March
Posted By Joel on March 20, 2010
As usual, this March has been one of confused weather and unbelievable fishing. We finally had a year with great weather during Spring Break, good water flow, and an awesome sand bass/Hybid run.
Water levels have been high in the local reservoirs through the winter and the Corp of Engineers was worried about their dams and the potential for flooding as we go into our typically “wet” season of April/May. They started releasing MASSIVE amounts of water throughout the Trinity drainage 2 weeks ago. This just happened to coincide with randy sand bass and hybrids and it was ON.
SD first located the fish below the Ray Bob dam a week and a half ago. Pretty simple – stay on the edge of the 2800 cfs current seam with a Clouser and bounce it off the rocks. One day last week he managed a 10 lb. hybrid (taped and “Boga-ed”) but because of camera malfunction was not able to register the would be state record. He caught a 6 pounder a few days later when we went out and was able to get a good shot and measurement. I believe it will be a new Trinity River fly (or catch-n-release) record.
Sand bass are everywhere now. If you can find a tributary of any local lake with decent flow, you can find sand bass. A #4 Clouser of any bright combination of colors is all you need. Look for current seams and drop-offs below riffles. Good luck.
Now we have the typical north Texas March weather – in like a lion; out like a lamb, and back to lion. Yesterday was 72 degrees and sunny. Now, it’s 36 degrees, cloudy, with some kind of frozen H2O falling (the NWS calls it “unidentifiable precip.”). Everything will be back to “spring” in two days and the fish will continue their creek escapades for another week and a half or so. Get some while you can!
I'm sure the Eskimos have a word to describe, "unidentifiable precip" – was that the same stuff that kept me on the tarmac at DFW on Saturday night for an additional 3 hours. Awesome.