Whitney

Decided to go to Whitney today instead of Texoma, because of the big bass tournament.

I think I lost more tackle today, than I ever have in my life, and never saw a single shad. Now I know why Whitney is not known for it's Catfish. Don't know what the striper are eating, but it sure doesn't look like it's shad.

Catfish are there, as are the shad. Just kinda a tough lake. Lots of water and they can be anywhere.

Whitney is a dang good Bluecat fishery. My buddies that fish it catch a ton of big fish out of it. And the few times I’ve been with em we smashed em pretty good. It has a ton of good fish but striper fisheries all fish a little different. If your home lake is a Lake Worth your gonna find that it’s a lot easier to find fish on that lake then it is on most other Bluecat fisheries due to its small size and shallow depth. Lots of places for fish to hide on these big lakes.

Finding them wasn't the problem. Getting a rig to them without hanging up was. I broke off more tackle today, than I have in the last year, LOL I only thought Ray Roberts was underwater tree city. I was afraid I'd lose an anchor, so I only spot locked. Drifting was completely out of the question, after losing 5 Santee rigs, and drift sinkers, I quit that.

There is lots of driftable water on Whitney but just like Raybob you gotta know where it is. Learning it all on your own takes a looooong time. New lakes can be tough on tackle no doubt! I’ve lost thousands of dollars worth of rigs learning all the lakes I fish. If your fishing timber you pretty much gotta anchor but there are a couple of things I’ve done to limit losing all that tackle.

#1 thing a bluecatr can do to help learn new lakes or get good intel before you go is to have a deep list of fishing contacts. I’ve built friendships with bluecatrs all over the state and even in other states I fish. If I’m gonna fish a lake I’m not familiar with I will hit up my contacts and find out where the driftable areas are on the lake before I go. It pays off big time to have high level Bluecat anglers as friends and if your a friendly person you will be able to easily get good intel whenever you need it.

#2 thing is if your going to start fishing a lake more frequently then you gotta scan all your runs that are close to timber and you gotta mark on your graph exactly where the timber starts and where it ends.

A lot of guys don’t want to put in the time and effort it takes to build up their fishing contacts but I gotta tell ya that I’m 10 times the angler today because of my fishing buddies.

I think I started on the wrong end of the lake. I went all the way from Plowman Creek ramp, down past Lakeside, past Steele Creek, and down almost to Cedar Creek. Don't think I ever found an area I would have felt comfortable drifting. One area in the main channel, out in front of Steele Creek, I drifted it, and came up with a couple nice cats there, but I got hung up there too. There were a lot of boat gathered together striper fishing, and I didn't run through them to graph those spots. But, for the most part, I checked most of the top end of the lake. I've striper fished the bottom end, and didn't remember hardly and trees down there. I should have gone there, but was looking for more shallow flats and coves, since the water temp was back in the 60's. Oh well, I'll go back and try that end.