Saturday, November 21, 2009 Don brought JR, Ryan and Sean down from Cherokee for some striper fishing today. We launched early out of Catfish Bay and tried a couple of spots that had produced fish earlier this week, but they weren’t there today. So I decided to go above the Roosevelt into water that was pretty stained and check it out. We found a few birds and some sandbass that these guys like and started boxing them. JR soon landed our biggest sandie of the day. Several drifts produced about 15 sandbass and a few stripers before the sandbass left and we started pulling in striper after striper. Most of these were the smaller boxfish stripers but they were fat. There were also a couple long fish with some meat on them. When things slowed down, we went looking for the fish back down south toward Washita Point. We tried numerous spots and landed a fish here and there before our final drift south of Alberta to fish using the last of the 200 plus bait I had kept this morning. We finally headed into the cleaning station with nearly 40 stripers and about 20 sandbass. Lots of the light striking smaller fish were missed and we released lots of the un-injured smaller fish to get bigger for next year. The guys even managed some nice catfish at the cleaning station while I worked on the day’s catch. Overall, it was a good day. Nearly perfect weather, hungry fish and 4 guys that enjoy fishing and we all had a great time. I did manage a couple photos, but this new camera doesn't have a viewfinder and I'm having a hard time getting used to it and Ryan chipped in and sent some pics he took.
Thursday, November 5, 2009 Been a long, long time since I've posted some reports. Part of the reason has been my reduced fishing in Aug. & Sept. and also camera problems preventing photos. Fished with a couple guys from Dallas Thursday and would post some photos to prove it, but the camera batteries were DEAD! We had postponed a Thursday trip a couple times previously because of windy, rainy weather forecasts and were rewarded with great weather today. Sean and Chris started the day tossing assorted topwater lures at first light. This failed to produce anything and we soon switched over to chasing seagulls which had been producing good numbers of stripers, though on the small size. Maybe because of the sunny, calm morning, the birds never did gather up and start working disappointing the numerous boats that were awaiting the action of the past several days. We decided head a bit south & to switch over to live bait. Great idea! We drifted over a ledge and almost immediately started pulling fish. Mostly good eating size stripers with a few sandbass that already carried either sperm or eggs in preparation for next spring’s spawn. When the action slowed, we headed down below Washita Point and picked away at them here also. We easily had our limits and were releasing the smaller & uninjured fish. Nearly all were in the 16” to 18” range with several around 20 inches. However, there was more meat on the smaller than on the longer, skinny fish. We headed to the cleaning station a little before 1PM and finally saw some birds working on our way back to the ramp a little later. Overall, we had a great day on Lake Texoma with plenty of fillets for Chef Sean to cook.
Thursday, July 9, 2009 I went out today in a friend’s boat for a short down-rigging class. We managed a dozen fish in about 2 hours as the barometer fell with the approaching storm. It sure felt nice to launch at 0530 rather than 0200 to catch bait. I’m going to try downrigging Friday in my boat in preparation for some up-coming trips as I’ve taken the bait tank out of the boat until bait & baitfishing improves. I sure would like it if I can fish slabs & downriggers for the next couple weeks, maybe longer if they catch fish.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Out again today before 2AM for bait and I wasn’t surprised that it was tough but I didn’t expect IMPOSSIBLE. No catfish as I stayed away from the bridge but no shad either. I released the 2 shad I caught and rigged for lure fishing as today’s group were 3 men. After a short slab jigging lesson and checking out the sassy shad rods we headed out towards Alberta Creek and the expected boat show which was there. Fishing continues to be tough as the stripers are as scattered as the baitfish. Those folks down-rigging seem to be doing the best as they are able to cover a lot of ground. I understand evening fishermen are also doing very well. We managed 2 small fish on sassy shad and about 18 other nice fish including all our overs on slabs in water 30 – 40 feet deep.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 Bait was nearly impossible again but I kept managing to catch 6" catfish in my cast net and after cutting them out, the net is nearly trashed. I did manage about 50 bait, but that includes some really small threadfin shad. With 3 young boys on board, anything other than baitfishing was almost out of the question. Unfortunately, those fish we managed to locate, didn’t want our bait. July is really starting off BAD!
