Fresh Lago Vista Fishing Reports

The bass fishing on Lake Travis has started to pick up! These past couple of days have been the first "cool front" we have had in a long time. I saw temps in the morning as low as 71 degrees! Burrrr! With this recent rain you should expect to see water temps continue to drop slightly more. With the cooler temps at night and the rain we have been getting, water temps are down to 81 degrees on the main lake. As temps cool you will see a migration of more fish back up to the shoreline feeding up shallow. The last two days have been very good fishing with good sized fish and great numbers. I attribute this to the big drop in barometric pressure both days as well as the cooler weather. If you are getting our there this weekend I would recommend either fishing super shallow or really deep. I have found there are fish at a variety of depth right now. You have those more adventurous fish moving up to the bank looking for food. You also have more lethargic fish still hanging offshore. Right now you can take your pick whether you want to graph for them and set up on deep schools, or pick apart the shoreline. If you are wanting to fish shallow there are two rigs I recommend having tied on. A ned rig has been killing it! A lot of these bass are feeding on crawfish and this compact little bait is a perfect morsel for them. Green pumpkin is always a safe bet, but today I was dipping the tail of the worm in red dye and it was working very well. If you ever turn over some rocks and find a crawfish in Lake Travis, they are usually a light brown color with some red and orange in them. Keep this in mind when selecting baits. The second bait I would recommend is a small round ball finesse jig tied up in a craw color. This will be better when you get around those rocky snag prone shorelines. We are also getting to the time of year when they should start eating crankbaits well. Having a medium diving crankbait tied on when you get around rocky shallow shorelines is a good idea. As for the deep fish, there are still schools of bass out deeper off points and ledges. I have not found any really big schools in a while, however you will find plenty of small schools of 3-5 fish. A drop shot is always a fish getter on Travis, so that should definitely be tied on. The other rig you should try is a Carolina rig. A zoom speed craw or a 7" power worm are good options for plastics. If you book a trip with me these are some of the things we will be doing! If you are interested in leaning more about bass fishing le'ts set up a "coaching trip" and we will approach the day as if we were practicing for a tournament. Once you book shoot me a message and we will set up a time before your trip to discuss this in further over the phone.

It’s going to be another hot summer here in Central Texas! We’ve already had several days where the temperature nearly reached the 100-degree mark, and the water temperature has been hovering around 80 degrees. Summertime fishing is here folks!! With the annual shad spawn nearing its end, the morning bite has substantially died off as the bigger bass remain offshore overnight. For the past few weeks the late afternoon and early evening bite have been very predictable on Lake Travis. The hot days and high boat traffic have pushed the bass deeper than they have been earlier in the month of May. My clients have been catching bigger bass in the 4 to 7-pound range by slowly dragging their baits off steep bluff walls to the depth of 30 to 40 feet. The steeper bluffs next to the spawning areas seem to be the key in finding the bigger fish! Some of the bigger fish have been very skinny and are clearly in recovery mode after the recent spawn cycle. However, the Guadalupe bass population is very healthy with several 14 inchers caught in the past two weeks. A good portion of my trips are with beginners, and I’ve had quite a few clients this past month with 7 and 8-year-old youth anglers. The key to success for these new anglers has been working with them to make sure they let out plenty of line and let the bait sit long enough to reach the necessary depth or strike zone. The light gear and light line take time to reach the target depth 25 to 30 feet. With the super clear waters of Lake Travis, you really want to give that bass time to inspect the bait. Dead-sticking a ned rig has been deadly this past week for the young ones. When I see the bright yellow braid start running for deeper water it’s time for them to set the hook! Usually my go-to baits have been a Texas rigged baby brush hog with a ¼ oz worm weight or a speed craw on a ¼ oz shaky head this time of year, but the baits with exposed hooks like the drop shot and ned rig have a better hookup rate with the beginners. Surprisingly, the ned rid has been out fishing the drop shot this week!! For a good fish or two around the shallow side of the marinas, the ned rig and neko rigs have been consistently putting keepers in the boat. For targeting the deeper bass, I’ve added extra weights to get the drop shot down to the right depths. With the weekend boat traffic already in full summer swing, some areas to target during the day include main lake marinas, bluff wall just inside coves like Devil’s Cove, Rough Hollow, and Little Rough Hollow. These are areas you can load the boat with bass without battling the wind or boat traffic. Early in the morning and later in the day, I’ve been targeting the main lake bluffs in the basin around Oasis and Hippie Hollow as well as main lake points around Starnes Island. I hope you find this information helpful as we enter the dog days of summer! Just remember, the bass will move up and down the areas throughout summer. You can find them in the same areas day after day for the next several months. Big fish for the month goes to Omar T. with a beautiful 6.74 pounder caught on a drop shot in 25 feet of water!

