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Fishing Lake Fork, Texas
Tom Redington
March 7, 2005
Lake Fork - Freshwater Fishing Report
Lake Fork Weekly Report
In the areas of Lake Fork that my customers and I fished this week, the bass seem to be stuck in their own version of Purgatory, somewhere between Prespawn and Spawn. After a lot of fish moved up onto beds the prior week, the cooler and cloudy days last week resulted in a drop of water temps of 6 to 12 degrees, depending on the area. As a result, there are a lot of males hanging around the spawning areas and we’re seeing a number of really big females suspended near deeper cover. With a little sunshine and the New Moon this week, I expect a lot of big fish to start moving up. Meanwhile, we’re catching mostly males with an occasional big female, up to 9 lb 2 oz, mixed in.
The lake conditions have remained pretty stable for the last few days. Fork’s water level remains at 402.68’, about 4” below full pool. We’ve had little wind and rain in the past week, so the backs of creeks are mostly clear again. Water temperatures bottomed out around 52 degrees and have started to climb to the mid-50s with temps in the backs of protected pockets reaching as high as 60.5 Sunday afternoon.
While a large portion of Fork’s bass are still staging on points and along creek channels, our catch rates have been much better on grassy flats in the backs of spawning bays. Productive areas are easy to find by looking for spots with a lot of vacant beds. Put on your Polarized glasses or run your trolling motor on high and you’ll see a lot of fish cruising around in these places. And if you can find places like this with the wind blowing into them, our catch rates have been higher.
While we did catch a few big fish on a red lipless crankbait, soft plastics and jerkbaits were by far our best producers. #1 with a bullet were soft plastic jerkbaits like the Fluke, Magic Shad and Senko. Wacky rigged trick worms also caught a lot of fish and so did a 6” or 8” lizard. A lightly weighted lizard with more of a gliding action, via a Carolina rig or a 1/16 to 3/16 oz Texas rig is currently producing best. Concentrate your casts around any piece of shallow cover, including wood, docks, grass clumps, and holes in the grass. In terms of color, shades of green like watermelons and green pumpkins are doing best for us. Finally, jerkbaits like a Suspending Rogue in gold are producing numbers of fish over the grass on points and flats on some days. Furthermore, a jerkbait fished through timber and around grass in the deeper water near spawning areas is a premiere method to catch females that are suspended in wait before they move to the banks to spawn.
Here’s hoping you catch the lunker of your dreams. If I can be of assistance, please contact me at 214-683-9572 (days) or 972-635-6027 (evenings) or e-mail me through www.LakeForkGuideTrips.com where your satisfaction is guaranteed.
Good Fishing,
Tom
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