Friday, July 3, 2009 Another tough day getting bait and another disappointing trip. Shutting down over the Holiday weekend and hope the bite starts again SOON!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 Today's group came down from Norman with some of the folks wearing those pretty pale blue NC hats. It seems that the bait is nearly impossible to catch with lots of guides buying minnows which I nearly did after 4 hours of throwing a cast net and getting just enough, providing my fishermen & woman were on their toes. We headed south from Catfish Bay shortly after 6AM on a beautiful morning, few clouds and essentially NO wind. We marked a lot of fish shallow around Sunset but failed to get a bite and then we moved to deeper waters opposite the water intake and slowly picked away at them. Later, we took a boat ride to both look for fish and to cool down and finally swim call to cool off from the nearly 100 temps, especially after lunch. All of our fish came on live bait though we observed a lot of surfacing fish on the way to the cleaning station at Alberta Creek. Lots of big fish caught today Overall, we had a pretty good day that netted all of our long fish though we came up short on boxfish. Linda caught our first fish, Doug the biggest which measured nearly a whopping 33 inches while Hudson caught his share and even Earl, the largemouth, tube-fishing, Granddad caught some nice stripers as well. We even managed some nice catfish that we gave to some friends that just love whisker-kitties. Everyone had a good time and nobody got sun stroke or sun burned.
Saturday, June 20, 2009 Today's group came all the way down from above Wichita, KS to fish Lake Texoma. George brought a bunch of his family to try their hand catching Texoma stripers. We loaded everyone into 2 boats and headed south to where we had been catching good fish. Fishing for both the boats was only fair. Nile, Ryan, Eric and George put 6 nice long fish in the boat to go along with 4 nice catfish and some boxfish. Sure wish we could have done better, but today's fishing was a lot tougher than it had been all week when I was "fun" fishing.
Friday, June 12, 2009 Same old story, some great bait can be caught but it takes quite a while and a lot of work. Met up with some folks from the Tulsa area around 6AM and we headed down towards the dam but stopped way short of there outside Willow Springs. Morgan caught her first striper and we picked up a couple more fish then continued south towards Table-top. We set the anchor in about 70 feet of water then steadily picked away at them. Michael then claimed big fish honors until Jan surpassed him. We probably missed more than we caught with Sammie claiming most lost fish honors, but we still ended up with 6 long fish and a chest full of boxfish with very, very few being the dink variety. The winds kicked up preventing us from ever getting to the dam so we settled for a Red Creek burger at Alberta Creek before heading to the ramp as these folks had a fish fry planned for today’s catch.
Saturday, June 6, 2009 Today was windy. Tim brought family and friends down to fish Lake Texoma for some stripers but the wind made it tough. Rob, Russell, Becca and Terry hung in there but took a beating. I think it was Terry’s first time on a boat and she did pretty well. Due to the threatening storm clouds and wind, we decided to start off by staying fairly close to the marina in areas that I had been doing pretty good. We managed 9 or 10 nice fish there before pulling anchor and fighting some nasty white-caps heading to the Alberta Creek Marina for a pit stop about 0930. We headed back above the RR bridge in an attempt to find some slightly calmer water. However, it was still rough up there and made searching for those elusive stripers a slow, wet and bumpy ordeal. Marked fish, had them nibbling but not being willing to head further south into some nasty southern winds, we realized were fighting a losing battle. We didn’t catch many more before finally conceding victory to the fish. We did our best and made it back to the ramp wet, but in one piece.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 Getting bait this morning was tough again. Sure be nice to sleep in a little later and still get lots of good shad. Terry brought Amanda and their two boys down for some striper action. Sure wasn't a typical great June striper fishing trip but we managed to get some nice ones.
