My family and I recently made our annual spring visit to Caddo. There’s no better way I know of to totally relax and refresh than spending a few days fishing this huge cypress swamp. My intent was to concentrate on the excellent bream fishing that usually coincides with the full moon of May. This is when the majority of sunfish are on their spawning beds in shallow water. Before our trip, Carter informed me that the cooler than normal spring had created a ‘trickle’ spawn; not all the bream moved into the shallows at the same time. Fishing has been hit or miss on a day to day basis. But, warmouth, nicknamed goggle eye perch in East Texas, were in the shallows and biting well.
Carter discovered years ago small pieces of the soft plastic centipedes designed to catch bass make excellent offerings for goggle eye.
“These centipedes are sometimes difficult to locate but they make excellent baits for catching goggle eye," Carter divulged. "The trick is to cut them into pieces about a half inch long, making sure to leave 6 legs attached. It’s the movement of the legs in the water that triggers instant strikes from goggle eye. We rig them with a long shank bream hook and run the hook completely through the bait, sort of like Wacky rigging for black bass. It’s important to have the hook exposed in order to get a good hook set when the perch strike."
Anyone who’s ever fished for warmouth know they are one of the most aggressive fish in the lake. I believe they are extremely greedy as well. When a bit of what they perceive to be food hits the water any where near their strike zone, they respond with an instant strike.
Warmouth are usually not as plentiful as bream on spawning beds. It is common to catch two or three fish around the root systems of isolated cypress trees or on the edge of pockets in the dense stands of lily pads. Red Wiggler worms hooked through the middle are also good baits for catching warmouth and at times crickets work well. The trick to staying in the action, regardless where you are fishing, is staying on the move and targeting the two or three fish that are feeding around each bit of structure.
At Caddo, it’s often possible to anchor or tie the boat to a tree situated in a ‘stand’ of cypress and cast to several targets. This proved to be our most productive pattern on the recent outing.
Bream tackle serves double duty for catching goggle eye. We were fishing with light spinning rigs with 6 pound test line. Long casts are usually not necessary, we actually did more ‘pitching’ of our baits than casting. We used lightweight floaters to keep the baits about 18-24 inches below the surface in water 3-5 feet deep.
Carter says the same structures and baits we fished will be holding Warmouth throughout the summer. Crappie fishing has been going well also. I visited with Henry Lewis at Johnson’s Ranch Marina whose guided crappie trips here well over 50 years. Henry says his better catches are coming from man made brush piles along the submerged ledge of the Cypress River channel, with a half mile of Johnson’s Ranch Marina.
LAKE CADDO CONNECTIONS
Guided Fishing Trips - Billy Carter 903-789-3268
LODGING- Lake homes available, owned by Billy and Dottie Carter www.spatterdock.com
MARINA - Johnson’s Ranch Marina www.johnsonsranch.net –boat launch, baits, ice and fisherman’s cabins
LAKE FORK UPDATE - Veteran largemouth bass guide Larry Large reports the bass spawn is a done deal. Bass fishing has been good in water 4-10 feet deep out from the shoreline in areas with standing timber. Texas-rigged Power Worms (Blue Fleck) have provided the better catches. Fork, since it’s beginning, has been knows as a premier largemouth bass hotspot but the big news now that there are now plenty of white bass to challenge anglers and take some of the pressure off the lunker bass.
Large says fast paced action on white bass in the 1 to 1.5 pound range has been common this spring.
“The best baits are quarter ounce silver spoons fished vertically on submerged points in water 27-41 feet deep," says Large. "Most of the strikes are coming from within a couple feet of bottom.”
For more information, contact Large at 903-765-3176.
DEER, HOG AND DUCK HUNTING HOTSPOT- This past week, I was invited down to tour a 6,000 acre ranch near Fairfield, Tx. The place has never been hunted commercially or leased and the owner will be offering guided hunts this fall for buck, doe, hogs and ducks. In our 2 hour tour of the ranch, which happened to coincide with a spring storm, we counted a total of 45 deer and about that many wild hogs. The place is literally crawling with game. If you’re interested in learning more about hunting the ranch, drop me an email at lukeclayton@prodigy.net and I’ll put you in contact with the right people. Since the place is brand new to commercial hunting, the web site is under construction.
Lister to Outdoors with Luke Clayton radio at www.catfishradio.com. Contact Luke with outdoor news from your area via the website.