Lake Fork Fishing Report-David Ozio

[DavidOzioGuide]

August 4th - I have been doing this for a long time and can't ever remember wearing jeans and a sweatshirt for several days during the last days of July and the beginning of August. Insane weather this year has put the fish on Lake Fork into a tail spin. There have been extremely great days and some brutally horrible days. Usually at this time of year, the fish are on a predictable pattern out deep. The show up at the same time most every day to feed etc. Not the case this summer. I now spend all my days determining the timing windows when the bass move up on specific structure to fill their belly. This past week was the first time that the fish consistently shown themselves at a certain time of the day. I was able to take advantage of that with my clients and dug out some whoppers.

Normally, August sees the oxygen level below 20ft starting to deplete and the fish suspend in the upper water column. You have to scan lots of water with your electronics and look for the huge arches hanging in the mid depths. I target these bass with weightless flukes, crankbaits and flutter spoons and tail kickers. To date, this hasn't happened as of yet. We have, although, managed to catch some suspended fish but the main pattern has been the drop shot on a variety of structure. Light line has been the key and we have had no problems landing green monsters upwards to ten pounds on 12lb test. It's strange that we are forced to fight this battle in this fashion when the carolina rig generally dominates this time of year. You should always be able to find feeding fish on main lake points in 20-30ft but this has been sort of a struggle. Lucky for me, I have locations that have been replenishing on a daily basis. A lot of these spots have been producing ten to twenty fish per day up to ten pounds. Rather cool I must say. Again, the drop shot has been king. We have used a variety of soft plastics depending on the conditions. Dark colors on cloudy days and plum colors on the sunny days. Red seems to be the all around color any time of the year. Zoom trick worms, Roboworms and any type of finesse worm has landed the lion share of the bass.

There are some areas of the lake with hydrilla and this has been a huge let down as of this writing. I believe it is due to the fact that the oxygen levels in open water are OK which keeps the bulk of the bass offshore. I see this changing over the nest month. I have, although, caught some smaller fish on the grass on texas rig worms as well at the drop shot. It seems that moving baits have been out of the question. It won't be long when the swimbait will take top honors as the season starts to change. In the meantime, continue to check main lake humps, road beds, pond dams and points. If there is bait present, fish the spot anyway, even though you may not mark any hooks on the Lowrance electronics. If you can't locate any fish in the deeper parts of the lake, focus your attention to the 10-18ft range, especially around wood. This may be the ticket.