Sunday, May 31, 2009 Lawrence called and said he wanted to take his in-laws that are here for a visit from their home in Korea. Sujkae has plenty of free time now that he has retired, so he brought his wife, Hwayun, to the US to visit family. Lawrence wanted to impress his in-laws, so he brought them to Lake Texoma to do something that isn’t done much in Korea, sport-fishing. We left the marina at almost 0630, set anchor in about 20 foot of water, put 3 rods down and within 10 minutes Hwayun was hollering in Korean. I learned that “fish on” is the same in all languages. The action was pretty steady and at times there were fish on all 3 rods and by 0800 we were releasing our unhurt long fish as we had already reached our limit of 6. We switched over to cut bait in an attempt to attract some good box fish and even squeezed in a break. We pulled the plug around 0930 or so as Hwayun was worn out and had sore hands from catching the majority of our fish. But she kept up the chatter in Sujkae’s ear, telling him what he was doing wrong and why he wasn’t catching as many as her. There were NO dinks; most of the box fish were over 19 inches. Heck of a bunch of good tasting stripers for our visitors and also a bunch of memories of fast & furious striper fishing on Lake Texoma. I really enjoyed this fishing trip as I know this group did. Too bad Lawrence left his young sons home, maybe next time they will come and even drag Mom along.
Friday, May 29, 2009 A couple fellows came up from Texas to fish lake Texoma with me today. Getting bait in the very early morning continues to be tough, fortunately, the hungry stripers don’t mind biting some big, gizzard shad that we cut into about 6 pieces. The fish have been biting good all week, but the best bite for me has been before 10AM. It was a beautiful morning, no wind and a blue, cloudless sky. We decided to drift over some 28 to 35 foot water where I had been catching fish. The action was quite a bit slower than yesterday when we got wore out by 10AM. However, we picked away at them at a couple different locations. We ended up in some deeper water around 1030 and picked up a bunch of long fish to completely fill the box. We tried a little catch and release before heading back to clean our fish.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Dave brought his family down from Topeka, KS to try their hand with catching Lake Texoma stripers. Lahita showed the boys how to fish as she landed the first striper as we picked away getting some scattered fish while anchored on a ledge. We then crossed over into Texas waters and started a drift. Here we only managed a couple per drift as the stripers only seemed to hit as we were drifted up a steep slope from 50 feet to 30 feet. Dave and Lanita each caught some long fish here, but it was Craig that landed the big, 28” female. While Curtis caught his share, none were as big as his parents or siblings fish.
When the action slowed, we headed back it Okie waters in search of some quantity instead of quality fish. We slowly picked away at some box fish, tossed back a bunch of little guys that moved in and managed to land 2 more long fish just as we decided to head back to the marina and beat the oncoming storm. Good idea but I guess we made the decision about 10 minutes too late.
We ended the day with all of our long fish but came up a little short on the smaller box fish. All of these fished had spawned & these folks headed back north with a bunch of stripers for Dave & Curtis to eat while Lanita & Curtis don't know what they are missing. It was another good fishing trip on a really beautiful day and I even broke out the sun screen for the first time this year.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
I fished with a friend today for a couple hours. Bait was a lot easier this AM, top-water fishing was non-existent and we caught several fish where I wacked them Wednesday morning. Then everything just stopped and we pulled the plug and headed home about 9AM.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Think I'll stay home for a couple days till the muddy water drifts south do some repairs.
For those coming to Lake Texoma the next several weeks. Give it some thought and make some inquiries. Right now, the lake is very muddy in parts with floating trash, logs and a few seen & unseen floating trees.
It’s also very high & still rising with most campgrounds and ramps CLOSED. Those ramps open are by now, well under water and launching is actually off the road and fairly dangerous to someone unfamiliar with that particular ramp area.
Most docks, marinas and even boat slips can only be swam to. I’m beaching my boat and when I got home last night I noticed my $80 transom transducer had been snapped off either when I beached it or by floating debris on the way back to the ramp area yesterday.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
A dozen brave fishermen from the Oklahoma City went fishing with me today. I had a couple striper guide friends help me to get these guys some fish for their fish fry. By 2AM I felt like a drowned rat while getting bait, but as the guys arrived at 0630, the rains, lightning and wind had just about stopped.
