Summer Fishing Report...

Cathy and I made it to the lake yesterday for a fishing trip. We've had some lake trips this summer and as per our summer water activity the past few years we have not been too mad at the catfish but instead spent our time tubing and swimming in relief of the hot weather. We swan yesterday but decided we did not want to get out of practice cooking fried fish. 

Though we headed out in the late afternoon fishing was slow for fillet sized fish was slow and we caught a bucket of these miniature blue cats. The Sam Rayburn Lake record for blue cat is 83 pounds. The biggest one we have personally caught was 32 pounds. These have some growing to do. I think I have found small catfish up to about 8" in the bellies of larger catfish. 

Seems our old favorite place that's usually a go to spot from August through January has dried up the past could of years. I think maybe other fishermen have discovered it because last trip one of the grandkids snagged some kind of bait bucket fish attractor and pulled it up. We let it back down but generally extra fishing pressure means small fish are the only ones left. 

We checked around the area to discover a new spot and nearby we clocked 52' depths which means with the lake being 8' low it's normally 60' deep in this spot and and fished the edges which were 25'deep finally producing enough fillet size fish for a fish dinner for two.  When the water comes up the tie ups to old stumps we used will be under water. 

Here's the what the world needs now is another picture of Cathy with a catfish picture. 

With a swim, a nice breeze and an Astros game on the bluetooth speaker it was a nice afternoon on the lake. Supper was even better with Fried catfish and farmers market okra and collard greens. 

 

Miles and Miles of Shoreline...

I like fishing. Sometimes people pass on tips to me like, "They are really biting down at the old community hole..." and I have headed down there to get in on the fun. Usually though at a place like that I don't catch anything. I get there and it's crowded with everyone else that heard they were biting at the community hole, there's trash left by Johnny come lately opportunist, my fishing tactics are tuned into a different kind of thing and all in all it's not exactly my idea of a great time in the outdoors. Fortunately, living near the biggest lake totally within the state of Texas there is plenty of room to get out there and at some of my favorite spots I may never even see another person. 

Even though it was the beginning of a holiday weekend we had been tubing with no one else in the area and had pulled to the shore for a picnic when this group of boaters and jet skiers, there was at least 4 miles of empty shoreline between here and the nearest launch, put in right next to us. That's my boat and you can see how close their set up was. 

To their credit they did not bother us. The kids were kept in check as pap paw warned, "I'll whip so hard you won't be able to go to school next year," and someone else advised, "Don't cuss, there's people over there." Now I don't doubt pap paw was probably kidding about the whipping and I warned Cathy not to cuss either but you get the idea. We are bombarded by input from various sources everyday and the lake should be a getaway. 

We finished our picnic and resumed tubing. The also tubed and jet skied in the area but thankfully kept to respectable distances. 

Only boater that came close was the Angelina County Sheriff's Department Patrol Boat. We were fully in compliance with the law and our pro tip is you don't have to tell them where you caught the fish. Just say at the community hole. 

 

   Miguel and the boys tube

There's one person who won't be on the tube this summer and it's our resident knee board and stunt specialist, Mary. Won't be long now.

There are a couple of people in training. Here's Ezra trying for daylight.  

Luca tries for outside the wake but it helps if you have some weight. 

Here's the boat ramp, Friday afternoon the third of July. It's not crowded. 

There's miles and miles of lake out there for you to fish, tube and have fun.  

Over and Over...

More proof I just keep doing the same old thing over and over. 

I loaded the canoe in the truck last night just so I wouldn't get lazy today and not go fishing. When I got up this morning I checked the fishing log and sure enough this day in 2020  I had about 20 big bream from the canoe trail area at Martin Dies Jr, State Park. I had decided on an afternoon trip so I played the tuba a bit, worked out at the water aerobics class and headed out.  

Fishing was not great today but I had fun. I caught several black bass too small for keepers, a beautiful too small crappie and a handful of bream. I think that mixed catch should count for some kind of Texas Grand Slam. 