While many anglers are scouting the pockets and coves for bass beds, they often overlook some interesting bass behavior that is happening around the bed area. Even though the beds may be empty, and the bass have spawned in certain areas, the bass are still protecting the fry and are very aggressive towards their #1 predator and forage: bluegill! Bluegill love to feed on the bass eggs and newly hatched fry. You can see largemouth bass hiding around the spawning area and ambushing the bluegill as the come in to pray on the baby bass fry. It’s amazing to see just how fast these fish can move and how shallow they will run. With the super clear water on Lake Travis, you really must make long casts into these areas, so you don’t spook the fish. In the same areas where I’ve been plowing through the brush with my boat to flip the beds, I’m staying in deeper water and making long casts to the very back of the brush lines. My go-to bait for the past few weeks has been the much-underrated tube! This is something I can throw on a bed if needed or I can cast to the clear shoreline waters and work it slowly back to the boat. I’ll drag the tube it along the bottom and hop it over the laydowns and brush that lies between the shoreline and the boat. 9 times out of 10 the tube gets smashed within a few feet of the shoreline!! Don’t be afraid to make long casts over 50 feet of brush. I use 20-pound braid with a short 15-pound fluorocarbon leader and haven’t lost a fish yet. The brush on Lake Travis grew around 2011 to 2015 when the lake was in a drought. Collectively, they make for excellent shelter for baitfish and bass alike. However, they are very brittle and break apart easily when reeling in bass that just smashed the bait. After you set the hook, keep you rod tip high and get the bass in a quickly as possible. If the bass does manage to pull you down into the deeper brush just troll over to brush and the bass will usually come up along with the brush! I had a bass wrap my dropshot with a 12-pound fluorocarbon leader wrap me completely around some brush in 20 feet of water. I was able to push the brush up out of the lake bottom once I was directly over it. The bass was still on the other end too! The top water bite is just around the corner, so check back soon for another fishing report focusing on how we are catching them on topwater and why we are fishing certain areas!

Spring Break is in full swing here in Central Texas, and that usually means bass are spawning in the area lakes. Bed fishing is a fun way to catch bass, especially on ultra-clear lakes like Lake Travis, Canyon Lake and Lake Belton. When bass are locked in on to the bed they are very catchable. Sometimes you just need to keep pitching the bait until the bass gets angry!! So what exactly is a “bed” and what does it mean that a bass is “catchable?” Male bass start making beds around December and January in Central Texas. A bed is a cleared-out area that is mostly protected from the wind that a male bass can guard once a female lays her eggs. “Buck Bass” are juvenile males that start making beds very early in the season. Their beds are typically small and don’t draw in any female bass. The bigger males make bigger beds and will usually be enough for a female to lay her eggs. Once the female lays her eggs the bass become “catchable.” I’m not saying that you cannot catch bass before this period. However, once the male is guarding the eggs you can sit right on top of the bed and catch that bass!! If you pitch your bait on a bed and the male doesn’t get spooked, it’s most likely guarding eggs. Now for the fun part! You need to figure our where on the bed the female has laid her eggs. Usually, once you find that spot the male will either nose up to the bait or hit it. Repeated casts to the exact same spot will anger the male enough that it hits the bait! Where do you go to find beds? This can be a complex answer and really depends on the lake. Constant level lakes like Lake Austin and Lake LBJ will have very defined spawning coves or areas. These are very shallow areas of the lake and protected from the winds. On lakes where the water can fluctuate 40 feet the bass will spawn on a shallow ledge right next to a drop off. Most creeks and main lake pockets in Lake Travis and Lake Belton will hold beds that may be right next to water that is 30 to 50 feet deep. On Lake Travis, I’ve had the boat in 20 feet of water while pitching to a bed that was in 2 feet of water. You can use a variety of baits. I like to throw a white Zoom ultra-vibe speed craw on a ¼ shake head. The pinchers have great action, and I can see the bait when the water is stained. The bait isn’t as important as finding the magic spot on the bed that will entice the bass to hit it! Keep these tips in mind if you are our fishing for bedding bass. You’ll find your trips will be successful! Tight Lines.