We decide to fish the same general area as we scored on Friday. This area kept us within 5 minutes (I had my repaired prop back on) in case the forecast of 80% chance thunderstorms and high winds was correct. The 3 of us tried fishing together on the first spot where we all caught some fish but we soon split up in an attempt to do better. Only Al was able to get a nice bunch of fish before we pulled a early plug to clean fish as the guys were cold, wet and had a 1055 tee-off at Chickasaw Pointe Golf Course.
Great bunch of guys and for whatever reason, possibly the cold front, we couldn’t find fish today. I hope Jay and his crew had better luck golfing, but I know they must have got soaked again by the 1PM down burst.
After all these days of “catching”, I guess we were due for some humbling “fishing”.
Friday May 15, 2009
Left the marina this AM with a party of nine folks from Texas. The other boat fished 5 guys and I wan lucky to have only 3 guys and the one girl, Michelle to keep me company.
I had planned to go south towards Rock Creek as I caught some nice fish there earlier in the week, but I soon discovered that the temporary aluminum prop that worked well enough with me alone in the boat, couldn’t get our crew of 5 out of the hole. Since we could only crawl at about 13MPH we decided to find fish closer to the marina, and boy did we.
Tying up to Jamie’s boat in only 37 feet of water, we started catching fish almost as soon as we got rods in the water. John, Brian, Richard and Michelle all got in on the “catching” today. Between & 7AM and 9AM we put 36 fish in the box and threw back a bunch of uninjured long fish as we had our over limits but struggled finding more of the smaller fish. Even our box fish were big at most were over 18” and several came in at 19 ¾ inches. I imagine we would have caught a lot more if we didn’t stop catching to take pictures or empty & recount the box and there weren’t ANY rods in the water.
The feeding fish frenzy stopped as suddenly as it started as we continued fishing till about 1030 in an attempt to get our remaining box fish but never got another bite the last hour and headed back for their 1100 motel check-out.
With Richard now sitting up front in at attempt to gain some speed by getting on plane in the windier and rougher conditions, we limped back to the marina. We didn’t gain much speed but it was fun watching Richard get soaked.
Brian ended up with our biggest fish, a fat 5 ¾ pound female and Richard proved that even bean counters can catch stripers. John also caught his share while Michelle put her crappie catching skills to work catching Lake Texoma stripers and helping me to keep track of all our fish.
It was another great fishing trip with a great group. Everyone had a good time, decent weather, caught fish and we all returned safely to dry land.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Thanks to Tim, three Christmas Gift Certificates from 2007 were finally cashed in by Bryan, Steve and Sean. I guess that they were waiting for a great fishing day and they got one. I still had the RPM engine problem and tried to postpone because of that and the muddy water but Tim talked me into giving it a try.
We slowly headed East again in the hope of finding clear water and we did find it close to where I fished Sunday, but shallower.
I started baiting rods and before they were all baited, Bryan (PePaw) was hunched over the gunwale with the first fish and soon he had the second fish as well. That was the beginning of 3 solid hours of catching. Everyone was catching, lots were missed because no rods were in the water, pictures being taken and more of the smaller fish were release when uninjured. Sean handled the anchor rope, Tim kept an eye on his Grandfather and Steve sat behind me catching fish over and over and over on the same dead bait after we ran out of live ones. Even squashed bait scraped off the floor caught fish today.
We headed back to the ramp early to clean a mess of fish for a big fish fry back in Texas that evening. All 3 generations of this family chipped in catching and cleaning these 46 fish. We ended up with 4 long fish and nearly all the rest were the bigger box fish that were bigger than those of the past couple days. I think we ended up with 5 bags of fillets for the fry.
It was one of my best fishing trips in a long time and one of the best overall, ever. I think the best part was seeing PePaw, old Navy guy like my-self, hunched over with the first fish and having a great time. It sure would be great to fish with the 4 of you again.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Ray and his crew came back today to pick up some more striper. I discovered that I had engine/prop problems as we left the no-wake area as I was unable to go faster than about 7MPH before the RPM’s shot thru the roof. Still wanting to fish and not able to travel far or fast for topwater, we headed into the East wind to the East shoreline to find some water that was green instead of the muddy, debris filled crap we started in.