Most of the fish were caught a trout magnet. I had picked up a thrift store tackle box for $5 that had one of these kits with jig heads, corks and tails all complete. One bass, a couple of inches shy of a keeper took an earthworm under a cork. I don't think I have caught a bass on an earth worm since childhood. 

The worms I gathered from the leaf mulch piles at home were not crowd pleasers. I caught a couple of fish on them but I did better with a yellow trout magnet fished under a cork. The lake at the State Park, B.A. Steinhagen, or what we used to call "Dam B" is a shallow body of water with lots of hydrilla, water hyacinths and giant salvina. Some of the floating mats get moved around by the wind covering favorite fishing areas and with warming water the weeds reach for the surface making it hard to fish ultra light jigs. You can paddle around tossing your bait in the holes in the vegetation but a throw an inch too far that hangs up can spook a spot where you are getting bites. 

I fished four hours and stopped for a standing break on the bank once. Back at the launch a young man paddled up in a short flat bottom boat from the opposite direction I had gone and I inquired about his luck. He said he caught 15 bass fishing since 10am but claimed he almost got too hot during those hours. I handled the heat pretty well but I note not being able to sit as long in the canoe and that will shorten my paddling career more than anything.  

There is not a size restriction on bream. In Texas you catch a bucket full and fry them up whole. They say Mississippi bluesman Howlin' Wolf could eat 50 bream at a sitting. I threw these fish back after the photo op because my baby would be all mad if she did not have 50 crunchy fried bream. 

I noted the Island trail, a good short walk for the grand kids is open but the other trail going the other direction is closed for work. I also saw plenty of the smaller green herons. I might hit Ratcliff for the next canoe adventure since it's getting hotter and the swimming area there is very handy. I've done that lake plenty of times and look forward to again.   

     

 

   

 

Rainy Day Finding Fun...

 Everyone has been craving a lake day since the great success and exhilaration of last week's tube trip (I want fried catfish!) but those pesky afternoon thunderstorms while bring much needed rain are cramping our style. This made us look around for land based fun so we visited Caddo Mounds and Mission Tejas State Park. 

This was the first time we had re visited the mounds, still sacred to the Caddo People and dating back 1,500 years since the reconstruction of the new visitors center and grass hut since a big storm wrecked the area a few years ago. I mentioned to the park ranger our visit to Poverty Point Mounds in Louisiana and he said I might have been your tour guide as I retired from there. The Poverty Point Mounds are much older and he told us that the Caddo mounds were sort of accidental as they kept building and having burials in the same spots and it elevated the terrain and the Poverty Point mounds, whose purpose is lost to prehistory were made by hunter gatherers for an unknown purpose.  

The Grass hut gives you and idea of how they lived. 

Good value for seniors and kids as we spent about $8 on admission but blew that savings in the gift shop as we bought a couple of books and kid fun items. 

Next stop, Mission Tejas just down the road had a ranger program called back yard bass. We occasionally visit here for hiking, to soak up the history of the Spanish Missions in Texas and I enjoy cane poling the small creek bass in the San Pedro. The ranger program the kids took part in was well done and you would have thought they were really catching fish. 

It was pretty close as to who the best casters were, the rangers or the kids. 

There is a pond in the park but it's pretty choked with weeds and if there was a swim area to cool off I'd probably come here for camping since the sites are recently redone but it's still a nice quiet place with a deep history. 

Ok, now the hard decisions, Mexican or Cajun tonight? 

It occurred to me as added the links about our previous trips to these spots is that I kind of keep doing the same old things over and over again. Maybe it's a quest to enjoy the spirituality of these places and the knowledge of long lost times. Might be something we need to know. 

   

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Summer Tube Season Lake Report...

I'll admit that I messed up. That's getting easier to do because at this stage of my life it daily occurs to me  that there are many times I messed up. The latest mess up occurred to kick off summer 2026 tubing season at the lake. I had a brand new tube, never used that had been purchased in the winter months at a charity auction to benefit a good cause. It was still stored in it's packing had the crew waiting  patiently to put it to good use. 

They all loaded on it including Milo, who just turned three. Following the big brothers is his main occupation. I started out slow to see how the towable performed but as you can see from the photo all were too close to the front and the tube immediately nose dived and dumped them. That was enough for Milo. He made no more attempts at water sports for the day and like many of my other failures in judgment and experience this will be a scarring memory.    

