Reservation Number : 34290
Property Name : BlackJack Ranch
Reservation Date : 11/06/2022 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 46 up to 3#; most 2#; 20 harvested
Lures Used : wacky worm, speed craw, Pop-R

Ron Dupree and I didn’t arrive at the lake for sunrise as is our pattern, but the time change and celebrating the Astros World Series title combined to make us a little late.  We arrived a little after 7AM and launched our Ultraskiffs from the dam to take advantage of a steeper gradient to quickly get more than a few inches of water under the vessels.  The lake is very low and, in large areas, the top of the vegetation is bending over at the surface due to the lower water level and creating loose mats.  In much of the rest of the lake, the vegetation is visible in the clear water (4-5 foot visibility) topping out 1-2 feet from the surface.  This is where we caught most of our bass. The water was less clear and a little “milky” in the northern 1/3 of the lake.  Still, the majority of the lake is very fishable.

Most of our bass were caught mid-lake or against the dam. Moving baits only enticed two bass all day. Bass showed almost no interest in frogs and flukes over the mats.  I caught a few on a Pop-R over shallow grass. Wacky senkos and speed craws were the best producers by far.  Ron racked up the numbers early by catching harvest bass that he described as “this year’s crop”.  By getting into the grass quickly, they often fooled us into thinking they were bigger than they turned out to be.  We each caught one “bigger” bass of about 3 pounds out of 46 total with 20 of these harvested. My “noteable” catch was a huge bluegill that managed to get half a senko into its mouth. Good fighter too!

It was another nice result from one of our favorite Houston area lakes but the recent lack of the larger bass from this lake is becoming more noticeable.