We found clear water along a ledge and set the anchor. Lots & lots of fish on the finder but they weren’t very hungry. Since we had a boat problem, we were pretty much forced to stay where we were at, rather than moving elsewhere. However, after a while we finally started picking away. Today’s fish were smaller than yesterdays and our biggest was 22” while I think Saturday’s was 24”. We ended up with another 34 fish in the box and 3 of those being long fish.
Overall, it was a great two days of fishing with this group. Travis was a good first mate on the boat and everyone helped getting that mess of fish filleted and bagged for the trip north.
Saturday, May 2, 2009 Ray brought Ryan, Rye and Travis to Lake Texoma for some striper fishing in a muddy and fast rising lake due to Wednesday’s storm. With an East wind, we started by tossing some topwaters at the shoreline and managed some nice fish. After beating the shorelines for several hours we decided to switch to bait before some nasty weather made us pull the plug a little early. We ended with 4 long fish and 20 more good sized box fish for me to clean.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 I woke up at 1AM to thunderstorms and steady rain. Loaded up the boat and had to wait till nearly 0430 till the lightning stopped to launch. Only found a few bait and was considering fishing just a couple hours topwater again, but, a nasty weather forecast and a communication breakdown led to me pulling the boat out of the water and heading home. Those jerks headed home too, back to Cororado. Next time, I get PAID after each day's trip.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 Today's trip was supposed to be the first day of a two day fishing trip with 4 guys from Colorado that I was also going to fish with on Thursday. We left the ramp around 0620 and managed about a 15 topwater fish by the time topwater stopped around 0830 and then we went looking for some baitfishing action. Never managed a fish on 2 different locations before putting the hammer down and racing for some shelter after hearing a storm warning with 70 MPH winds heading our way around 10AM. We had lunch while watching the storm clouds with some really hard rain come our way. I ended up sitting in the boat when the restaurant closed to wait out the storm. I even managed to doze off while the rain pelted my rain suit. After the lightning slowed down around 3:30PM, I made a hasty retreat to CF Bay to load up the boat and head home.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
I fished today with a friend today. Not a good start as getting bait at 3AM was tough and with the wind was blowing out of the EAST.
But it turned into an awesome day! We started topwater with pencil poppers about 0620 and in less than an hour, we had 30 fish with about half being long fish. We left them biting as we wanted to try several different areas and we kept moving south.
About 0800 we dropped an anchor & switched over to live bait as we were both wore out. Nothing happening until our 3rd stop, then it was back to “catching”. For the next 90 minutes we sat on a huge school of fish, never going more than 5 minutes between fish. These weren’t as big as the topwater fish, but there were probably another 10 long fish to go along with another 30-40 box fish and only about 3 dinks in the bunch. We only kept the 4 gut hooked fish for supper.
I sure hope this pattern continues for the next 4 or 5 days.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
I spent a long day on the water Saturday with 4 great guys and 1 gal from the Tulsa area. They were fun to fish with and brought enough food & snacks along to feed an army. Alfonso and Pete made my job easier by handling the anchor line while also taking the photos. Soo Youn's smile when she caught a fish lit up up the boat while Mugen sat in the rear eating and teasing Soo Youn. Josh just caught fish.
This was the group's first striper experience as they usually spend their time fishing for sunfish and even black bass, not knowing until today what its like to hook a hard pulling striper.
Getting bait this morning was tough, as was getting fish into the box. The overall numbers weren't very good, but all were nice sized and we came close to getting limits on long fish. Soo Youn landed the first striper and I think Alfonso had big fish. Part of the e-mail I got today along with the photos...."We may not have caught the most fish that Saturday but we probably had the most fun. That's what counts in the end and we are very appreciative of your contribution to a very memorable day."
Thanks Pete, I really enjoyed Saturday fishing with the five of you and maybe we can do it again next year.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
I'm sitting here today catching up on some neglected paper work while listening to the wind howling outside, again.
