Hello, Anglers. I'm sure a large number of you spent a good bit of time outside over the Labor Day Weekend. The weather was a little warm but basically pretty good for most outside activities. Hunting season officially opened with dove season and I saw a lot of hunters in the fields as well as at local businesses picking up supplies and gassing up their trucks and SUVs. In talking to a group of hunters Saturday afternoon, they said they had lots of doves flying following a rain shower which cooled things off and activated the dove population.
On the lake there were also a lot of pleasure boaters as well as anglers. I headed back to the lake Sunday afternoon and encountered numerous boaters/anglers at local bait shops and lake area businesses. In addition, when I crossed the dam boat traffic was heavy in the open area south of the Louisiana and Texas Islands which is a very popular spot boaters. I had to wait in line to get gas at Tidbits and Tackle which is located near the dam on the Louisiana side. Again, the impressions that I am getting is that the local economy is providing adequate means for most sportsmen to pursue their love of the outdoors and that is a good thing.
LAKE CONDITIONS: The lake is at 168.10 feet with water temperatures down from summer highs to 83 to 85 degrees. The north end of the lake is slightly stained with mid-lake mostly clear and south Toledo very clear. With the lake level falling, there is additional submerged vegetation becoming visible giving anglers more area to fish as well as making points, humps, ditches and ridges lake easier to read.
FISHING REPORTS/BASS: Let's start up top as top water patterns are improving daily as cooler nights have dropped water temperatures slightly which has made fish more active. With low lake levels there are numerous primary and secondary points with visible grass that are holding bass and a plastic Frog (Stanley Ribbit) worked over these are getting some nice bass. Also, your favorite topwater popper will work along the edge of the outside grass with my top favorites being Berkley's Frenzy Popper as well as a Chug Bug both in shad patterns.
Schooling bass are also more numerous in the main feeder creeks, especially on the upper one-half of the creeks as baitfish are starting to move back. We caught them this week on jigging spoons, spinnerbaits, Knock-Offs (tailspinner by Norman Baits), Rat-L-Traps as well as Frenzys and Chug Bugs. We caught yellow bass along with them (largemouth) as well as a few crappie and catfish so there's been plenty of fish to take home. We fried fish on Labor Day that we caught that morning fishing with family and they were delicious.
Some of our best bass recently continue to come from Texas rigs with a variety of set-ups from 5 to 10 inch worms and also adjusting line size and weights. We have been getting a lot of good action fishing 5-inch worms with light sinkers along the edge of outside grassline (12 to 16 feet) all the way out to about 25 feet. We are also doing the same thing with 7 and 10 inch worms but changing up line size and sinkers depending on how bass are relating to cover as well as to how aggressive the fish are.
Basically we are using 12 pound test Berkley and Stren 100% Fluorocarbon on 5 and 7 inch worms and 15 and 17 pound test on the bigger worms. Some of our current favorite soft plastics on Texas rigs include Berkley's Powerbait 5 inch Wacky Crawler, 5 and 7 inch Powerbait Shaky Worms, Zoom Finesse and Trick worms with top colors of soft plastics in watermelon candy, watermelon, green pumpkin and candy bug.
Stanley's Wedgeplus spinnerbait in double willow with chartreuse/white skirts in three-eighth ounce size also are catching bass when worked over grassy points and ridges. This pattern is at its best in low light conditions with a breeze creating a slight ripple or wave action. Crankbaits are also producing with Norman's DLN(Deep Little N) and DD22(deep diver) also catching quality with the early bite being the best but this pattern will catch bass all day. Again, this pattern is usually better in low-light conditions with a little wind.
Finally on the bass scene, the drop-shot is also catching bass and September through November are some of my favorite months to drop shot. With drop-shot patterns, we are using 5 inch Wacky Crawlers and Finesse worms in watermelon, w.m. candy and green pumpkin and targeting 15 to 30 feet depths.
CRAPPIE AND YELLOW BASS: Noe Garcia, experienced crappie guide in the mid-lake area, says he has had one of the best summers in a long time catching crappie from deep brush in 18 to 30 feet. Butch Perrodin, also a crappie guide who is located on south Toledo, caught some decent crappie this week on a similar pattern fishing deep brush with live shiners. On the yellow bass scene, we have been getting customers and family on plent of these fun and good tasting pan fish. We are getting them in depths of 18 to 35 feet on tail spinners (Knock Off by Bill Norman) as well as on a variety of jigging spoons.
AUTHOR INFO: Joe Joslin is a syndicated outdoor columnist, tournament angler and pro guide on Toledo and Sam Rayburn. Contact him at 337-463-3848 or joejoslinoutdoors@yahoo.com. and WEBSITE www.joejoslinoutdoors.com.
