Texas Fishing Forum

Lake Somerville help

Posted By: plk1122

Lake Somerville help - 07/27/17 03:00 AM

I come seeking help and advice. I have struck out many times on Somerville and come asking for any tips and decent spots to try. I think I average 1 catfish every 4 trips using my boat. I launch from Welch park since it is closest to me. I usually use shad on the bottom. I've tried in the middle area between Welch park and big creek. I've tried near snake island and around that area and tried the open water directly south a little from big creek park but. My only alternative I can think of is to hire some guide services to show me where to go and what to look for. Any information or ideas will be appreciated.
Posted By: jackiekennedyfishingguide

Re: Lake Somerville help - 07/27/17 01:30 PM

If I was in your position I'd contact Fish Tales Guide Service
979-229-3103 and talk to Weldon Kirk, he catches and has caught more catfish out of the lake than most others combined.
Posted By: channeldiver

Re: Lake Somerville help - 07/27/17 01:37 PM

Weldon Kirk at Fish Tales Guide Service is your answer. you will enjoy the trip.
Posted By: OllieC

Re: Lake Somerville help - 07/31/17 01:45 PM

feel your pain :-) catfish are surprisingly hard to find/catch sometimes. That's my experience at least. You'll learn more from Weldon on one trip than years of flailing around by yourself. My experience at least :-)
Posted By: plk1122

Re: Lake Somerville help - 08/19/17 02:30 AM

So i hit up somerville this morning and surprisingly ended up with 1 cat (this is alot for me, lol).

I really don't know what to look for when trying to locate catfish. I switched up to using punch bait today and tried 3 areas. Each time i anchored the boat and threw out the line fishing on the bottom. The wind was coming from the west so i found coves that were 7-10 ft where the wind was blowing in to them (stayed 30-40mins per spot). But this did not work at all. It was getting hot and decided i would get some shad and just drift open water, mainly so i could rest. Water was 85 degrees and 15' when i caught my fish and missed 2 others (shame on me).

What do you look for on the fish finder for catfish? What do you look for on the chart map? At the moment, the only thing i know to do is to randomly fish spots to see what works.
Posted By: pineywoods

Re: Lake Somerville help - 09/14/17 01:06 PM

OK, I don't live around there anymore so I'll tell you where I went for guaranteed results in my kayak. There are better spots but you will almost always have great success here. Look at a lake map and find the free Lake Somerville Park on the south shore where Fischer Road dead ends. See that large point that sticks out and looks like the E.T. character's head? On the west shore (ET's nose) there is a line of timber along a drop off. Fish Danny King punch bait along there and catch 2-3 lb cats. Years ago I experimented right there with earthworms, shrimp, fresh cut shad, and punch bait all at the same time. In about 10 minutes I gave up on the other rods because I was so busy getting hits on the punch bait. So, from then on I fished one rod with punch bait and one with fresh or live small shad because every so often I could get a white bass on the shad but the bites were so seldom it didn't distract me from the catfishing. One last piece of advice, it doesn't hurt to throw a couple handfulls of high protein range cubes into the area to heat things up. Just throw them in a fan or arc out from your anchor spot. OK, that will get you started and you can build on that.
Posted By: RespectTheFish

Re: Lake Somerville help - 09/17/17 10:34 PM

I posted a video on youtube called "white bass vs catfish on 2D sonar" by RespectTheFish that is a short and sweet four picture slide show that I hope may be of some help for you. Check out "Finding blue catfish on sonar" by Michael-Teri Littlejohn also. Chad Ferguson of Catfishedge has excellent learning resources to check out on youtube.

At Fort Phantom (my home lake) there are a ton of catfish on top of an island near the creek channel. Find the bait, find the fish. Check wind blown points, islands, humps, flats that have shad on them and active catfish should be in the area somewhere. My catfish are in 20-25 feet of water. Also after watching my video you may realize that you have found white bass while the catfish are picking at another shad school in a different location nearby and you can catch some white bass if you aren't set on catfishing. For locating fish, some people seem to work deep to shallow on a ledge or island top but my approach so far is the opposite. I focus heavily on the top of the island or hump before focusing much on the depths because I find the most active fish in dirty water are the ones that are the shallowest. Perform a zip-zap pattern on the contour lines. As a guide told me once, if you go with the contour line you may be wrong the whole way down the slope. If you zig-zag across the contour lines you are surely going to find fish faster. But first and foremost I scan the tops of the structure and get more excited to see fish shallow.

I hope that is of some help and keep notes in your phone on where the fish are and aren't on your outings. Learning what doesn't work and where the fish aren't is a step closer to learning where the fish are and what works. I had a rough year last year learning my lake with my Helix 12 but after getting my butt kicked last year this year is paying off way better and giving me ideas and expectations for next year because I keep notes.

Hope that helps some! I'm by no means an expert but hope that gives you some ideas on how to start approaching your lake.
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