Following a very busy and productive 8-week long spring hybrid striped season on Belton Lake, the threadfin shad spawn is now ended and, as happens every year, the hybrid fishing had begun to take a nosedive as the bait and gamefish scatter and the water begins to slowly stratify as it warms from the surface downward.

This “personal best” 8.5 pound Lake Tawakoni hybrid striped bass took a 5″ swimbait in 12 feet of water just after sunrise.

This made for a good time to get away to do a little fishing on my own.

Mrs. Rebecca and I packed up the truck and boat and headed out to Lake Tawakoni near the small town of Wills Point, TX. I was going to fish for 4 days solid and she, joined by her sister, Teri, and niece, Mattie, was going to take in the First Monday Trade Days in the nearby town of Canton.

I can’t tell you much about Canton, but, as for Lake Tawakoni — WOW!! What a tremendous difference in the fertility and productivity of the waters of the Sabine River versus what we experience here on the eastern edge of the Texas Hill Country.

Just looking around one sees the trees are taller, the vegetation is more lush and so much more dense, there is more rainfall, there is more agriculture, and so on. This fertility translates into the region’s surface waters, too.

Now, bear in mind, I had only been to this lake once before and did not fish this section of the lake during that previous visit. I did not consult with any guides, rather, I just relied on my “fish sense” and the maps in my Lowrance sonar unit to seek out the fish I caught.

Everywhere I searched with sonar there was ample bait. 3 mornings in a row I caught over 70 shad in one throw of my cast net. Just for comparison’s sake, I’ve fished Stillhouse and Belton for 22 years now and have landed exactly 5 white bass over 17 inches. My FIRST FISH caught on this trip was a 17 inch white bass, and I went on to catch numerous whites between 16-17 inches in the several days there.

Likewise, after fishing Belton for 22 years, the largest hybrid I’ve had come over the side of my boat was the Catch and Release category record, an 8.00 pound fish caught by a client, Lacey Sparkman. On this trip, I boated my own personal best hybrid which pulled my certified Boga Grip down to 8.50 pounds!

One time I pulled up on a hump hoping to find hybrid in about 36 feet of water. The hump was covered with fish, but I could tell they were too small to be hybrid. I got my live shad baits set up and began to catch blue catfish. Once the first few fish got whiff of the bait and began to feed, the entire sonar screen just blacked out in the last 8 feet of the water column. For about 40 minutes it was all I could do to keep just 2 rods down and baited. Every single one of these blue cat was 16-20 inches long and plump. I caught 42 fish in that spree.

I went to Tawakoni with the goal of catching a white bass lake record on my fly rod. I accomplished this goal on Thursday, then caught an even larger white bass on the fly on Friday, and then caught an even larger white bass on the fly on Saturday.

As icing on the cake, I fished in very rough, windy conditions on Sunday morning before we were to “break camp”. While casting a blade bait to a mixed school of white bass and yellow bass, I hooked and landed a yellow bass which exceeded the weight of the current yellow bass record in the “Kept Fish” category.

This is an incredible fishery with very light weekday traffic. Planning to head back as soon as time and budget allow!!!

The results for the week:

Thursday, 30 May – 43 fish

Friday, 31 May – 98 fish

Saturday, 01 June – 76 fish

Sunday, 02 June – 32 fish

Average = 62.25 fish per day