The last 10 days we had a mixed bag of weather with wind, rain and really cold temperatures at times. The poor Bass would start to move in to spawn and then the cold weather would move in the Bass would move back out. Therefore, you had to be ready to hunt for them every morning. We found three baits worked very well doing the search and finding the Bass here at Lake Fork. The first was the Zoom watermelon/red Fluke fished on a split shot rig. We dyed the tail of the Fluke chartreuse. The next bait was Buddy’s Custom Baits watermelon/candy/red 8 inch Lizard. The big body on the Lizard triggers hard strikes and the Bass do not let go. Make sure you dye an inch of the tail chartreuse and use a 5/0 wide gap hook! The third bait is the 5-inch watermelon/candy/red Buddy’s Custom Baits Sticko bait rigged on a split shot rig. No matter which one of these baits you use, make sure you fish them very slow.

The Crappies are in 2 to 4 foot of water spawning all over the lake. We found that the traditional minnow and cork rig worked the best. The jig anglers did not catch near as many Crappies as the traditional minnow anglers.

The White Bass have stopped moving in and are in 22 to 24 foot for water around old brush piles. They can be caught on Crappie jigs tipped with minnows.

The Catfish anglers are still finding fishing slow. Most of the catfish that were caught this week were caught on minnows in 4 – 6 foot of water.
On our equipment list, this week is our Ranger Z520c powered by a Mercury 250 Pro XS, Duckett rods, ABU Garcia reels, Stren line, Buddy’s Custom Baits from here at Lake Fork and Zoom soft plastics.

Here at J & M Guide Service we still have 4 days left open in April and several days open on May for guided trophy Bass. Give us a call at (903) 413-6919 or E-mail us at bassmr@geusnet.com. Have a safe fishing week.