Sand Bass A Plentiful...

[Phil Lilley]

Took a trip down to Lake Texoma a few days ago to fish with a good friend from Ada, OK. Coy Howry and his son Danny. They spend a week every spring on the lake camping north of the Roosevelt Bridge.

We fished Wednesday evening and caught about 30 sandys before dark, caught our limit Thursday morning and then caught and released quite a few that evening. We caught them on wind-blown banks and points in 2-3 feet of water on rattle traps. It wasn't hard to find the sandys... the lake if full of them.

Coy usually catches quite a few stripers on his trip but he said the big stripers hadn't been found, even by the guides. Not sure what was happening- if they were hiding or just not there. They're worried about it. They had a big shad kill last year and some believe the big stripers died on account of lack of food. We caught small stripers mixed in with the sandys- nothing over 2 pounds.

Coy's uncle George and Coy both talked about what affect the stripers have had on their lake. They said the sand bass are small because of the stripers. They said the sand bass used to get big like ours in Bull Shoals and Table Rock but not since they stocked stripers. Didn't hurt the population count, but it did the size.

George catches alot of crappie on Texoma. They were actually still on the banks spawning this week- he caught 20 while I was there. It seems like the striper did not hurt the crappie population- or the size, although they don't catch the crappie as big as in Bull Shoals and Table Rock.

There seems to be tons and tons of shad in the lake- at least while I was there. But I think it takes a huge population of shad all the time to sustain a big striper population.

[Phil Lilley]

There were lots of small stripers in the lake. We "caught" several like this one.

Danny caught this bass Thursday evening. Released...

Beautiful sunset.

[Wayne SW/MO]

That brings back a lot of memories, when I lived in OK Texoma was my favorite lake. Age has changed the environment a lot. I don't know if it affected the real bass, but it did the black bass.

[chambug]

I live just about 20 miles south of Texoma, and was born about 7 miles north of it. Back in the days when I was still able to fish, this beautiful lake was my favorite. Our favorite Texas vacation spot is Tanglewood resort on the lake, near Pottsboro.

[Flysmallie]

Yeah lots of good memories from that lake.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Yeah lots of good memories from that lake.

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