Yesterday.  This morning 23 hours later.  Up a good foot.

Weather

75/84.  Mostly cloudy and humid with a couple of showers and a heavy thunderstorm with 65% chance of rain.  Wind SE 10 – 16 mph.

Lake Level

This morning  98.70 msl.    12 days ago  95.11 msl.  (Up 3.59 feet.)

Solunar Times

Major  11:47 am to 1:47 pm.

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The Wade Right Fishing Belt and the new Madre Sling.

For all your wading needs.

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I can sure tell I am back in Texas.  Mosquitos everywhere, humidity so bad hard to wear sunglasses without fogging up, and the wind out of the SE.  It was a late start as there was no sense in getting up if it was raining like they said, so it was 8:00 when I dropped the truck in the water.  As you can see the lake is still coming up.  And by the way, it did not rain a drop on me all morning.

As far as what is out there here is the lowdown.  The water is off color all over, increasing as you head up the main arm, and when you get to the bridge it is dirty with lots of floating stuff, so I never went above that.  On the other hand I went up the plant arm and the water is a whole lot clearer in that arm.  The temp was 78 – 80 degrees everywhere.

The best bite of the morning.

I started in main lake coves near the ramp and it looked like it might be a good morning.  There is literally acres of new grass and cover in the water.  Be it the back of a cove, or a main lake bank, there is stuff everywhere and it sure looks good.  In the first hour, in 3 places, I had 4 blow up on the buzzbait, 3 stayed hooked.  From that point on no matter the cove, or bank, or types of stuff in the water, not another bite until I quit at 1:30:

Here are the other 2.

Until about 10:00 I stayed with the buzzbait, just trying to cover water and raise fish, but they were not having it.  I fished the Controlled Descent Pearl Jerk Shad, a swim jig, and spinnerbait some all with no luck.  It just did not seem to matter, could not buy a bite.  But man does it look good but they are not up in that stuff, or at least had lockjaw the rest of the morning.

So not sure what to think.  As aggressive as they were early it gives me some hope.  Plus the water has some to go before it settles down.  Whether they will be coming to the new stuff remains to be seen but there were bait and fry in much of it, so the fish will come.  And the tilapias are already making a mess of some places.  But all things considered the fish will move into the stuff at some point.  It may not be everywhere like a spring pattern, but we should have some really good shallow fishing coming soon.

As the lake stabilizes it will be interesting to see what bait ends up being the go-to bait for all the cover.  From a wacky rigged senko, frog, buzzbait, flipping creature baits, Jerk Shad, to swimming a worm, a couple of those will have their moments in the next couple of weeks.  It will all depend on how long it takes to clear, but with the new grass that will actually be hastened some.  Plus it is usually clearer up in the stuff.  Hope springs eterenal, and I sure am hoping for a great stretch of shallow water fishing.

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I would like to give props to the guides and other folks who are working hard this spring catching fish.  Whether they are keeping trout for their customers or not they are not posting pictures, which is good right now.  One of the regular teams on the tournament trail in Texas is even practicing catch and release as much as possible even in kill tourneys.  So props to everyone who is leading by example.  According to TPWD we will all know more on the state of the speckled trout after the netting surveys this summer.

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And on the salt front a couple of folks I know were at POC this weekend and reported it was slow, not an uncommon report lately.  With the fresh water coming, the Guadalupe is way out of it’s banks and roaring outside Victoria, it is going to be a freshwater dump in the bay which probably will not help.  One of those set of conditions I know very little about except fresh on top and salt on bottom.  That actually plays into some of the areas and things I like to do.  And there are some “secret” things coming in the mail this week from Michael and Controlled Descent Lures and I can not wait to give them a go, they sure are looking good.

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Not sure what is next, but there is some fishing going to happen.  I will find the shallow bite on Coleto if it kills me, which it might.  And as soon as the new baits arrive it will be off to POC and see what the salt is all about post flood.  So it is an interesting time to be fishing and who knows, might even get the LTS back from the shop.  Keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines