This month the stripers have been transitioning from spawning in the rivers and then going back to the lake. The stripers have been stacked up in river beds and creek beds close to the mouths of the Red and Washita Rivers. There have been some birds working close to the dam in the early afternoon, but the fish are not staying on top very long. Most of our fish have been caught on the edge of old river beds. We have been using live 3"-4" gizzard shad, and dropping them to 30 feet in 40-45 ft of water.

The lake is at flood levels and will continue to rise before it peaks in two days. With so much more surface area on the water the best way to locate fish is to watch for diving birds. When the stripers begin feeding on shad, some of the dead and wounded shad float to the surface. The sea gulls begin diving down to pick up the wounded shad. Following the diving birds is the best way to stay on top of hungry fish. The most productive lures are white slabs, chrome rattle traps, or any 2" - 4" artificial bait that mimicks a shad.

Stripers are hitting top water plugs behind the islands early morning until about 30 minutes after sunrise. Once the sun is higher in the sky, look for schools of stripers along old river beds and the mouths of creeks in 30 to 50 feet of water. They are hitting small size shad like the one in the photo. Larger size shad don't seem to be on the menu and are being passed by for the smaller shad offerings. We are also picking up a number of small blue cats around 1 - 2 lbs on bottom while targeting stripers using small live shad as bait.

The water mid lake is clearing up nicely. Right now the stripers under 20" are schooling up and chasing shad on the surface along sandy shorelines in water 10' to 30'. If you want a little larger fish, but a little slower bite, you can find them in deeper water where the depth drops from 40' to 60'. Top water fish are hitting solid color baits the best in either white, chartruese, or chrome. The deeper fish prefer live shad in the 3" - 4" size. Swap bait out as soon as it stops wiggling, because those deeper stripers like lively shad.

The water on Texoma is starting to clear up after the flood a few weeks ago, and the stripers are taking full advantage of it. Right at day break we found some big stripers in 60 feet of water and dropped live shad down on them. No takers After that we ran further down the lake, and saw birds working. The stripers started blowing up the surface about 10 minutes before official sunrise. We chased them nonstop until 10:00am. Today they liked a solid white slab, solid color chartreuse slab, and 1/2 oz chrome Kastmaster spoon. They didn't care for swim baits or jigs. Everything my crew caught was in water 10ft - 20ft deep and fairly close to sandy shorelines.

After the flooding rains Lake Texoma received last week the Red and Washita Rivers have stained the water where they empty into the lake. The stripers have moved to clear water in the middle of the lake, and are stacked up in schools in about 40 feet of water. We are locating the schools with sonar and dropping live shad into the schools of aggressive fish.