SUMMER 2007
Finally, summer arrives at our local lakes in West Texas, eastern New Mexico, and western Oklahoma. Water temps are in the 70's and all our lakes are teeming with millions of tiny minnows and hungry gamefish. It is a fact of Nature that life in a lake or stream is an Eat OR Be Eaten world.
It is also an excellent time for savy anglers to down size your lures OR to use big lures for the mature bass and walleye that are feeding with a frenzy as they recover from the rigors of the annual spawn.
Thanks to the good spring rains, all the lakes are up from their lowest levels in years, but.... most of them are still much lower than they normal.
Only two local Lakes, Alan Henry (near Post, TX) and Ute Lake at Logan, New Mexico, are FULL.
Lake Meredith is at 16% and lake level is near 63 feet.
Lake Greenbelt is at 44% and is up nearly 6 feet from last fall
Lake MacKenzie is at 16% but is up almost 4 feet from last fall
Lake White River is at 14% and the 2 foot of new water is less than will be pumped out or will evaporate during the heat of summer.
Lake Baylor is STILL contaminated with the deadly Golden Algae and ALL boaters and angers should think twice before going to a lake that could spread the deadly Golden Algae to our other lakes.
The new topwater lure that seems to be hot is the FROG. Some years it buzzbiats, some it is chuggers and poppers, but 2007 appears to be the year of the frog. I have asked ProStaffer Mike Harber of Borger to do an article on the Tips Page about Frog Fishing and you might want to read what this expert says about how to properly fish a frog for that topwater bite.
Remember, please CATCH AND RELEASE those bigger (over 5 pounds) bass and walleye No lake has too many trophy fish.
Good luck and good fishing ~~
April 2007 It has finally happened, the water temperatures on our local
lake have finally increased enough to trigger the fish to start becoming more
active.
Fish that last month were feeding once every day or so, are now
prowling the waters every day looking for something to eat. And the more often
that these fish eat, the more likely that an angler will be able to catch them.
The walleye at Lake Meredith are almost too easy to catch! Just
about every main lake point and red bluff wall are teeming with these tasty game
fish. Thanks to Rodney Sweet of Borger for taking me fishing at Lake Meredith
and giving me a great evening of catching these tasty fish. We hit the water
about an hour before sunset and armed with a Countdown Rapala and a Husky Jerk,
we worked the main lake areas. In a little over two hours we had a limit of 10
walleye over the sixteen inch minimum length requirement.
The key to catching walleye right now is working the lure slow,
and I mean real s-l-o-w.
Toss the lure as close as possible to the shoreline, twitch it
once or twice. Then just let it sit there. After about thirty seconds, twitch it
again. THE WALLEYE HIT THE BAIT WHEN IT IS NOT MOVING. Sweet caught the first
three walleye before I learned to slowdown enough to catch my first fish. After
making my self slowdown, it was almost too easy to catch these tasty fish. Sure
not all the walleye are keepers (16 inch, minimum), but Lake Meredith is just
loaded with thousands and thousands of keepers.
I also understand that the fishing at the Marina has been
excellent. Use the same lures and fishing from the bank after dark is very good.
For the next thirty days, anglers who fish from the bank can catch as many
walleye as the guys with a boat!
So TURN OFF the television, put on some new fishing line , and
I'll see you at the lake. Good Luck and Good fishing.
