Daily Progress, Jacksonville, TX

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May 3, 2009

Spring fishing has been tough for some local anglers

I asked several people who fish our area lakes what the fishing was like this spring. Some of their comments might surprise you.

Frank Lusk spent several weeks on Lake Fork this spring fishing for black bass. Lusk said, “The lake is screwed up. One day you freeze to death, then the next day the wind is 40 m.p.h., and then hard rains. This has been the strangest weather I’ve seen. One day I might do real well, but the next day I could not even see a bass on a bed.”

Lusk told me that on his good day he caught two bass over eight pounds and 8 or 10 bass in the five-pound range. This was the day the weather was very nice. He was searching the back of birch when he found beds everywhere.

Then the weather turned bad. They fished a bank out of the wind with a Nichols’ Chatter Box and caught a few nice bass up to six pounds. Lusk said, “I know one thing. You have to be around grass to catch bass. There are some areas that hold good grass and some that don’t!”

Lusk also told me that during the spring break he talked to people who had taken a week or two off to fish Lake Fork. He said they were all griping about the conditions and how difficult it was to catch bass. Some had not even caught a fish in two weeks of fishing. Lusk said, “Spring fishing is starting to wind down.”

I asked Rick Loomis, a professional bass guide on Lake Fork, to sum up this spring’s bass fishing. Loomis said, “Fishing has been tough. The wind has been killing us. There are still lots of fish to come up and spawn. The water temperature has just got to 70 degrees. The temperature went from 60 degrees F to 70 degrees F in two days. There are still lots of females to come up. We have caught some 10 pounders, but the wind is kicking our butts a lot, and I hope it stops soon.”

Rickey Vandergriff, who guides on Lake Palestine and Lake Fork, said, “Just last week I had an 8-pound bass on Lake Palestine and a 10.5 pound bass on Fork. Fishing overall has been very good. Crappie are now turning on, and I have a few new baits that are not on the sales shelves yet by Mr. Twister, and they are working good.”

Michael Smith, who has fished Lake Jacksonville consistently in the spring for the last two years, said, “I didn’t catch as many big bass this year. Fishing was just better last year. There were more and better fish last year. I was catching a lot of fish, but they were just small. My best fish this year was a 6.2 pounder.”

Bass fishing on Lake Jacksonville this spring has been very disappointing to me. The numbers and size of bass being caught were way off from previous years. I don’t remember catching any bass over five pounds. Most of the bass you catch on our lakes will average about 21⁄2 pounds.

Some of the spawning flats I fished seemed to be void of bass. It was really weird. I only saw two bass on nests this year. The only fish I saw up shallow in numbers were grass carp. There is no grass left on Lake Jacksonville, but yet the grass carp seem to be thriving. In my opinion, the grass carp are ruining our fishery. I’m seeing shad spawns on Lakes Palestine and Tyler, but I’m not seeing any on Lake Jacksonville.



Jerry Miller can be contacted at: gonefishing@suddenlink.net

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