of fish.

Great report.
My guess is that you saw a river otter. We saw a baby 3wks. ago barking and running around a point looking for its parents.
I may take my dad out there again this coming wkend, for his B-day.

What kind of lures were you using Pie?

Cant give my new special lure away but any large lure that imitates a big bait should work. The smaller lures we used were 6 inches long by 3 inches deep. For some odd reason, the blue lures seemed to fair the best while anything too flashy did not draw too many strikes. The other lure we used was very big and is something that bass fisherman in california use for the behemoth bass. The lure runs about 50$ or so, some around 60$.
The animal I saw was not an otter. The animal was about the size of a lab retriever and could have been a hog but if so, it was very deformed. I was informed that there was once an animal that was similar to what I saw but it is said to be extinct. The animal looked like Giant Nutria that had grown 20 times larger than he was suppose to be.

Hey that is not your boat ...could you have launched your boat down there???

Great report -- any idea what the water temp was?? You guys wear me out with those big lures!!!

i can launch my boat but the boat we were in is the fairfield special. we have only been using my boat for short range trips and when its rough out. water temp was 92.5 and 95. his boat, bluethunder,aka the flounder2 is great in the summer

There is a blood line of farrow hogs down there that are mostly dirty blond with a few black spots on them. I have not seen one swimming yet, but I would think with their body fat they should float pretty good. However, I have not even seen a hog eating a dead fish on a shore line.

The otters are black to dark brown. ears are often up when they swim

I have seen plenty of raccoons swim out to get a dead fish. The ones that swim often have a tan more blondish or sandy colored coat because the salt is either hanging in their fur or bleaching their fur out. However, when dry and they are approaching the water or drained out they still show the ring pattern.

Walking across the ramp from the cleaning station I did see one of the largest raccoons I have even seen last weekend, about the size of a chubby 30-50# dog. I would not think the raccoons down by the dam could eat as well as those fishing cleaning station scavengers.

The berm at the ramp is at 3.4ft under the surface. Figure out what your boat needs to work safely. The power company was not pumping in Trinity water Thursday late, Friday or Saturday. I did not check Sunday. Without pumping the lake is probably going to drop 1.2" per week, use 3.4ft and start subtracting until you hear they are pumping again. They got rain some Friday and Sunday. The nearest weather stations recorded no Sunday rain and 0.05" to 0.25" Friday. But my 20ft fiberglass rain guage bilge pumped 40 and 70 seconds worth out those two respective days. The Big Brown creek showed no signficant flow a few hours after the two heavier Sunday squalls passed.

Guys the lake is no longer going to hold a consistent temperature like years past. I confirmed recently the power station is no longer in the power grid "Base Loaded" pricing pattern, it is now being modulated up and down as the power system needs to buy their higher cost power production. As a consequence these stations will no longer be running full out like they used to be.

As a result the lake temperature can rise or fall at least 4-6 deg F over a days time as they modulate their loading. Weekday patterns should be warmer because the business power loads is in that demand pattern, but mostly off (with lower water flow and temperatures) on the weekends. If the equivalnet of 800 MWatt of cheaper power supplier has mechanical problems and drops off the line Big Brown's load could go to the maximum even on weekend. They can probably idle load these stations at about 10-30% of maximum capacity.

Get a mental or camera picture of the power plant stack flows it will tell you all you need to know about how heavily they are loaded while you are there. The water flow and temperature will generally follow that stack flow pattern. watch the size of the flow and how high it rises vertically off the top of the stack. That cannot tell you how heavily they were loaded the hours before you got there and the resulting lake temperatures. I was told recently they turn (pump) the equivalent of a full lake's volume once a day. (My opinion now) But there can be a time lag in where the peak temperature point is in the flow pattern. Confirming this, this year I and others have seen a point in the main lake where the temperature at the hot outfall area was actually cooler by a few degrees than some point down the lake at the mid or dam face lake. It depended upon the day and time of that day (we have lights on overnight).

Bottom line hereafter the lake temperature pattern is going to be quite different (lower mostly) from years back.

does that mean the water might not evaporate as fast?

Bring me my brown pants....

How much rain did the lake get today. Anyone know? Thanks for the report. I am thinking of going Thursday. I hope I will have time and see if I can find some BIG baits. Steve

They went into this partial load pattern sometime before last winter. The 1.2" per week evaporation rate is for the current power station loading pattern. Is 1.2"/wk slow enough for you?

PS to the above, with Texas setting a highest peak load last week just before the cool spell started Friday, we just saw the heaviest or nearly the heaviest loading those station will probably be asked to produce until the next record heat wave, and certainly more than the cooler season loads.

The future good news for you green rough (LMB) fisherman the reeds have grown down to the current waters edge and into the water in some places. If and when we get enough rain to get the lake back up or over normal pool those reeds beds are going to be a glorious place for the bait and the green rough fish to hide.

