Reservation Number : 36287
Property Name : Claud Ayres Reservoir
Reservation Date : 05/15/2023 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 20 / .5 to 3.5 lbs
Lures Used : Shallow crank bait worked well

My son and I arrived under partly cloudy skies and light winds. We easily navigated to the boat ramp and floating dock. The new mini pontoon boat was calling our names so we loaded it up and took off. My trolling motor and battery worked well on the mini pontoon. We headed north and caught two small bass, mostly silvery colored. The wind picked up quite a bit with a storm approaching. With whitecaps on the lake, we headed south and west of the ramp to get out of the wind. We pulled up into a small cove and it was game on! I caught three fish on three casts. See my video: https://youtu.be/Ju8iXdifvic My son caught some too. We landed a total of 10-12 bass from that one area – truly a honey hole! As shallow crank bait, a Baby One Minus in chartreus and white, did the trick in the chocolate milk colored water. We caught about 20 in total.

We met the owner Charles who came by to check on us. Very nice friendly guy. I asked about fish sizes in the lake and he said electrofish testing brought up 2 8 pounders! I thanked him for opening up his lake for us and we agreed that central and west Texas members now have a great lake to fish. He said he will probably start harvesting small fish as soon as he gets his next shipment of shad stocked.

It stayed windy but never rained so we packed up early. Its worth noting that the lake is about 5’ low at present. It wasn’t a problem navigating, but the area could use a lot more tain to bring the lake level up. The owner has put plenty of crushed rock at top and bottom of the new concrete ramp fo it’s easier to launch small boats. 

We saw lots of various kind of birds there – more than most lakes – and we saw the biggest turtles I’ve ever seen! This lake has numerous automatic fish feeders and an interesting aeration system with a main pump building on shore and about 8-10 aerators spread around the lake.

So all in all a very good outing. Anyone in the area will enjoy this lake and beautiful property. I look forward to going there again.