What a month it has been here on Lake Texoma, the weather patterns are more extreme than I've ever witnessed with a high of 18 degrees one week and a low of 61 degrees the next. I saw the lake surface temperatures plunge to 37 degrees some places and spring back to 55 degrees in other places. The fish have just been trying to adjust all of this which means they are staying on the move to adapt to the dramatic shifts in temperature, as a result it has been difficult to stay on top of their location which means one guide might stumble across some one day and do well and the next day the fish have moved to be found by a different guide. Lures have been the way to go if you are going to put some stripers in the box and the catfishing has been good on live and cut shad. The gizzard and threadfin shad populations have all survived the cold snap and the lake is plumb full of bait.
During the winter, striper sometimes just will not touch a live shad. In the cold water their metabolism decreases and they have no need to feed on a regular basis and may only eat once or twice a week. Between these periods of feeding, they tend to pass their time where they feel the most comfortable which seems to be piled on top of one another in pods so thick it is difficult to distinguish them from a ball of bait on the graph. When they are like this, you might as well just forget about bait, they won't eat it, but if you knock them in the head with a sassy shad you might just get a reaction bite and sometimes you even hook a fish. After a couple of drifts through one of these pods you might catch 1-5 fish before they scatter out and then it is time to move on to the next pod; find enough pods though out the day and you might even get to a limit of fish. It takes a determined methodical precision to locate, set up, drift, cast, catch, and repeat many times during the course of the trip to make this fishing worthwhile but for the guides that stick it out during the winter fishing, sometimes it's the only way to consistently catch fish. For the most part, the fish will tend to stay in the same locations for a few days but if they get too much pressure, or finally get hungry, they scatter out in search of a safe haven or an easy meal. If they are feeding, the bait bite will turn on but it might not last if the water is still too cold.
When the striper fishing gets real tough during the cold, the catfish are sometimes there to bail you out. Winter is the best time to fish for blue cats. Their main food source, the threadfin shad, will ball up in huge schools and roam the deep water. If you can find one of these massive schools, sometimes an acre in size, odds are the catfish are not too far behind. I'm not sure if the catfish become more active in the cold or maybe it is because the shad become so sluggish due to the cold that they are easy prey, either way it can make for some awesome fishing. During this time, the cats will behave in ways you would have thought unimaginable any other time of the year. I've seen schools of cats busting the top in a school of shad, I've caught them drifting live bait in high winds, and I've even caught them under the birds throwing sassy shad, all the time there is not a striper anywhere in sight. However, catfish are more inconsistent and what was awesome one day will be mediocre the next.
I've been on a 6 day run the past week starting last Wednesday Feb. 16 and this is the type of fishing I've been doing, pod hopping and chasing cats to scratch out a living. Some days have been awesome and some days not so much but that's just winter fishing.
Wednesday I started out after almost 3 weeks off and after all that cold and some horrible fishing reports floating around I didn't know what to expect. I had 5 guys that were fishing 3 days with me so I felt confident that I could put them on fish at least one of those days. We start the morning and I find a pod right off the bat, great! We drift through them over and over with only the occasional light tap. After an hour of fishing we finally land our first one, after that fishing was easy. I pretty much stick with a glow sassy shad with a chartreuse spiked tail during this time of year and that's what they were hitting. I was using a 5" body on an ounce and a half head, slow rolling it along the bottom, which means you cast against the wind and let it fall back to the bottom and slowly reel it in. The fish are hugging the bottom so staying close to the bottom is key, letting your lure fall back to the bottom ever so often during the retrieve. We finished the day with 46 fish which were all incredibly fat and most all of them are in the 18-20" range and produced a lot of meat.
Thursday, we picked back up where we left off and managed 37 fish before the wind picked up and became too strong to continue with what we were doing, so, since it was still early, we went catfishing. We dropped anchor in 80ft. of water in a massive school of shad and put live and cut shad five cranks off the bottom. In about an hour and a half we pulled 8 cats up to 15lbs. before it was time to come in.
Friday was dead calm and you could stay on top of a pod longer and it enabled you to cast in any direction and not just into the wind, as a result, fishing was awesome! We pulled a 50 fish limit by 10:00 and my guys were ready to call it a day so they could head back to Kansas taking with them almost 15 gallons of fillets.
Saturday either the fish decided to feed or they had too much pressure on them, but they had disappeared from their previous locations. There seemed to be a boat on all of my spots and I couldn't mark any fish where they had been the past three days, so the search was on. I only had 2 guys who were experienced fisherman which made a tough day a little easier as we caught fish when I could find some. The fish had scattered out and all I could mark was a fish here and there, with not a pod to be found. We came in at 2:00 after covering a lot of water with 11 in fish in the box which I prefer to call it 9 shy as we could only keep 20 fish, it sounds better that way.
Sunday I only had one guy so I took the opportunity to bring along my wife Megan as she likes to accompany me as my deckhand when it is not too crowded and the weather is nice. My customer only wanted to catch a big fish and didn't care what species which made my decision easy. First fish the pressure was off, mission accomplished with a 20lb blue cat. We fished a couple more hours for cats and pulled another at 17lbs and a smaller one. We then went and hit a few spots for some striper and scratched him out a 10 fish limit. Not bad for a day's work.
Monday I had a 3 boat trip that I fished with Mark Jr. and Rodger. We all spread out since there hadn't been anything consistent the past couple of days so we could cover more ground. We all start out about the same with one or two fish each then I get a call from Roger that he had found a large pod across the lake from where I was. He was catching them good, so I head that way but before I can make it over there the wind shifted hard to the north and it was instantly cold. I made several drifts through the fish but they weren't having any of it with the change in the weather. Being as we were unprepared for the conditions, and getting too cold, my guys decided they were ready to go in. I came in with 5 fish, Mark caught 2 and Rodger racked up 27 before the front put an end to it.
Winter fishing can be awesome, or it can be tough. You never know what to expect until you get on the water. With all the warm weather we are having, fishing will continue to get more consistent and should lead to some excellent spring fishing just around the corner. I have Wednesday and Sunday left available for February and March is filling up fast for spring break. You can book your trip online at www.stripersinc.com or you can give me a call anytime at (903)815-1609.
Your Lake Texoma Fishing Guide,
Brian Prichard
Stripers Inc.
www.stripersinc.com