I did not gather 2-3 inches in my boat during the daytime yesterday. Dang son both Waco's and DFW's Doppler radar say they got 6-11" in the last 29 hours time. It was a clear sky when I left there Sunday evening. But a big black finger of cloud pointed that way when I got up to Ennis.....hum

use this link for Waco when it works, have patience to wait on the screen to pop up then turn on the rainfall sum click box. When their Fort Hood antenna is down WACO uses the DFW antenna (watch the ground clutter pattern to see which antenna WACO is currently using).

use this link for DFW sourced radar predicted rainfall, click on the rainfall box again. This DFW antenna has a partial blind spot ranging out over the FF area. That blind spot tends to reduce rainfall sums read from DFW.

It showed on the rainfall radar the lake should have gotten between 7 to 10 inches. Can anyone confirm that?

To be honest Daune and I both pulled up the line on that rod in the same casts, since Duane's end was closer to the rod tip and he touched it first he gets the catch credit. It put up very little fight. We decided it did not need to be iced down.

That is the second (Awh Snider) rod and reel we have pulled up this year. Fourth in the last two years. Duane cleans and rebuilds the reels and then gives them to poor kids and church friends he thinks would like to try fishing. Darn things never have any better than a Ugly stick rod, however sometimes decent reels like Penns or Abu 5500s! Dag Zebcos must be rotting away down there.

I was retrieving a special secret plug last weekend myself. It hung on something that gave a little so we decided we could try to get my plug back thinking it was fishing line or a trot line that needed to be pulled out. Needless to say I wanted back my one and only special plug tangled in it and was not going to give up until I got that plug back out. It took a great lure retriever and both of us lifting to pull a 15" X 12" by 8" thick trot line rock anchor out of the mud suction and lift it to the boat deck. We failed to weight it before we cut the cords and released it in deeper water but I can produce edited pictures of that rock wrapped in the cords to prove it. For a charge edited pictures of it are available. Edited, of course to hide my new expensive and super secret trot line and rock hounding plug.

Were you casting the blue plug or trolling those California specials when you turned up that prehistoric fish chasing creature? It was not that hot Saturday, or were you just tipping the funny shaped glass bottle a little to hard, or did you find the south end of that Navarro county mega weed patch before the sheriff got it all chopped down?

Seen plenty of deer swimming in that lake, however never seen the one that retrieves dead gizzard shad. Wonder how and who trained him ? A movie of it would be worth a $10,000 award on one of those funnest animals TV picture shows.

You all have been following the TFF reported Grapevine underwater deer herd slab hook up haven't ya. http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/posts/3468195/WORLD_RECORD_NEARLY_CAUGHT_LAK

Two different radar sources show it. They got plenty only a question as to precisely how much. In past so far for 2-4 incidents Slabexpress has reported more rain in local guages than these radars said fell.

Maybe slabexpress can confirm with some local rain guage readings, or call the park office. It seems like somebody on the park staff or the office had a guage working.

We got about 2 inches the last two days here, at my house. We are supposed to get more tonight and maybe tomorrow. I live about 5 min from the lake so i'll let yall know tomorrow if we get any more.....Daniel

Been a long time since we heard from you. Hope you mended up well. Drop me a PM with a working phone number.

How easy are shad to get there. I have only fished the lake about 5 times and never have had luck there. All I seem to catch are the tilapia. I must have catch 150 of those things. I had blisters. All were too big to use. Steve

slice Tilapia into strips, reds like it that way also. One or two good size ones will last you all day.

Shad you generally need a boat and a good location. Location changes with the season and conditions. Last few weeks I saw a bunch floating too small to carry a hook. But I'm too anguish when I get near water and too lazy to case shad first so I'm not your best knowledge source. Chevron station used to sell frozen shad. Call ahead they were out the last time I looked into that freezer.

Closest rain gauge I have access to showed 2 7/10" yesterday, may have gotten a little more this morning.
The good news is that it looks like at least that much fell in the prime area for watershed into FF.

Don,
Sorry I haven't been around to give more reports. This is just been an extra busy summer for me, and it's almost over.

was this what you saw? http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dnutria%26rs%3D2%26ei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3Dyfp-t-203%26fr2%3Dtab-web&w=500&h=333&imgurl=static.flickr.com%2F187%2F466810285_9c8817b27e.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fj-a-x%2F466810285%2F&size=198k&name=Nutria&p=nutria&oid=16d40af53a3143be&fr2=tab-web&fusr=J-a-x&no=5&tt=37188&sigr=11de9vg43&sigi=11ea0mpbm&sigb=12spkqru9

Wish I would have known you were out there We did ok, but hey, we caught some reds ... the drive is not that long, 1 1/2 hours... not much longer then Tex or Cooper Good looking fish....

Any chance what you saw could have been a Bobcat? They will eat fish, and I would not think they are afraid to swim after meat they can see. This year I have seen a drowned Bobcat come washing down the hot outfall flow, which is the power company side of the lake. I assumed he died trying to swim over or through the low level dam froth.

A few years back I wind drifted up on a good size Bobcat about three boat length away on a Ray Robert cove shore line fishing for carp and spawning bass for about an hour. He sat very still waiting for the fish to come within reach then pounced on them. He saw me and my boat the whole time, never bothered him in the least. Way to big to be a farrow cat, and about the size of a retriever. The rump walks higher than the front, and shows a short tail.

PS Bobcats have been seen liking to swim

Now that would be an interesting thing to watch! Bobcats are facinating anyway.

chupacabra