Go No Go – Lake Ray Roberts Under Pressure
The ramp was crowed with glitter boats yesterday, and it was only Thursday. I parked way back from the short line, and waved the glitter boats around. Crowds are not my thing, but I am sure you already know that.
I was surprised when Lewisville bass competitor Billy Risley pulled up slow in his blacked out truck, pulling his glitter boat and stopped. We had only met the previous day at Sawgrass Fishing Rod Company in Dallas, and I couldn’t identify him until he rolled down the blacked out passenger window. “I see you took my advice!” he said.
“Yeah, but what’s going on here? It’s only Thursday!” I knew tournaments were coming to Lake Ray Roberts, but this seemed like a different crowd. He told me this is a prefish for a college tournament in a week. This weekend is high schoolers and another Trail event after all this settles. The previous day, at Sawgrass, we marveled about the fact there is no single place to see ALL tournaments on all the lakes that matter.
Go on Weekdays No Go on April Weekends
The carp are everywhere, and triggered to move by the sun right now. They are suspending, and warming up, and it’s mostly tightlipped young males hanging around waiting for the girls to show up. It looks like a college bar on a Thursday night, and the guys, who got there too early, are wondering if they are in the right place. “It’s early,” I say, been there done that.
It can still happen. I am saying, “there’s a chance” right now, and you have to be in a position to yank these fish out of cover before they dive into the forest, disappear and pop up fifty feet away, your lifeline completely lost in the tunnel the hooked fish just bored. It takes a direct drop in their face, and keeping their heads up to have a chance right now. The skiff is very good at that. So go.
When you get back to the ramp, the dread in the back of your head, solidifies … kids ramming their boats onto trailers, stirring up the water and jarring my skiff against the dock with no concern other than their own satisfaction. None whatsoever. It is exactly what I expected, and hasn’t changed over the decades, except for the size of the outboards on back. It’s a pure case of worlds colliding, or at least my little world being collided into. So no go.
Have a great weekend wherever you fly fish! Thanks for reading once again, and wear your glasses when you watch the eclipse on Monday! Here’s how fish act during eclipses – Fishpocalypse 2024 – and I guess I never followed up! The fish were fooled by the sun, and turned on all around me during that partial eclipse in 2017. It ranks very high on the coolness list. As soon as it passed, the fish went right back to where they were before the black hold grazed Lake Ray Roberts that day.
Category: Conventional Spinning Rod Reel Fishing, Fishing Reports, North Texas