Apparently no one else noticed or got hurt physically or psychotically so they were good to go.  

I started both Ezra and Luca on the knee board from shallow water, almost on the bank and it was such a good start it had me contemplating if I could start like that instead of the belly start and crawl to kneeling which was a move Ezra soon mastered.    

I think both boys got their mother's knee boarding gene and will soon be showing some tricks. 

Water was 82 degrees which in the warm sun seemed better that the water aerobics pool has been lately.  

I might think about fishing sometime but right now being a tube boat driver seems like gainful employment.  

Outside the wake. 

After admitting all these failures and mess-ups all I really wanted to do was spend the summer at the lake with a girl.  

A tube boat driver requires an occupational stump watcher to sit up front. 

 

Pre-Big Bass Splash Fishing Report...

 This weekend is a Big Bass Splash Fishing Tournament on Sam Rayburn and the lake was strangely quiet the day before an expected 3000 entries try to hit the water and win. There was plenty of parking at the ramp and I could only see one camper in the park but many campsites are still in disrepair from Hurricane Beryl and after all the popular big bass spots on the lake are on down a way and it was a perfect day for our late afternoon catfish trip. 

You can see from this photo how close to the shore we were. Right in front of the boat juts a little sandbar which when we untied to leave we let the stiff south wind blow us up on and caused me to take a swim in belly deep water to float us off. The water is 82 degrees which is probably a little warmer than our water aerobics class has been lately so swimming season is on us. 

Cathy caught this fat channel cat on the first cast dropping her slip cork rig in a 4.5 foot deep creek which dead ends in the first photo but at normal lake levels is passable into the the Deer Stand area cove. Final total was 8 channel cats, nice fillet size. There was a lot of shad activity in this cove and we had many throw backs as it was just full of 8 to12 inch cats in a feeding frenzy. 

The lake is so low looks like I'm bank fishing in this photo.

I think this is a man made structure of branches piled around a stump to create a fishing holding spot along an edge leading up to a point which when the lake comes up should hold some fish. 

Of course we ate fried catfish, blackened potatoes on the blackstone and salad. 

I pronounce that summer has arrived. Be careful with those tournament fishermen on the lake this weekend but truth be told we caught these fish after the time of what will be their final weigh in so if you leave late should be good.  

  

   

 

 

 

More Catfishing...

 Cathy and I along with her brother Matt spent a Saturday afternoon fishing on Big Sam Rayburn. Water is still low and recent rain have the level creeping up with the boat dock at Hanks Creek just barely starting to float. That's evidence of improvement as a few weeks back the boat grounded a few feet short of the end of the dock making it a big step over for a fat guy like me.  

Fishing was slow as our usual spring pattern is catfish on slip corks around bushes but the water is still not anywhere near bushes along the shore. We managed to catch 9 catfish with Cathy again taking most fish and big fish honors on a box of stocky channel cats. I managed one fish so I did have a meager supper while she ate big piles of fillet meat.  

A couple of trips back this was all fat blue cats holding to the shore lines but I think a warmer than normal March has led them to finish up shallow water activity and they have been replaced but the later spawning channel cats. Even thought the weather was fine for shorts on the lake yesterday the sun seem to beat down and after cooking fish in the garage I felt a few mosquito bites so I am predicting a long hot summer. 

Hazy smoke on the lake off down in the direction of a recent 6000-7000 acre fire in the Angelina National Forest. I have not seen any news of a new fire and it seemed to disperse with the evening wind. 

There were several pairs of ospreys in the area, the first we have seen this spring. I thought they were year round inhabitants but they have been noticeably absent. They were engage in feeding, diving and nesting behaviors in shoreline trees but we did notice this nest along the long boat cut. The full pool of the lake is 164.4 feet and the level is 155 right now or 9 feet low. That means with a return to full this spot they chose will be at least 5 or 6 feet underwater. Cathy points out she will probably be disappointed in him for choosing this stump. The nest seemed to be under construction, thinly built with no chicks or eggs. It was a temptation to knock it in the water so they would maybe choose another spot but we decided to let nature take it's course. 