The wind has continued to plague us this past month. While fishing is normally slow this time of year, constant high winds have forced me to cancel numerous trips for safety reasons. Last weekend a gentleman from Kansas lost his life on a guided fishing trip here on a very windy Lake Texoma. Five people ended up in the lake when the boat either flipped or was swamped with water due to high winds. Nobody wants to cancel a looked forward to fishing trip, but sometimes you just have to stay off the water.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
I spent the last day of the 2009 Spring break with a family up from the Plano, TX area. Mikel & Adrian brought their 3 great kids for some Lake Texoma fun. It was a very short trip and this time the guys showed the girls how to fish as Jared landed the big stripper at over 26 inches. Carl is the guy holding the smaller striper.
Maybe next time will be Megan’s turn. She was the youngest but most determined fisher-person on board and always had both hands on the rod/reel ready to go.
Friday, March 20, 2009
I helped fish a 23 person group today out of Texas today. Bait was so tough that I left Catfish Bay around 2AM and heading into choppy water for a long & wet boat ride to Eisenhower which is down near the dam. I found a lot of small bait and a lot of familiar Okie boats there also getting bait. We then headed over to Highport to pick up the customers before the entire group decided to head west and fish Big Mineral. Fishing was tough, only 1 of the 6 boats limited with most only in the teens. The group pulled the plug early as most of them will also be fishing Saturday and Sunday. We ended up with 2 long fish and the rest were medium box fish. Mark caught the smallest but it earned him $20 as the first fish caught.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
I fished with Ethan and his Dad, Larry, today. Seems the weatherman missed his forecast today, much wetter, windier and colder than he predicted. These guys weren't too keen on trolling which was working today or fishing live bait, so we went with tossing sassy shads. We managed 4 or 5 keepers this way and Ethan was just killing all the stickups & stumps. We headed north to try a little bait fishing and before I got all the rods in the water, Ethan latched onto a nice 24" striper that was actually a little more than he could handle alone. But he got her aboard just before a nearby bolt of lightning forced us ashore. We waited there till the winds died and some blue skies appeared before loading back up and heading across the lake. Mother Nature must have been watching, no sooner than we started casting sassy shads the lighting cracked again. This time we headed ashore and they called it quits. An early day but still got some tasty stripers and 1 really nice fish for Ethan.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The parts were ordered Monday overnight and I got the boat back from Blackbeard today. Hopefully, I'll be able to salvage the Spring break as I start fishing again tomorrow with some folks that are cashing in a Christmas Gift Certificate.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The stong south winds have finally stopped with the prevailing wind coming from the east. Fishing was tough with today's group after being pretty easy on those days earlier in the week when the wind laid down a bit.
The day ended when the trim motor on my Yamaha died on me. And another spring break starts with me grounded, actually grounded. Fortunately, I was able to contact Blackbeard Marine's mechanic while he was crappie fishing and he gave me enough information to manually raise my 840 pound beast enough to get it the boat on the trailer and home.
March 12, 2009
Fished a little bit the last day or so with a friend. Trolled and fished artificials. It seems the south wind has stacked up quite a bit of fish along the south facing rip-rap near the Roosevelt Bridge.
February 21, 2009
Health issues have pretty much kept me from doing much fishing recently, but hopefully Ill be out there next week. Check back for some reports on how we did fishing.
I really think we'll have some good reports on the striper action and maybe a photo or two!
January 23, 2009
I met up with a bunch of friends for breakfast and to swap fish stories before heading to Texoma and finally getting back onto the water.
The boat started and ran fine as I cruised the northern part of the lake verifying the engine didn’t have any more problems. Since I had a couple rods in the boat, I decided to fish for an hour or two. Managed only 1 fish on a sassy shad but it was a MONSTER. It measured 31 inches in length and boy was she fat. I didn’t get to weigh her as she was pretty worn out from a really good fight and I wanted to get her back into the water and release her ASAP. From my striped bass WEIGHT vs LENGTH chart, it looks like she probably tipped the scales at about 15 pounds.
This just goes verify for me at least, the bite may be slower this time of year, but the fish sure are bigger. My biggest Lake Texoma striper came at the beginning of February, 2005 also on a large sassy shad.
January 11, 2009
Sorry but the boat only made it out of the shop for 1 day and leaves me grounded again.
I do hear that fishing is good.