Jason Hoffman's Lake Fork Fishing Report - February 12, 2013




With the warmer weather, our water temperatures have been on the rise. This week, I found water as warm as 58.5 degrees, and most of the areas we fished were over 56 degrees. The warmer temps pulled a lot of big females onto the flats and secondary points where we were able to cover some water and catch them a little more easily. Water level as of this writing is 398.89 (4.11 ft below full pool), but it is slowly on the rise with the rain that we are receiving as I write. Our best bait has been a red lipless crankbait, but you should also try a Santone spinnerbait, a Chatterbait with LFT Live Magic Shad, and a jerkbait in the same areas. Many times, we will go through an area a couple of times with the lipless crankbait, and go back through it with another bait and pick up another fish or two. You want to be very thorough when covering water as a bass's strike zone is fairly small in this cool water. Almost all of our fish are coming from less than 3 feet of water, and if you can find some hydrilla or coontail, you will likely find some fish. The weather forecast for the coming week shows highs in the mid-50s and lows in the low 30s. This will bring the water temps back down into the low 50s, and maybe even the upper 40s. When this happens, it's time to pick up your Black/Blue, Camo, or Sloppy Joe colored Santone Jig, move out to the creek channels, and go to work. When the water temps fall, I normally have better success using a LFT Flipper for my jig trailer, but when water temps are on the rise, I tend to opt more for the bigger LFT Hyper Freak. The Flipper is a little more subtle in it's action than the Hyper Freak, and sometimes, that makes all the difference when these fish are finicky. You want to split the tail on the Flipper as it is designed with "rudders" that force the tail to spread out when it's moved, making it look a lot like a crawfish. I will work the standing timber along the banks of the creek channels in about 5-15 ft of water. When you catch one, pay attention to the fish's depth. If you catch one in 8 ft of water, and another in 12 ft of water, but nothing shallower and nothing deeper, you can probably save yourself a lot of time by concentrating your efforts in that depth range when you move to the next creek. I hope that helps you on your next trip to Lake Fork. If you have any questions, please let me know! Jason's Website

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Lake Fork Current Weather Alerts

There are no active watches, warnings or advisories.

 

Lake Fork Weather Forecast

Thursday

Mostly Sunny

Hi: 78

Thursday Night

Mostly Cloudy

Lo: 59

Friday

Chance Thunderstorms

Hi: 75

Friday Night

Partly Cloudy

Lo: 57

Saturday

Mostly Sunny

Hi: 75

Saturday Night

Partly Cloudy

Lo: 53

Sunday

Partly Sunny

Hi: 73

Sunday Night

Partly Cloudy

Lo: 55


Lake Fork Water Level (last 30 days)


Water Level on 5/8: 403.62 (+0.62)



Lake Fork

Fishing Report from TPWD (May 7)

GOOD. Water Stained; 73 degrees; 0.73 feet below pool. Good early morning bass bite around shad spawn areas and with topwater frogs over grass. Midday to mid afternoon work flukes and yum dingers around grass good1-3 feet. New wave of spawners pulling up this week. Carolina rigs fair in 5-10 feet of water on secondary points. Report by Marc Mitchell, Lake Fork Guide Service. Black bass are post spawn and the top water bite is on! Frog patterns are working in the shallow vegetation. The crappie are moving shallow, small clousers are producing well. Large bream have moved shallow, wooly buggers are producing good fish. Channel catfish are cruising 2-4 feet biting clousers. Report by Guide Alex Guthrie, Fly Fish Fork Guide Service. Crappie fishing is settling into the post spawn and summer patterns we should see for the next few months. We are seeing incredible numbers of small black crappie right now loading up on brush piles, lay downs, bridges and docks. The larger black crappie are a little hard to find but you can find some nice groups of them or pick a few out of the smaller fish. The bigger white crappie are beginning to load on the summer pattern trees. We have a tremendous amount of fry covering up a lot of those trees and making it very hard to see those bigger white crappie on forward facing sonar or for them to see your bait. You can find fish in 10-30 feet of water and some may only be 2 feet under the surface or right on the bottom. Minnows and any colored jigs are both producing extremely well. Report by Jacky Wiggins, Jacky Wiggins Guide Service.

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