If it ain't fried it ain't food! 

   

  

Fishing Report and First No Shirt Photo of the Year...

 In the weekend edition of the local paper they run a little two paragraph fishing report on each area lake. The one for Sam Rayburn Lake said "catfish excellent on windswept points. That's just where we have been finding them and on our trip yesterday we managed 15 fish in 3-4 hours of fishing. That's a little slow by our standards and the wind was not quite as favorable direction wise to put us on the same spot but slip corks, punch bait and some left over bait shrimp I had bought on the las beach trip and lept frozen got me, Cathy and her brother Matt a nice supper.     

Cathy took big fish and probably most fish. She has been in a bit of a slump so it was high time to catch her up on the fish count. She liked a new reel, a Kast King spin cast. We had a bit of trouble with the line originally on the reel with Ezra losing a fish due to a break off and then last trip I lost a fish same way. I think top rod eye was rough and after some sanding and a line replacement with my favorite Cajun line Cathy says she will be happy if I replace our aging equipment with these.  

Matt scores a fat one. When cleaning Matt checked stomach contents on one fish and it was the bait shrimp we used. 

Bent rods. Probably fish 3' deep or less. 

First photo of the year of fish and no shirt. This is some people's favorite part of the blog. 

If you note the folks on the four wheeler in this photo right behind them is a spot against the bushes, now dry where we have taken 10 pound fish. We could use some rain. Usually this is an island and I have not been around it since lake levels dropped so I am unsure how they got out here. This must not be an island anymore. 

Supper was a simple affair. Blackened fillets served over DJ's rice dressing. Today I made a toasted sandwich out of a left over fillet, raw spinach, tomato, onion and mayo. Delish.  

 

February Blue Cat Fishing Report...

 Recent rains have the lake up a bit. After she backed the boat off the trailer Cathy could pull up to the dock barely grounding the bow of the boat for me to step aboard after parking the trailer as opposed to the last time we launched and I had to jump to avoid wading aboard. I also expected the fresh inflow of water to muddy things a bit but the water was clear green and it was a beautiful feels like spring day on the lake in the middle of late winter. 

We set up on a windy point off the main lake long cut with the back of the boat tied off in 18' of water. Normally that spot would be at least 8' deeper and the stump we grabbed would be far underwater but this position allowed us to cast slip cork rigs to 4' of water so the distance of the rise from deep to the bank was probably about 50'. First couple of fish were nice fat channel cats and then blue cats the size of the one in the photo started hitting. I think I threw back one 12" channel as I did not want him to be scared occupying the livewell with the big girls. I had decided I would keep no more channel cats with the size the blues were but I never caught another channel. 

Since we were fishing right on the depth break all the fish we hooked in shallow water provided a challenging battle. When hooked the ran back toward the boat and under the boat to try and reach the sanctuary of deep water. One of the things my dad used to say when he was trying to judge the size of fish you had hooked was, "Is he trying to run under the boat with it?" We say that all the time also. 

Note the lay of the land here in the background. Normally at pool level the water is about 5' deep on the ridge behind Cathy with an old creel drain on the other side. That creek flows out to a big "S" curve in the submerged channel of the Angelina River. We've caught thousands of catfish in this area and I have probably fished it for at least 50 years. Once I found an arrowhead on the bank here and I often see people sifting for arrow heads when the lake is low. I would imagine a beautiful area with many indigenous people living here several hundred years ago.   

Final count was 10 cats in two hours fishing. We could always catch more but because Cathy's replaced shoulder makes skinning catfish harder for her and that makes me principle fish cleaner we quit when I decide I have all the work I need for the day. The Zamoras came over and we fried and blackened fillets using left over gumbo I cooked at the church Fat Tuesday party as a side dish. 

Once again we enjoyed being out in our refurbished boat and thanks go out to our children who put in the time to carpet, install seats and clean. When we talk to other fisherman on the lake and they get a look at us with all the rods and big net in the holders I can tell their impression is, "these people mean business."