It may be December but with our weird Texas weather these fish are still in a typical fall time pattern. For those lucky enough to fish on a day with a warming trend, finding fish up shallow along the bank is a pretty consistent pattern. Moving baits such as crankbaits have been producing very well... the two large fish pictured were caught this way. On cooler days or days with blue bird skies a deeper approach with a drop shot, jigs, Neko rigs etc have been the ticket. You can consistently catch good fish right now, but knowing where to look is key. They are not stacked up on any ol bank right now, so understanding the conditions and being out there often help a lot with knowing where to go to maximize your time on the water. I would love the opportunity to earn your business and give you a memorable fishing trip!

Fall fishing can be finicky when the conditions are changing almost daily here in the Central Texas region. During the months of November and December, the temperatures can swing from the low 20s one day to the high 70s the next. These massive temperature swings will affect the movement and feeding behavior of bass, so the techniques used on one day to load the boat won’t necessarily work the next day, if the conditions are substantially different. This can be frustrating for anglers because bass love consistency. When the weather is consistent, the bass will hit the same bait in the same place day after day, but when the conditions change, the bass will barely move. Here are some pointers and patterns that can help anglers have a successful day on the water when the conditions are constantly changing during the fall months. I’ve been on the water probably a dozen times over the past two weeks and had the opportunity to fish all stages of the cold fronts. Anglers can pretty much break these weather systems into two stages, each having their own conditions: pre-frontal and post-frontal. I typically won’t fish as the cold front is moving through because the winds on the lake can gust up to and exceeding 40 mph. Once the winds get above 20 mph the conditions can be hazardous on the Central Texas lakes. Before the cold front moves into the area, the winds are usually nice, the clouds are low and rolling in. You won’t really notice a big change in the temperature, and we haven’t had any heavy rains recently. The water’s surface temperature has been in the low to mid 60s and I can see a ton of bait on the banks. It’s time to fish fast and go for a reaction strike! I’ve been sticking to the main lake lately for a few reasons. Whenever the weather changes the bass will move vertically up and down the water column. When the clouds are out, I fish fast and shallow. The bass have been hiding behind all the rocks, tree stumps and laydowns. I’m just pitching a small crankbait on spinning gear to each piece of structure, and some casts may be as close as 10 feet away. I know the bass can see me and still they crush the crankbait as it bounces off the laydown or tree stump. I’ll make longer casts along the rocky bank, keeping the boat almost on the bluff wall, and the crankbait bounces and deflects off the rocks. We’ve caught as many as 15 bass on a single stretch covering about 100 yards! After the cold front, the high-pressure system takes over. The water is a little cooler in the morning, the skies are clear and bluebird. The bass are in the same area but running the banks and fishing fast usually won’t load the boat like the day before. I find the fish in these areas have moved vertically in the water column and are now a little deeper. Using a slower presentation with a shaky head, drop shot, or Texas rig in craw colors has been working great! The high-pressure system pushes the bass deeper into the 10 to 25-foot range so casting to the bluff wall and dragging the bait slowly to the depths seems to trigger a good strike. As the bait is slowly falling down the bluff, bouncing off the various rocks and brush piles, the bass just inhale it. When your line goes slack or you feel a tick, set the hook! When you find a good population of fall bass and fish the conditions, you should be able to have a successful day on the water. On deep water impoundments like Lake Travis, the bass will move up and down the water column when the fronts and pressure system move in to the area.