August 13, 2007
LAKE RAY ROBERTS FISHING REPORT
Lake Ray Roberts is still 5 feet over normal level and water is being released at 1966 cfs. Water temperature is upper 80's on these hot afternoons and mid 80's in the morning. The Isle du Bois State Park boat ramp opened saturday, The Jordan Park ramp and the Sanger boat ramp opened today. These are the only ramps open on the lake at this time. Largemouth bass fishing has been slow the last 10 days or so. Fish have moved out of the flooded vegetation and have been unpredictable. One morning there may be a top water bite and the next nothing. We have caught some fish in the last week on structure 20 to 25 feet deep, not many bites fishing this deep but they will all be slot fish.
Bass we are catching are coming on baby bass colored Pop-R's, white spinner baits and light weight finesse worms in bluegill or junebug color. Deep fish we catch on Carolina rigged blue pumpkin french fries. There are a lot of small bass 4 to 6 inches long all around the lake schooling on small shad but I have not seen much schooling activity of catchable size bass.
Sand bass fishing has been very good with fish schooling most mornings somewhere between the marina and the east end of the dam. There is some birds around now to help find the feeding fish when the schooling activity is not visible. Bigger fish have moved into this area of the lake in the last 2 weeks making limits of keeper fish easier to get.
There is also some schools of real small white bass 3 to 6 inches long down around Culp Island. When they are schooling on top any small topwater, crankbait, or spinner bait will work. A Cotton Cordell CC Spoon 3/4 oz. chrome with a Flies-By-Night jig tied 14 inches above it is catching the fish on the bottom in the areas where you find active fish. The schooling activity has been best from 8:30 am til 1:00 pm but some afternoons they are feeding all afternoon. To catch these fish we sometimes spend a lot of time boat riding looking for active fish and then when we find them we get limits quickly. As an example, today we saw very little schooling and caught only real small fish til about noon, then we found a little schooling under birds and filled limits of good size fish in an hour.
Have fun fishing,
Tim