Reservation Number : 25711
Property Name : BlackJack Ranch
Reservation Date : 09/05/2020 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : Decent number 1 - 3#
Lures Used : squarebill, frog, popper, fluke, lipless crank, worm

Ron Dupree and I fished BlackJack Ranch on September 5th and had an enjoyable day catching a reasonable number of hard-fighting bass.  The real story is the much-appreciated reduction in aquatic vegetation.  THANK YOU to all involved in the planning, financing, and execution of the project.  The lake has gone from having massive areas of heavily matted vegetation that had become difficult to fish to a situation now where the vegetation rimming the shorelines is thinner and exhibits mostly clumps rather than dense mats.  The reduced vegetation allowed us to fish effectively from both the club boat or from the shoreline depending upon the technique we were using.  The lake looks more like I remember that it did from 2015-2017.  I realize that the vegetation amount will wax and wane, but that's okay as it is now no longer uncontrolled.

We did have to work for the bass that we caught because the pattern changed quite often throughout the day. The action was never fast, we didn't catch any big ones, and we had to adapt as each pattern died.  A decent but not outstanding topwater period (more blowups than hookups) was followed by a fluke and dropshot bite that in turn was followed by a long "dead spell" before Ron found a specific worm presentation that worked for a while.  We were eventually run off by active thunderstorms that hit with a vengeance as we were heading to the ranch exit.  Satisfying day with great solitude (just us and the cattle) and less vegetation.