June finds mix of lake levels, fishing tactics
As is the case these days on many of Texas’ 500plus public lakes, anglers wanting to launch their boats onto Choke Canyon Reservoir have limited options. Only a single ramp — the one at Choke Canyon State Park’s Calliham Unit — is operational; all other ramps on the reservoir astride the Frio River are unusable.
That boat ramps would be closed on a Texas lake right now is hardy a surprise. After all, the state has endured a siege of torrential rains resulting in runoff that flooded rivers and swelled reservoirs far beyond their normal bounds, swamping boat launches and parking areas, marinas, parks, other lakeside facilities and forcing their closure. Lots of ramps, and even entire lakes, have been inaccessible.
What is a surprise — at least a surprise to those who believe all of Texas was inundated by recent rains — is the reason Choke Canyon is down to one functional boat ramp. It’s not an issue of too much water. It’s too little water. And on the dry side ...
Choke Canyon Reservoir is one of at least a dozen Texas reservoirs with water levels far below normal — often so low that boat ramps and docks and other normally lake-side facilities are unusable. The low-water conditions also have negatively affected fish and fishing in these lakes, several of which are among the state’s premier largemouth bass fisheries. Those lakes illustrate the depth and perniciousness of the years-long drought that blistered Texas for much of the past decade, peaking with 2011 and not relenting until last year.
Choke Canyon, one of the best fishing lakes in a state spattered with them, has not been full since 2007. The rains that began drenching Texas during the winter of 2014-15, intensified during spring of 2015 and reached a crescendo over past weeks and months, missed the watersheds feeding the lake.
Last week, Choke Canyon’s water level was 22 feet below the “full” mark — 2 feet lower than it was a year ago. When full, Choke Canyon covers 26,000 surface acres. Today, it is less than 15,000 surface acres.
That is a lot better than O.H. Ivie Reservoir. Ivie, built in 1990 on the Colorado and Concho rivers east of San Angelo, quickly became a big-bass factory. Between 2000 and 2012, the lake coughed up at least 25 largemouths weighing 13 pounds or more.
But there’s not a lot of Ivie left these days.
The lake, built in a region where rainfall isn’t exactly a common occurrence even during the wettest of times, has not been full this century; the last time it reached its designed “conservation pool level” was the late 1990s. Last week, Ivie’s water level was 34 feet below normal pool and holding less than 25 percent what it holds when full. But, on the bright side, that is nearly double what it was a year ago.
Lakes Falcon and Amistad on the Rio Grande also have not greatly benefited from the rains that fell on most of Texas over the past months. Amistad is almost 25 feet low, with its 67,000 surface acres reduced to 45,500 acres. Falcon is down 27 feet, shrinking the lake’s surface area by almost 55 square miles.
There are several other desiccated lakes, all in the western half of the state where dry conditions and low water levels are the norm. E.V. Spence Reservoir on the Colorado near Robert Lee holds only 10 percent of its capacity. O.C. Fisher Lake near San Angelo is 15 percent full.
Unlike many lakes in the western third of Texas, Lake Meredith in the Panhandle has significantly benefited from rains over the last year or so. It certainly needed help. Meredith, once one of the top smallmouth bass fisheries, shriveled to nothing in 2011 and stayed dry through most of 2014.
Even with record-setting rains in the Panhandle over the past months, Meredith, which is on the Canadian River, is only about 27 percent full and covers just 6,200 surface acres; it’s 16,500 acres when full. Prospects can change
It could be years before some of these still-low West Texas reservoirs and their fisheries fully recover. But, as evidenced by recent events in the eastern two-thirds of Texas, things could change faster than expected.
And they certainly have changed in most of the state; almost every lake in the eastern two-thirds of Texas are either full or above capacity. But that surge of water into those lakes will have a long-term beneficial effect on fisheries, pumping nutrients into the systems and, by flooding vegetation along shorelines, greatly increasing cover and foraging areas for young fish.
While high, turbid water and sometimes challenging access issues have hurt fishing on some lakes, it certainly has not ruined everything for freshwater anglers looking forward to summer fishing. Fishing has been good — even spectacular — on some lakes.
Over the last week or so, anglers on Sam Rayburn Reservoir, where water level is “only” about 5 feet above normal, reported enjoying outstanding fishing for crappie. The hugely popular panfish have made their annual transition from shallowwater spawning areas to deep-water summer quarters. Anglers have found concentrations of crappie holding around brush piles in 20 to 30 feet of water, and those locating a “hot” brush pile are dropping small jigs or live shiners to the cover have found a steady stream of takers.
They also are occasionally getting a surprise when they hook hefty largemouth around the deep-water brush piles. Follow the sunfish
But the best and most enjoyable bass fishing on most East Texas lakes this month has come in the flooded shallows where topwater plugs have drawn explosive strikes. Anglers are finding some of the best topwater action by concentrating efforts around areas holding sunfish spawning beds.
Sunfish — redears and bluegills, mostly — spawn in late spring and early summer, with swarms of the hand-size “bream” moving into the sandy-bottomed shallows where they fan shallow depression that serve as nests in which the females lay eggs and guard them until they hatch and scatter into the nearby flooded vegetation.
Find an area holding lots of saucer-shape “bream beds” and bet on the spot to produce good topwater fishing for largemouths. Hungry bass prowl these sunfish concentrations, picking off unwary “perch.” Over the last couple of weeks, anglers on several East Texas reservoirs — especially Rayburn, Toledo Bend, Conroe and Fayette — reported world-class topwater action by targeting areas speckled with “bream beds.”
Those sunfish concentrations also are yielding outstanding fishing for anglers looking to target the modest-size panfish.
Anglers armed with ultra-light spinning tackle, a fly rod or a simple cane pole are finding non-stop action on the small but aggressive and wonderfully tasty redears and bluegills, and that should continue for the coming month or so. And that applies to all Texas lakes, whether they are among the few still suffering lingering low-water levels, the many swelled by recent floods or the rare ones that are at normal levels.