Lake Amistad-August 2010

The lake has been on a roller coaster ride this past month. It started by coming on a 17ft rise followed by an immediate 15ft fall over just a 3 week period. The first two weeks of the high water brought some of the best shallow water fishing I have seen in quite a while. But all good things come to an end. With the water ripping out that fast has caused some disarray. The deeper grass has gone dormant with some areas being completely wiped out of aquatic veggies. Aquatic veggies are like any other plant,  when you drastically change its environment it goes into shock with some of it bouncing back right away when others it has to cycle starting over.  Fishing will get back on track as soon as the bass get back on a routine. They were opportunists following the water in feeding like mad for a few weeks now the new has worn off,  the water has soured and been pulled out from under them. They are in transition back to their traditional summer patterns. This might take a few week to stabilize but it should be back to normal and even better than before the flood.  This new water has brought in new nutrients and life into the lake which is like putting bass and everything in it on protein pellets,  we will notice a difference in the bass health.
 
The water as of today is 3ft over full pool and dropping about 4 inches a day. Water temps are in the low 80's early and mid 80's by days' end.  The hydrillla is is bad shape up the Rio Grande arm especially the areas where the canyons ran big into the lake.  However the hydrilla is in great shape down on the East end of the lake the furthest from the inflow.  The shallow grass (duck weed, pepper grass, and hair grass) is starting to bounce back lake wide. It is getting closer to the sun everyday the lake drops and has reached the surface again in several areas.
 
I have been catching fish shallow on a RC1.5 square bill, and tx rig as well as a vixen when bass were jumping at dragon flies these fish were anywhere from 6 inches to 4 ft. They were in wolf packs of 10 to 30 fish. It was incredible !
Fishing off shore out where you would typically find late summer bass has been working better now than the shallow bite. Outside edges of grass on or near open water have been productive either outside edges of duck weed in 15 to 18 ft or hydrilla edges in 24 to 34 ft.
Mostly light tx rigs but where you can find it standing 10 ft or better off the bottom flippin' it has been the deal!
I fished the past few days looking for what ever decent flippin' grass I could find and have done very well. Isolated high spots in the grass about the size of a pick up or smaller make it very easy to find them it is almost too easy. I have been just looking where the old edges were before the flood and found some new edges that are starting up shallower .  I was given some of the new POWER TACKLE LATERAL PERCH  flippin' baits to R&D... all I can say is they don't need any more RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT !!! The hook up ratio is better,  and when a scrape is started you get most of them before they spook due to the instinct triggering move this bait has! 
Due to the extreme clear water in this lake and spending as much time on it as we have seeing what triggers bass to feed, has helped us design a bait that delivers the best instinct driven predatory reaction strike from a bass.
 
 
 
Thanks,
Ray Hanselman
830 317 9942