Lake Texoma Fishing “ON FIRE”
Watch a video on Zebra Mussels and Texas invasive species.
NOTE – I’ve been waiting for official confirmation, and I found none other than Steve Hollensed’s report in my mail box recently – after my return from Houston – Lake Texoma is ON FIRE, and needs to be put on your list, at the front, for fly fishing in North Texas right now.
DO NOT FORGET – Lake Texoma is infested with Zebra Mussels, and you don’t want this invasive species tagging along with you to your local lake or pond. Take all necessary precautions after taking yourself or a vessel out on Lake Texoma. It’s easy to forget, when putting your clean kayak away, that even if it comes out of the water clean, you need to give it a soapy wash and scrub. The same goes for your shoes and I would consider rinsing fly gear thoroughly as well. Zebra Mussels are a topic that should concern us all, one that the public is still really unprepared for, and one that is quite easy to forget. Unless you are willing to do the cleaning (a real hassle), don’t even fish Texoma. It’s a fantastic lake when it’s on, but there’s a price to pay. I continue to be afraid that one of us will have a memory slip, and that’s all it takes to spread the Zebra Mussel. I will be spending much more time on the Texas invasives, but for now please visit the Texas Invasives website. Now that we are in full spring swing, this is a topic that will get much more coverage to keep it in the front of all our minds. Ramifications for fishing are not nearly as dire as they are for the North Texas water supply. And those ramifications are already manifest in Texoma water not going to Lake Lavon. I can imagine a day when The flow from Ray Roberts to Lewisville will be interrupted by an infestation in Ray Roberts (THERE IS NONE yet). And the story that pops into my mind is; How prepared are the water plants for this unavoidable invasive?
Lake Level is normal ; Water temperature is 72 degrees ; Visibility is good to excellent over most of the lake.
Fly fishing for stripers has been very good to excellent for some time now. Right now, in terms of numbers, it is about as good as it can be. We are catching high numbers of fat 14-16 fish with some bigger fish to about 23 inches. For the last few weeks the bite has been shallow with the best technique involving the use of Streamer Stripper lines. And this week the bite has evolved into a topwater bite. Many of the fish we are catching are in 2-5 ft of water.
During the first two weeks of April we experienced some excellent fishing involving larger stripers averaging about 5-6 pounds and many were in the 8-11 pound range. These larger fish are now returning to the lake from the spawning run.
Although stripers have been our primary target, we have also landed some very nice smallmouth this spring. Several were over 20 inches in length.
Baitfish populations are very high now and both stripers and smallmouth are in excellent shape.
This is a great time to fly fish Lake Texoma.
And if you have not booked your dates of preference for the summer striper blitz, this is a good time to do so. Based upon this winter’s survey of the striper fishery and given the current abundance of shad, I am looking for a great summer season of topwater striper fishing.
Publisher’s Note – Thanks again Steve! I appreciate your regular updates. This information on Texoma is pervasive, and it must be accurate. I know that the smallmouth are post spawn, so that has probably slowed down some, but conditions have lead to “one of those years” for the striper action on Lake Texoma. We have a holiday weekend upon us, so be careful on Texas waters, or do as I do and stay as far away as possible. It really is that bad. I’ll be publishing part one of Matagorda this weekend for homebound casual readers such as myself.
LINKS
Check out Steve Hollensed’s fly fishing guide service website.
Here is some information on Lake Texoma from TPWD.
Be sure and hit the search box on the right side of this site and search “Texoma” or even better – use the “Popular Topics” in the right hand column and click on those.
Category: Equipment, Fishing Reports, Fly Lines, North Texas
